H5 and telephoto lens

[rjmarra]

I take a lot of outdoor photos of crew races, so I bought a 2x 58mm lens for my H5. I see an option in the setup for telephoto lens, but I can't tell that it does anything. With the lens on, the picture stablizer doesn't seem to work (or work well). Is there a setting that will help? Or am I going to have to use a tripod anytime I want a telephoto shot?

[Zigtek]

When you enter the menu and tell the camera that a telephoto lens is attached, all it does is limit the zoom on the camera, starting you at 6x, so that you don't see the barrel effect of the lens hood on the picture. I never bother telling my H5 that I have any type of converter on.

I don't know why you are having stabilisation issues? Is it possible you're not holding the camera correctly. When I have the telephoto converter on, I tend to hold the lens with my left hand (rather than the camera body).

Also for panning type shots you are advised to actually turn the IS off, as it interprets your panning movement as shake, and tries to compensate for it.

I'm not sure if you are aware of it, but there's an excellent whitepaper written about the H series cameras here. (http://www.aakatz.com/whitepaper/)

[Sintares]

I am not aware of any good x2 tcons for the H series cameras.

There is a decent x2.2 from raynox, but most of the x2 tcons (for non dslrs) you see are terrible cheap rubbish you find on ebay. *

Its possible the poor quality tcon is causing camera to have problems focusing leading you to think the stabiliser is having problems.

Of course do remember the longer the effective reach of the lens the faster the shutter has to be to compensate for shake (unless on a tripod of course)

Ie that 432mm lens with a x2 lens is now 864mm so even with IS you will be looking at 1/300s (or more likely 1/400s) to even give a chance at negating camera shake.


* typical rubbish front mount tcons from ebay, Merkury, Digital Optics, Tokina, any tcon describing itself as Titanium, High Definition or Professional