The TC Factor and Telephotos-the f3.3 Inflection Threshold

[gryphon1911]

Check out this guy...

[JKoerner007]

Check out this guy...

Cute

Yeah, but (1) that's standing still on the sidelines of a park ... after a 100-ft walk from his parked car, and (2) only one of those lenses is a super-telephoto.

Like to see that guy hike a mountain trail for several hours like that, or navigate his way through bramble undergrowth like that

But, hey, he's got a lot of cameras/lenses "at the ready"


Okay ... now, back to reality, this is how I roll 

[JKoerner007]

In the above image, I actually had a 300mm mounted on a tripod on my shoulder.

No camera/lens was mounted on my chest bracket.

D810 +15mm Zeiss was mounted on my right hip.

Four AI-S lenses were contained in the pouch, slung over my shoulders, resting on my left hip.


....


However, the green labeling represents my future vision.

I'm going to change the D500 + 300mm VR II (pictured) into a D500 + 600mm + 1.4 TC FL ED (1260mm envisioned).

The empty slot in my Cotton Carrier chest harness will be occupied by a D500 + 300mm PF + 1.4 TC (630mm envisioned).

The right hip slot will have my D810 + CV 125mm.

The side pouch will contain 15mm, 20mm, and 28mm landscape lenses, and a 50mm portrait lens + a 2x TC and Kenko Tubes as accessories.

I can walk around with all of this crap for a whole day
(I won't say it'a "no problem," but it's nothing a cold beer and good long massage by my Thai girlfriend won't cure  )

Anyone who says you can add five more super telephoto lenses to this setup is daft, and has never actually carried around a lot of gear on a nature hike.

I have absolutely zero extra room for another super telephoto lens. Even the 300 PF, mounted on my chest bracket, maybe the proverbial straw on the camel's back.

I don't want an extra telephoto on a backpack, either.

After spending two years hiking with the equipment as featured (everything in front of me, at the ready), I am confident I can make the following changes (in green) and 1) be able to handle the load, and 2) feel fully-equipped to deal with whatever nature throws my way.

[BEZ]

Yeah, but (1) that's standing still on the sidelines of a park ... after a 100-ft walk from his parked car, and (2) only one of those lenses is a super-telephoto.

Okay ... now, back to reality, this is how I roll 

I think you will find that guy covered 18 holes on golf course for a minimum of three days.

Your reality  ...as a skinny older guy, is not everyone's reality. 

[JKoerner007]

I think you will find that guy covered 18 holes on golf course for a minimum of three days.

Golf? Are you kidding me?

That involves standing a lot at each hole, shade, water (help, if necessary), and your car readily available.

Totally the opposite of walking purposefully, for hours, in mountain/desert terrain ... with no amenities in sight.

Your reality  ...as a skinny older guy, is not everyone's reality.

5' 10", 195 isn't skinny.

Do I really look that old?

In all seriousness, most really large men don't have too much "all day stamina" ... the biological reality of trying to oxygenate mass.

But hey, I'd like to see how you handle the conundrum of having super-telephoto (all the way down to landscape) gear immediately available.

Or are you just a theorist with an opinion?

[Ilkka Nissilä]

Yeah, but (1) that's standing still on the sidelines of a park ... after a 100-ft walk from his parked car, and (2) only one of those lenses is a super-telephoto.

Two, on the right side there appears to be something like a 300/2.8 and a longer tele on the back.

Here is another:

https://petapixel.com/2012/04/23/nikkor-1200-1700mm-the-mother-of-all-super-telephoto-nikon-lenses/

Carrying two big teles at the same time seems to be quite possible, not necessarily comfortable. Les already admitted six big teles was an exaggeration, so why not let it go?

As for having gear immediately accessible, why is there such a requirement? I would never walk or even move the camera attached to a tripod simply because it could be damaged in the process, and it's harder to control what your lens hits if it is dangling from a tripod behind your shoulder.  When I move in the forest, I carry the camera and lenses in a backpack and tripod in my hand. If I fall and fall down (quite easy to happen on snowy/icy hills) the only thing that will be damaged is likely to be the tripod and it is likely not damaged to such a degree that its use would be affected. I don't consider climbing or hiking in a forest with climbs and falls while dangling a camera or lens around my neck to be safe for the gear, either, and certainly not two cameras. Taking some time to set up after arriving to the location is normal and I don't mind it at all. 

