Anyone using extenders with the XLH1?

[Ken Diewert]

I will be picking up an H1 on Monday (woohoo!), and I was wondering if anyone has tried extending the lens with either the Canon EF adapter for EF Lenses ( I have a 75-300mm) already, or with the Canon 1.6 extender or other.

I expect they would work well in SD but I expect to get an incompatible lens message in HD.

Neither of the adapters are cheap, but I would like to go super-tele in HD somehow.

Thanks,

Ken.

[Meryem Ersoz]

probably more info since this link, but:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=56642

[Ken Diewert]

Thanks Meryem,

That appears to be just what I was looking for.

I should have searched it, but I was suddenly overcome with laziness.

Ken.

[Dan Euritt]

i didn't see any testing info in those threads about using the 1.6 extender on the h1... but it doesn't sound too encouraging on the face of it.

will canon or anyone else be selling an extender specifically for the h1?

[Bill Taka]

Ken,

You have made a good choice with the XLH1. Using an extender should be a last resort. Of course everythings relative according to your final product. If you must use the extender, use it sparingly. Also, the canon 70-300mm is a soft zoom. The L series (100-400) is noticeably better and of course the Canon and Nikon Primes are even better. I have compared lenses on my XLH1 and would say an extender on the HD stock lens is very close to using your 70-300mm as far as the quality.

[J. Stephen McDonald]

Originally Posted by Meryem Ersoz

probably more info since this link, but:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=56642

In this previous thread, a poster states that on the XLHI CCDs, there are 366 vertical pixels per millimeter. Two of the telextender lenses advertized by one lens company, as being of HD quality, are listed as having resolutions of 260 and 340 lines per mm, at lens center. This might mean that these add-on lenses are less than adequate for HD video.

What we need is for manufacturers of video optics, to test all lenses and lens accessories for resolution capabilities and provide us with the results. Then, we need qualified independent testing to be done on them, the same as we see for electronic video components.

One manufacturer has a 37mm telex on its website, made for small HDV camcorders, that is specifically listed as having HD quality. However, they give no information about this telex's actual resolution. Until the true specifications of lens capabilities are made known, we won't be able to make good buying decisions.

[Chris Hurd]

Moved to the H1 forum from UWOL. This is more about the H1 than it is about wildlife videography.

Have you seen my "Blue Moon" thread, all those shots were taken with the stock 20x lens plus the 1.6x extender. Unfortunately the pics suffer a bit from JPEG compression, even though the still image recording was set to its best quality. See http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=67201

[Ken Diewert]

Originally Posted by Bill Taka

The L series (100-400) is noticeably better and of course the Canon and Nikon Primes are even better. I have compared lenses on my XLH1 and would say an extender on the HD stock lens is very close to using your 70-300mm as far as the quality.

Bill,

Thanks, I happened to be in a store locally picking up an CRT HD TV/monitor yesterday and saw their camera dept had an L series lens (I believe it was 70-200) priced at over 1k (CDN), I think I paid 400 for the EF 70-300.

I guess you get what you pay for.

I suppose if the 1.6 is roughly equal in quality to the EF, and the cost of the adapter (1.6 vs EF) is equal, then at least with the EF adapter I would have the flexibility to use other lenses. As well as having a hell of of lot more magnification right off the top

BTW, has anyone tried the XL adapter sold by Qyuen Lee (sp) at the adapter place? It's about 1/4 of the price of Canon, though I wouldn't want to take the risk of damaging the mount trying to save a few bucks.

Ken.

[Johan Forssblad]

Originally Posted by Ken Diewert

Bill,
I suppose if the 1.6 is roughly equal in quality to the EF, and the cost of the adapter (1.6 vs EF) is equal, then at least with the EF adapter I would have the flexibility to use other lenses. Ken.

Hello Ken,
Good luck with your new H1.
One advantage to consider with the x1.6 adapter is that all electronic signals are carried through for your stock lens. This means motor zoom, optical image stabilizer, automatic aperture, auto focus and built in ND filters are still working.

With the EF adapter and any EOS lens those functions are lost; You will have to set everything completely manual (not sure about the aperture) and you will not have any (even) motor zoom.

If you put a 300 mm lens on the EF adapter it will look like having a more than 2 m lens on a 35 mm camera. Just imagine trying to follow a bird with that extremely narrow field of view! And the vibrations will look huge no matter how good tripod you use. Some people uses double tripods for static objects!

I haven't tried these adapters yet so I don't know exactly. But according to other posts you need a very good lens to compete with the standard zoom because the resolution needs to be extremely high (in lines/mm) due to the very small pixels on the 1/3" sensor. Most lenses for 35 mm cameras are not made for this high resolution because they don't need it when the sensor/film format is much bigger.
Good luck with your trials. Play a lot with your camera. It takes a while to master all the functions and get a good feeling how to control the servo lens for manual focus and exposure. Often it ends up that you could have done better because you overlooked something, for instance the audio level or the best aperture for the shot. /Johan

[Ron Pfister]

Originally Posted by Johan Forssblad

With the EF adapter and any EOS lens those functions are lost; You will have to set everything completely manual (not sure about the aperture) and you will not have any (even) motor zoom.

Here's what you get with the EF-adapter: OIS & aperture (on EF-lenses w/ OIS, that is). Motor zoom is impossible, because all EF-zooms are manual, and none of them have built-in NDs either. AF doesn't work, which is a pity. So, over-all, it's pretty convenient, really. But you DO need highest quality EF-glass (L-series primes, preferrably - L-series glass can be recognized by the red ring around the front of the barrel, just like the stock lens) to get equivalent performance to the stock lens in HD.

HTH,

Ron

[Johan Forssblad]

Ron,
Thank you for clarifying this. It seems like the OIS is determined by the lens.
If the EF lens has IS (Image Stabilisation) it will work with the XL H1 body and the EF adapter. I havn't tried this and don't know how the stock lens OIS and the EF IS compare. Anybody who knows?

[Chris Hurd]

They are basically the same, Optical Image Stabilisation, one of Canon's key core technologies. There are a couple of variants of OIS (tilt system, vari-angle prism) and the XL and EOS lenses compare very favorably toward each other in this regard.

[Ron Pfister]

The main difference between the OIS-systems in XL and EF-lenses is the noise generated. While the XL-lenses are virtually silent during OIS operation, the EF-lenses can be fairly noisy - definitely too noisy for an on-camera mic, in most cases. Stabilization performance-wise, they seem about equivalent.

HTH,

Ron