Tuesday, December 25, 2007

He waits.

cat again

Sure is my cat. Thanks, new tripod and 50/4 macro!

4 comments:

  1. Nat,

    As seems to be usual, the crummier the weather, the better the birdwatching...

    Today brought several new visitors to the yard, and even to the feeder. A lone Mourning Dove visited just recently at the edge of the yard. I haven't seen any yet here, which is one of the big differences between my parents new house here in NY, and the house in Maryland. In Maryland, we had year round Cardinals, Mockingbirds, Mourning Doves, and Goldfinches. We also had a resident flock of Barn Swallows in the area. Seems like it is too cold here in the winter for the birds I'm used to.

    Today at the feeder we had two new birds. The first was a downy woodpecker. Pardon the lousy image quality, I was shooting through the window again.

    http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6771850

    And then there was somebody I cannot identify. The stripes on the belly make my think it isn't a House Sparrow, but it was around that size and obnoxiousness. The three that came crowded out the feeder.

    http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6771849
    http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6771848
    http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6771847

    I've got a Petersons finally, but I'm not sure on this one mostly because I only saw it though these fuzzy shots.

    - Josh

    ReplyDelete
  2. You've got a finch of some sort. My money's on house or purple finch, but I'll have to double check that tomorrow.

    The easy way to tell a female house sparrow apart from the finches - they don't have the streaked breast. Male and female house finches have streaks, despite how much red they may or may not have on them. Pine Siskins have yellow on their wings somewhere...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nat,

    Which lens is the 50/4 macro? I assume that is an older lens, because macro lenses used to usually be f/4ish lenses.

    Is it 1:1 out of the box?

    - Josh

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's an M series, I can't tell you when exactly when it was made but sometime between 1977 and 1984. Probably toward the middle of that range, though.

    It's 1:2 alone, which is why I wanted a 25mm extension tube. 1:2 is good for me at 50 because it's a good working distance and, for most subjects, enough magnification. Going to 1:1 is easy enough, though, and truth be told, the swapping in and out of the extension has never bothered me. That probably has a lot to do, though, with the fact that using a K or an M lens is a slower process to begin with.

    One of the other positive things about it is that it's sharp from wide open (as you would expect for a macro) and is really light (at about 165 grams). The only real drawback, aside from the metering mode weirdness, is the five blade aperture. The A 50 (a 2.8/1:2 lens) has six, but all modern 1:1 50 macros have 8 blades, as do the modern 100s.

    Actually, the old K/M/A 100/4 macro has one of the cemented front element 5/3 constructions (I can't remember the name right now) and is generally prized as a portrait lens for its rendering characteristics. They're about two and a half times the price, too.

    ReplyDelete