[Les Olson]

It seems this interesting discussion is now more about who is right or who is wrong than about a realistic or unrealistic scenario 

What about a more common, regular setup like the 2.8 holy trinity plus 2 bodies (e.g. 850/810 & 500) weighing in at 5.5 kilograms.

I don't think it is about what is unrealistic vs unrealistic.  I agree that hiking with six exotic telephotos is ridiculous, but I think that hiking with two cameras and seven lenses is also ridiculous and that the difference in ridiculousness between carrying six exotic telephotos and carrying two cameras and seven lenses is not that great.

I mentioned carrying six exotic telephotos because it is physically possible but photographically ridiculous, to make the point that what you carry is a matter of photographic choice, not physical capacity.  A decision to carry the three f/2.8 zooms, instead of the 16-35/4 + 70-200/4, or the Sigma f/1.8 zooms, or a 24/1.4 + 105/1.4, or to go the full Christmas Tree like JKoerner007, needs to be explained not by the size of your bag, but by the photographic reasons you want all the focal lengths between 14mm and 200mm and f/2.8 but not f/1.8 or f/1.4. 

[Akira]

Check out this guy...

I can't see any guy...

[JKoerner007]

Two, on the right side there appears to be something like a 300/2.8 and a longer tele on the back.

Here is another:

https://petapixel.com/2012/04/23/nikkor-1200-1700mm-the-mother-of-all-super-telephoto-nikon-lenses

I could post a photo of me carrying a 200 lb person over my shoulders, but that doesn't mean it's physically-possible to carry the same load for several miles in the CA desert/mountains ...

Nor is it desirable as a 'routine' even if Rasputin could do it

Les already admitted six big teles was an exaggeration, so why not let it go?

If people like you would stop commenting, I would.

How about repeating your question in a mirror

As for having gear immediately accessible, why is there such a requirement? I would never walk or even move the camera attached to a tripod simply because it could be damaged in the process, and it's harder to control what your lens hits if it is dangling from a tripod behind your shoulder.  When I move in the forest, I carry the camera and lenses in a backpack and tripod in my hand. If I fall and fall down (quite easy to happen on snowy/icy hills) the only thing that will be damaged is likely to be the tripod and it is likely not damaged to such a degree that its use would be affected. I don't consider climbing or hiking in a forest with climbs and falls while dangling a camera or lens around my neck to be safe for the gear, either, and certainly not two cameras. Taking some time to set up after arriving to the location is normal and I don't mind it at all.

You must be a landscape shooter.

If you're shooting birds, or other wildlife, your moment is lost 9x out of 10, if you have to "stop, unpack, attach camera to tripod, focus, shoot."
(Not a very smart strategy if you're looking for Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster ... lol)

Similarly, if I see a rare bird, that I've never seen in my life, or some other fleeting moment, the last thing I want to do is start unpacking my gear in order to be able to capture that moment.

You're talking about a totally different genre.

That is why ONLY my landscape lenses are in a pouch (I can take all the time I want then).

But I always want my wildlife lenses immediately available, lest I miss the moment of a lifetime.

[Jack Dahlgren]

You're talking about a totally different genre.

That is why ONLY my landscape lenses are in a pouch (I can take all the time I want then).

But I always want my wildlife lenses immediately available, lest I miss the moment of a lifetime.

We are all talking about our own ways of shooting.
I never carry a long lens mounted on my camera.
Doesn’t make me right, doesn’t make me wrong.
Enjoy and celebrate the different ways we all work.

[David H. Hartman]

Memorizing the angle of view of a 90mm lens on five formats is too much for me. I have decent idea of what 90mm means to a 4x5, 6x9, 6x7, 6x6 (645 with a mind operated rotating back), 36x24, 24x16; I think that was fives so I'll stop.

I think most know what they mean when they say such a lens has more reach on such a format. I'm reaching for my mouse and I'm not checking for typos. I'm going to click the post button even if I should not.

Dave Hartman

[chambeshi]

And all the better if the telephoto one invests in the future will be (hopefully) enabled with integral bespoke TC(s). What a Game changer! sales of such optics will accrue provided not overpriced. As with what's been achieved in space science, IT and genomics etc, the more audacious suggestions and demands for innovative solutions are first treated with voluble pessimism. But history tells us technology so often triumphs, where after the doom-and-gloom brigade pretends they were believers in any case..... Just a decade back, who would have believed if a forum post had postulated the mass production of the Dinky phase-fresnel telephoto prime (that overcame the glitches of the Canon)?   

