600mm lens for portraits - does it work?

Jeff,

when I decided to make use of the still-in-hand 600mm for an impromptu, but posed portrait of Gary, in no way was I thinking of "flatness," but in everyway I was thinking of compression of the background & compression of the aircraft. Which, I guess one can say is one-and-the-same; but in reality, I was only thinking of the distant background being bigger & with great bokeh, and making Gary look bigger (compared to his airplane). As in, "bigger than life" type of bigger.

LOL... don't manipulate my work !!! I'm supposed to be unique, you know... LOL.

have a good one,
marc

Randall,

LOL!!!

walkie talkies are soooooo '80's.... LOL!!!

If I owned such a large lens, I'd end up using it for EVERYTHING under the sun...

Below is an images of some birds which I had made through the 600mm. To make the image, and while fully clothed, and while driving a 9-hour trip back from New Orleans to Atlanta, I literally crawled in the shallow water with the lens on a D3, to get as close to the resting rookery of gulls as I possibly could. I then yelled-out to make them take flight:



LOL... it never crossed my mind to plant a walkie talkie on the small sandbar which they had been resting... but I guess it could have helped my yelling.... LOL!

have a lovely,
marc

I like & appreciate your words, Micro32.

I think my directional strive for my rickety-company should be to aspire to abtain a VR 400mm f/2.8 & a TC-1.4 (or perhaps a TC-1.7 as well). And then rent the 600mm when in dire need (if at all).

To then couple the 400mm with a not-yet obtained, new VRII 70-200mm and the existing 24-70mm would carry me forward & would please the clients to a good-enough extent with what I produce from this three-lens with three-camera combo. I'll then have the existing AF-D 85mm f/1.4 & Ai-S 50mm f/1.2 lenses to augment (what I do with the existing af-s II 300mm f/2.8 - I don't know. I may need to sell it (with other things) to help afford the zoom & 400mm).

is this good? is this a good enough way to go?

As a side note, I think you & I think (and see) similarly, as I've been able to sense this over the past year or so.

m.

LOL, do they make disposable walkies?

Hey mate that's a great shot though!

Cheers
Randall

PhotoRecon said:

Randall,

LOL!!!

walkie talkies are soooooo '80's.... LOL!!!

If I owned such a large lens, I'd end up using it for EVERYTHING under the sun...

Below is an images of some birds which I had made through the 600mm. To make the image, and while fully clothed, and while driving a 9-hour trip back from New Orleans to Atlanta, I literally crawled in the shallow water with the lens on a D3, to get as close to the resting rookery of gulls as I possibly could. I then yelled-out to make them take flight:



LOL... it never crossed my mind to plant a walkie talkie on the small sandbar which they had been resting... but I guess it could have helped my yelling.... LOL!

have a lovely,
marc

Click to expand...

I like the long lens effect. But alas the only lens I can afford is the 300 f/4. I have a 1.4 TC, maybe I'll get the 2X if the reviews are good.

you'll get some compression with a 300mm f/4 plus TC-1.4, but I'm fairly sure you'll become disappointed that the resulting bokeh is less than you'd actually want. Some pretty bokeh, yes, but not like it'd be if an f/2.8 300mm nor near that of a 400mm f/2.4 - but then again, you likely already realize this. Without the needed bokeh, though, the made image (portrait like) would seem to be really, really flat.

Which brings about a question I have - Does a TC reduce aperture (creating a true f/5.6 aperture from an f/4 lens, for example)? equally to that of reducing the flow of light to the camera (creating the darkness of an f/5.6 aperture from the same f/4 lens)?

m.

I now thinking the answer to my own question is yes.

m.

Marc. I may be wrong, but my understanding of a tc is that is purely a magnification of the image the lens produces and does not use all of the light from the lens, moreover, the sweet spot as in the centre. Reports of the old 70-200 with a tc indicate that the soft outer edges of the lens vanish due to them being discarded by the tc.

It follows that a 400 with a 2 x's tc is not a true 800mm so the perspective, compression of foreground and background will always be that of a 400, not an 800.
If I have it wrong, please let me know. :x
--
Warm regards, Dave.
Australian NPS member
D3, D300, glass 10.5 to 400mm, f/1.4-2.8.
http://www.dksphotography.com.au
http://www.sydneyuniversitycricket.com.au

hummm...

thanks in kind, Dave.

Since I've no TC's, I've never bothered to really learn in depth about them. I'll no doubt begin to study them & anything interesting I learn I'll pass it along your way. But I'd think that with your heavy use of your own TC-1.4, you'd in effect be the guru regarding the device.

