that's an ... interesting trademark

[piranha]

walklog:

04-26 morrell nature sanctuary 1.95 km 2:02 -- the paramour came with me. walked the rocky knoll and beaver pond loop, sat by the pond for a while watching the ducks. saw the first ducklings of the year! (i so very much want a big honking telephoto lens, *sigh*.) identified cascara tree (rhamnus purshiana) by picture in pamphlet, but i am not sure i'd recognize it under the same conditions; it looks a lot like a young red alder. well, once it leafs out, this should be easier. allegedly the bark smells like citrus, but i am not gonna try to peel a bit off in a nature preserve. i wonder whether the unidentified black berries i found on a shrub by the millstone river were cascara.

afterwards went grocery shopping at the wholesale place. now in possession of much foody goodness, ready to retreat for the night and read gay smut.

Comments

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I've seen that brand down here in the states (I don't recall the package being bilingual but I might not). It left me really wondering what message they were trying to send with their brand. Not that I think "You are an idiot and we are laughing at you" would actually be a bad brand, as long as the package "looked cool". Look at how successful the "for dummies" books are...

flat earth and flying pigs

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

it wouldn't be bilingual there, cause that would scare americans, *heh*.

yeah. i wonder what they're after with that branding. i think i'll try and see whether they have a website and say anything about it.

big honking telephoto lens...

[dubiousprospects.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Have you got a camera that can take a big honking telephoto lens?

I have some hopes for the new Sigma 150-500 (http://www.sigmaphoto.com/lenses/lenses_all_details.asp?id=3348&navigator=3) which is not quite out yet, should be in stores in another month, but is going to be available for a lot of lens mounts and looks to have a good price/performance ratio. There's a slightly smaller 120-400 expected out at the same time. (1.7 kg vs 1.9 kg, slightly smaller)

The Sigma 70-300 APO DG lens I picked up used has given me good results, which has made me much more comfortable with the prospect of getting one of these rather than trying to save up enough to obtain one of the out-of-production long FA* Pentax lenses. (Especially since those tend to come on the market when the current owner dies; I feel that neither vast patience nor sending assassins should be involved in a planning process.)

I do have this unfortunate tendency to wind up wanting some vast construction of glass, brass, and hydraulic gimbals, but then even if I could afford it I couldn't move it.

Re: big honking telephoto lens...

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

no, i don't have a camera that can. well, i have a 35mm film camera that could, but i am so not going back to film. and this one could take some telephoto lenses with an adapter, but i consider that suboptimal. the nikon coolpix 4500 is a lovely little camera, but i really do need a camera with more megapixels and more capability -- and i expect my next camera will be cheaper than my next lens. though i am also considering digiscoping with this one, since it's pretty much ideal for it (zoom is internal to the body). i've got to look into that more.

wanting some vast construction of glass, brass, and hydraulic gimbals

steampunk photography! :) that goes well with assassins, i believe.

Re: big honking telephoto lens...

[dubiousprospects.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

The problem with digiscoping is that a decent spotting scope for the purpose has to have the same expensive ED glass, etc. and quickly winds up costing up into long lens territory. Lots of people insist you need the Zeiss or similar scopes with the eye-bugging price tags.

That said, I got a Celestron because all their eyepieces are already threated for T-threads so easy to attach to DSLRs, and the fellow at Efton Scientific seemed to feel that this wasn't a crazy thing to attempt in optical terms. (It's an entirely fine spotting scope, I should add, so I view any digiscoping success I may eventually obtain as something of a bonus.)

Celestron have some very compact Maksutov-Cassegrain spotting scopes, too; I went with the traditional refractor design, in part because I couldn't find anyone discussing their experiences digiscoping with the Maksutov-Cassegrain designs other than a fellow who was using a 60cm one to photograph owls and 60cm telescopes are somewhere well past "portable" unless you have an elephant. (Possibly two elephants.)

Re: big honking telephoto lens...

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

ah bah, i don't care what some people insist on. it's always nice to drool over the best equipment, but i've always made do with what i could afford. as i see it the main problem is that the cheaper spotting scopes have the sort of zoom eyepieces that produce lots of vignetting. but i don't know how bad this is in practice and whether i could just crop to get rid of it. i know my camera is quite suitable for minimizing these sorts of problems because of its small lens and its low optical zoom (compared to a DSLR). and really, any spotting scope would be better than what i have now. it'd tide me over nicely until i can afford better.

yeah, i like some of the compact celestron models. i wonder whether anyone local carries those; might be a good idea to scope (ha) them out, and see whether there's some local experience with digiscoping. this seems to really be an up-and-coming hobby for a lot of people, which is good news.

which celestron model did you get?

Re: big honking telephoto lens...

[dubiousprospects.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

I got the "Ultima 80ED - 45°" ( http://www.celestron.com/c2/product.php?CatID=30&ProdID=201 ); twice the price of the non-ED version, but, well, the purple fringing is dread!

The T-mount screws straight on to the zoom eyepiece and the camera, with no lens, goes straight on to that; vignetting is quite bad at x20, and is gone by x30, to be replaced by diverse manual focusing and exposure-setting challenges. I suspect I'd do much better with both more practise and some explanation to the camera of what's going on.

Some of the choice was price; the interesting, wider options were significantly more expensive. The other thing was that I could try one of the conventional designs, because Efton's stocked it, and had some idea that it was OK, where they didn't have the Mak-Cassagrain designs on hand.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we have Flat Earth fruit and veggie chips here in Maryland too, though without the bi-lingual labeling. The flying pig logo is pleasantly silly.

Have you tried them? I like them.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

no, haven't tried -- but i just might.

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!