While my long term interests in choosing the optimum camera gear are to meet my own peculiar needs, I've tried to understand what factors and demands are changing the overall market, not least the potential that is possible today thanks to new technologies in materials and innovations. One has to consider where markets are improving, and for telephotos the needs of nature photographers on the move are swelling  in numbers.

This is excellent for several reasons, and more will benefit where technology delivers innovative solutions. IMHO, the telephoto design space has only begun to acknowledge the keystone role of the Humble Teleconverter :-)

We are all talking about our own ways of shooting.
I never carry a long lens mounted on my camera.
Doesn’t make me right, doesn’t make me wrong.
Enjoy and celebrate the different ways we all work.

Yes exactly. Good point
And this is a diversity of Genres to be respected. There are many able to succeed with wildlife shooting only from within Hides and Vehicles (the Sherpa-trekker too) enjoy their optimum choices of optics.
The shooter on the move seeks their operational minimum of gear, where flexibility is enabled by not only zooms but equally packing along one, or more, Teleconverters to increase the range of focal lengths. The mountaineers tend to take this to the extreme with the lightest system they have found works for them. This is why I often highlight Galen Rowell's argument. Their are good reasons why Rowell packed his light solution, but he was the first to admit it was a compromise. He did now lack for choice. And by the way, his daughter recounted (in the commeraotive tribute) how her father photographed the lynx stalking the rabbit from within his truck :-)

So it's plainly obvious that there are variations from the many lenses etc packed on a mule (biped or quadruped) in a pack of 20kg (and heavier) along the continuum to the smallest optical system, which all fits snugly on belt and\or harness. Some of us subscribe to a DLSR based system, others may well choose a mirrorless solution. Accessibility to shoot with the minimum of delay is all too often a prerequisite. The latter cases seek the singular telephoto BUT with the maximum of flexibility. Hence the f3.3 Threshold in Telephoto Design Space, where the shooter carrying their single long lens has more choices in capturing and composing their photographs.

After all, GAS notwithstanding, there are good reasons why the Nikon system presents so many choices in lenses (as do the other systems).

kind regards

woody

[Les Olson]

[...] his daughter recounted (in the commeraotive tribute) how her father photographed the lynx stalking the rabbit from within his truck :-)

Rowell himself tells the story in Mountain Light, where the picture is reproduced - for people who don't have the book it is here (http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-lynx-in-alpine-flowers-teklanika-river-alaska-range-alaska-9520494.html).  There are a number of aspects of the story relevant to this discussion. 

He already knew that lynxes were hunting in daylight, and approaching human habitation, because his daughter had seen one near park headquarters.  He knew why: the snowshoe hare population in Denali had collapsed and the lynxes were starving.  Snowshoe hares are active at dusk and are often seen along roadsides.  He had put a 200mm lens on the camera because it was nearing dusk and he knew he could not possibly use anything longer because he had already set the exposure for the prevailing light.   

He was hoping to photograph relatively large animals, relatively close (200mm isn't going to work for anything else), standing still (what else at 1/125? He saw the lynx take the hare, but at 1/125 there are no photographs of that part).  He was not just cruising along waiting for "whatever nature might throw" at him.

The same is true of other Rowell photographs - including the famous one of the rainbow over the Potala palace in Lhasa.  He did not just stumble across the picture, he made it happen.  Because he knew that each end of a rainbow is 42 degrees from the antisolar point, he knew precisely where he had to be to make a rainbow intersect with the Potala - plus he could run hard enough at 3600m altitude to get there in time.  He set out with one lens - a 75-150/3.5 - because he knew the picture he wanted, and he knew where he was, so he knew the angle of view he would need before he got there and looked in the viewfinder. 

[Hugh_3170]

Yes, the loss of Rowell and his wife in the light plane crash was a tragedy.  I have his "Galen Rowell's Vision".  His books are essentially a collection of photographic essays in which he comments on subject material and related issues, frequently sharing how he has solved photographic problems.  Well worth tracking his books down.

[JKoerner007]

We are all talking about our own ways of shooting.
I never carry a long lens mounted on my camera.
Doesn’t make me right, doesn’t make me wrong.
Enjoy and celebrate the different ways we all work.

Fair enough and well said.