Moving Pictures

When researching this lens (briefly) I found no real reviews. Just some comments on Amazon.com ranging from "I've had it a week and it was exactly what I expected" to "I'm sending it back - my camera does not recognise it". At $130.00 it was by far the cheapest camera accessory I've bought in a long time. I had a specific purpose in purchasing it. To learn how to use a camera. That may seem funny as I have over 100,000 shots on my computer, 13,000+ on Flickr with 2,000,000+ hits. I have a lot of people fooled. I have always relied heavily on the auto settings of my various cameras. Not only did I buy this lens fully knowing it was completely manual - it came with a 2X doubler. I had to take that off after the first day as a 1,000mm lens is way too much to start off with. I happen to be using a Nikon D70 but no matter the camera, it will only shoot with this lens in Manual mode. Focus is a lot more challenging than you might expect. Especially as...

The title is a question one of my Facebook friends posted when I mentioned I was going to test out my new tripod. If you saw my last post, you may have noticed how huge my Nikon D70 with a fully manual 500 MM lens looked on the old tripod. That would be the one on the right in the photo on the left.  Even in the slightest wind and the tripod extended only half way, it still shook. Not very useful for this lens.  The same camera setup looks puny on the  Ravelli  tripod with a Movo   tripod gimbal head.  Is it easy to use? It could not be more simple. The camera practically floats. Here's the thing though. This set up is twelve and a half pounds. Add a couple of waters and a snack in the backpack and it is a lot to hike around with. This camera and the old faithful tripod I've used for 10 years does not even register on the bathroom scale. I'm guessing under 2 pounds together. My new camera and lens is coming in at 8 pounds by itself. Put th...