Tag: B&H Photo

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New Camera Lens, 150-600mm Zoom, Hand-held

Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD
On tripod on my terrace, but can be hand-held which is reason for choice.
Got on sale at B&H Photo, NY, NY, shipped here through Aeropost Miami.
Atenas, Costa Rica

The following photos were made with the new lens the day it arrived. Birds were hiding!  🙂

An Anole showing his colors on my terrace – Shot at 400mm
Atenas, Costa Rica

Red Ginger  at other end of my garden at 600mm focal length
Atenas, Costa Rica

Heliconia, shot at 600mm
Atenas, Costa Rica

Air Plant on powerline cable on road below my house, shot at 600mm
Atenas, Costa Rica

Tibouchina or Princess Flower zoomed in from behind at 600mm
Atenas, Costa Rica

Torch Ginger down the hill in my yard, shot at 552mm
Atenas, Costa Rica

I went to Alajuela this morning by bus to pick up the package with my new lens meaning it is early afternoon when I tried it out with above shots and only one bird this time of day and he was in shadows. But this will really help me in a lot of places I go birding because it is the only lens available at 600mm that can be used hand-held. I first saw one in use at Danta Corcovado that another visitor was using on a Canon camera similar to mine. I then did research online and found that it really works hand-held and has the equivalent of Canon Image Stabilizer called VC. And the cost is less than a third of Canon or other big brand 600mm telephoto lenses! It sells most places for around a thousand dollars while the others are 3 to 6 thousand dollars! The guy at Danta Corcovado paid $1,100 for his. I got mine on a sale for $779, but shipping and import taxes used up the other $300! But still a good deal and we will see if it really helps me on my coming trip to Arenal Observatory. The potential problem I am concerned about is that with more focal length you need more light and it the forest much is in the shadows. So Arenal will be a test!  If I really like it, I will get another camera body dedicated to it. That way I can easily switch back and forth with my faithful 300mm which has served me so well for so many years.

And you might remember that my Nashville friends gave me a “spotting scope” which is the birders’ name for a telescope. The box said you could use it on your camera as a lens, well, not on my camera! The scope is so old that they were talking about a specific kind of old film cameras. And it is not telephoto! (Unheard of today.) I looked it up and that model hasn’t been made in more than 25 years, is out of warranty, no parts available for it and no service. I can make it fit on my tripod to look at the single focal distance and might learn to photograph through it with my cell phone camera, though first efforts were not very good. It is something I will play with on my terrace but not take on trips. It is not the quality of spotting scopes that the guides here in Costa Rica use and I get to use theirs when on trips!  🙂  I started to kid Larry that he must have found that scope in his Grandfather’s closet.  🙂  But I will use it some around here, just not as much as I originally thought.
UPDATE ON RAIN HERE
Well, I jumped the gun when I said that the Nashville visitors had brought the rainy season early since after that we had a week or more of no rain, Now it has started again, almost every afternoon and right now we are getting a “downpour.” Of course weather everywhere is impossible to forecast accurately, but we seem to be beginning our rainy season now for sure and still early! It is not May yet, when rainy season officially begins! At Arenal the first week of May I will expect rain every afternoon, but in the cloud forest it could be other times of the day too. Another adventure! 🙂

UPDATED PHOTO GALLERIES
And by the way, I finished the photo gallery 2018 Oxcart Parade.  It was very good this year and many of my photos are different than in the previous 3 years. 
And because “haste makes waste” I left out three very important folders of photos on the mission trip from Nashville to Atenas, so check out the completed gallery:
¡Pura Vida!