Good to hear from you, too. So far, I'm delighted with the G2 and
my Tiffen .75x and 2x converters, as well as my Canon 1.5x
converter. My lens range is not really hampered by whatever
vignetting might occur. For example, my .75x Tiffen wideangle
converter will not vignette at all. I am getting a zoom range with
it equal to a 25mm to 76mm zoom lens in 35mm equivalence.
When I reach that 76mm point and want to go a bit beyond it, I use
my the G2s own 34mm-102mm G2 lens. When I want to go longer than
100mm, I go to my Canon 1.5x medium telephoto coverter. Although
Canon advises us to use this lens only at it's full 152mm setting,
I find that I can actually zoom with it from between 100mm to
152mm. (Vignetting begins at about 100mm with this lens.)
My Tiffen 2x long telephoto converter, however, can be used only
at it's full 152mm length. If you zoom back with it to any degree,
it will begin to vignette.
Using the Canon G2's zoom with these three converters gives me
virtually continuous coverage from 25mm out to 204mm. The only
"gap" in my lens coverage is from about 150mm to 200mm, which I
find to be relatively acceptable. I case I need to frame a shot in
that range, I will shoot it at 150mm andthen crop the picture a
bit, if need be, when I print it -- the four megapixel G2 allows me
to moderately crop my pictures, if need be, without drastically
affecting the detail.
I never use the Canon G2's digital lens capability, however. I
stick to the optical zoom and the three converters. I have not
noticed any significant difference in clarity between the shots
I've made with the optical zoom and with these converters.
Obviously, there will always be some barrel distortion in shots
made with the wideangle converter, but as a long time teacher of
photojournalism, where wideangle photography is a given, I've look
at such lens "distortion" as just another way of interpreting a
subject. I don't think people who look at pictures even notice the
slight exaggeration of most subject matter at the edges that is a
byproduct of most wideangle lenses. (If I am shooting a person with
a wideangle converter, however, I take care to keep their head away
from the edge to avoid facial distortion.)
All in all, my first few months of using the G2 has been quite
satisfying. I enjoy printing my favorite shots in 8x10 size, and
this four megapixel camera gives me plenty of resolution for such
prints, and allows me to crop when I need to without much of a
downside.
I have yet to use it on an extended shoot -- in July and August I
will be in Alaska and on the Bering Sea for a month, and will
submit the G2 and my converters to their first major test. I will
be taking a photo workshop on that trip with landscape photographer
Galen Rowell and wildlife photographer Franz Lanting, and I look
forward to getting a lot of input from them as well. I hope to
shoot about 4,000-5,000 pictures under all kinds of weather and
lighting conditions, downloading the best of them to my iBook
laptop as I go. I plan to write an article about what I learn about
digital photography from this adventure and illustrate it with some
of my favorite shots. This article will be posted at
http://www.worldisround.com , where I currently have posted another article
on my last extended digital shoot, a three-week trip through
Southeast Asia with my three megapixel Kodak DC4800 and it's
converters. This camera now provides backup to the G2 in case of
any problems. (You can see this article at:
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/1865/index.html in case you
have not already seen it.)
Best,
Phil
Hey Phil. Long time no hear from. How do you find the G2 and
Tiffen lenses? Is the vignetting a problem with the Tiffens? How
would you rate the quality of those lenses (since you teach
photography)?
--
Phil Douglis
Director, The Douglis Visual Workshops
Phoenix, Arizona
[email protected]
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