It's a pretty, clear-sky, crisp, cold morning (8:30AM here in Atlanta, Georgia) and for a few hours now, I've been hard at work. The outskirts of the city has long been a nice place to have grown-up and to have live in, but this pretty, winter morning is seeming to fortify that.

Have a good one today, Dave,
m.

Daves602 said:

It follows that a 400 with a 2 x's tc is not a true 800mm so the perspective, compression of foreground and background will always be that of a 400, not an 800.
If I have it wrong, please let me know. :x

Click to expand...

Entirely wrong! ;-)

A 400mm with a 2x TC is indeed a true 800mm focal length, and it has all the characteristics you would expect... Too big to handle, too hard focus, too little depth of field, and too little light. And worst of all it is too little magnification to get the shot you want! Grrrrrr...

Actually a 400mm + 2x TC does lack one characteristic of an 800mm, which is that you can probably use a 1.5x TC on the 800mm and get useful results.

... but the BIGGER QUESTION is: can the 800mm make BETTER PORTRAITS than the 600mm ? ...

... LOL... ;-)

marc

apaflo said:

Entirely wrong! ;-)

A 400mm with a 2x TC is indeed a true 800mm focal length, and it has all the characteristics you would expect... Too big to handle, too hard focus, too little depth of field, and too little light. And worst of all it is too little magnification to get the shot you want! Grrrrrr...

Actually a 400mm + 2x TC does lack one characteristic of an 800mm, which is that you can probably use a 1.5x TC on the 800mm and get useful results.

Click to expand...

I have read up a little on TC's, a link here to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleconverter and think that maybe my original thoughts about tc's were correct.

How can a magnification of an image render a different bokeh? Or am I missing something?
I understand that the rest of your comments were tongue in cheek.

I used the example of a 2 x's tc to simplify things, also a few people on the forum are awaiting the new 2 x's from Nikon eagerly.

--
Warm regards, Dave.
Australian NPS member
D3, D300, glass 10.5 to 400mm, f/1.4-2.8.
http://www.dksphotography.com.au
http://www.sydneyuniversitycricket.com.au

Daves602 said:

Daves602 said:

apaflo wrote:

Entirely wrong! ;-)

A 400mm with a 2x TC is indeed a true 800mm focal length, and it has all the characteristics you would expect... Too big to handle, too hard focus, too little depth of field, and too little light. And worst of all it is too little magnification to get the shot you want! Grrrrrr...

Actually a 400mm + 2x TC does lack one characteristic of an 800mm, which is that you can probably use a 1.5x TC on the 800mm and get useful results.

Click to expand...

I have read up a little on TC's, a link here to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleconverter and think that maybe my original thoughts about tc's were correct.

Click to expand...

Wikipedia is not reliable. The article you reference is very poorly written, and does not seem to help you clarify how a TC works.

Daves602 said:

How can a magnification of an image render a different bokeh? Or am I missing something?

Click to expand...

Different focal length and different f/stop, therefore different Depth of Field and different bokeh. (It's even more than that, as resolution is reduced and aberrations are magnified, hence there might be serious degradation of the image in many ways.)

Daves602 said:

I understand that the rest of your comments were tongue in cheek.

Click to expand...

Stated in a light hearted fashion, but absolutely correct too.

Daves602 said:

I used the example of a 2 x's tc to simplify things, also a few people on the forum are awaiting the new 2 x's from Nikon eagerly.

Click to expand...

A lot of people have been using a variety of teleconverters for decades. TC's are not unknown nor is there question about what they do.

Your initial premise was false because a TC actually does change the focal length of the combination. Look up "barlow lens" with google (and avoid wikipedia if you want precise and correct discussion). Because your premise was not true, none of your conclusions about perspective, compression, or bokeh were correct.

Addition of the Barlow lens changes the focal length, but does not change the size of the aperture; hence the f/stop (the ratio of the focal length to the aperture size) necessarily changes in direct relation to power of the TC. A 400mm lens with a 2x TC therefore has an f/stop at maximum aperture that is twice what it is without the TC. A 400mm f/2.8 lens plus 2x TC combination has a focal length of 800mm and at the maximum aperture it is a f/5.6 lens. The compression/perspective/DOF and bokeh will all be that associated with an 800mm f/5.6 lens.

PhotoRecon said:

Click to expand...

That's the shot!

Just beautiful... simply beautiful..

Keep shooting, you're creating some really nice work!

--
Teila K. Day