Re: SPORRS: Long Lens Recommendations

[Charles L. Dischinger]

Brian Jennison wrote:
>
>I just was wondering where you do most of your shooting, as that may
>influence your view of the number of opportunities available to use the
>400. Out here in the "wide open West," a long lens can be commonly used.
>I'm thinking of Schmollinger's work in particular... there are certainly
>plenty of places on the Santa Fe in Arizona, or the SP in Nevada, for
>example, to get that "golden-glow-sunset-into-and-out-of-the-swale" effect;
>a 400 would be ideal for this. I don't use anything bigger than a 300
>myself, although I have a borrowed "coffee can" reflex/mirror 500, but I
>would use an f2.8 400 if I could afford to buy one! Brian
>
>
Brian

The last couple of years, a majority of my shooting, close to 90%, has been done int he west. While I live in southwest Missouri, my full time occupation as a locomotive engineer and my volunteer work on the Santa Claus Express, has consumed so much of my time it leaves little time to do anything but eat and sleep. In fact, I don't think I have have shot twentryfive rolls of film locally even though I have still been able to shoot more than 100 rolls or more each year while traveling to Arizona, Colorado, Montana, or Washington.

I have to admit that the southwest does offer more opportunities for the use of a long lense. And while there are many places to be able to use it other places, I have usually felt that the best lense for the situation has been of a shorter focal length. I would go so far as to say a Canon's reatively new 17-35mm zoom lense would prove more useful than the 400mm. It is definitely on my list for my next purchase, ahead of another 1n body.

I didn't mean to put done the usefulness of having a 400mm lense or longer. They definitely have their place and can produce some striking photos almost unobtainable any other way. But it can be done by shooting the train at the same location with a shorter mm lense, then cropping and blowing up the resulting image. Definitely not as easy as using a long lense, but duable.

And with all of the other arguments pro and con put aside, is the expense of a 400mm 2.8 lense justafiable? With a list price of almost $10,000 and mail order price in excess of $7,000 for a new lense, one would have to shoot and sell an awfull lot of slides to be able to cover the expense of the lense. This one item, more than anything else, was the basis for my comments. And if you don't already have an extra camera body to put on the lense so that you can continue to shoot pictures in addition to those long shots, you can be hamstringing yourself and limiting the amount of picture taking you can do in a given amount of time.

Don't get me wrong. I do like the results that can be obtained by having a long tele lense. It is just that when I look back after about four years of having the 400mm lense, I have really questioned the wisdom of the expenditure for it. For the cost of this one lense, I could have two additional EOS1n bodies, a 17-35mm 2.8L zoom lense, a couple of big flash units, and two or three airline tickets to my favorite photo locations in the west.

So is the expense of such a lense worth it? Only you can make that decision. I did and I don't regret it. I am just questioning the wisdom of my decision. Of course, if I already owned all of the photographic items I want, there wouldn't be any question in my mind! I would do it again!

Charlie ChooChoo

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