external sights..

[Don Railton]

Hi all

Has anyone on this site fitted an external sight to their telephoto to assist with aquiring and tracking fast moving action...?

I was talking to a person last week using a laser pistol sight attached to his lens. He claimed it allowed him to quickly center the lens on the subject and track it and was much faster this way than looking through the lens, especially with the bigger zooms (~600mm). The only downsize was that he had to estimate how much of the lens the subject filled, some thing he claimed was quickly learned.

I went out and bought a reflex sight (it puts a dot on a small lens on the sight, not on the subject) and plan to have a play when I get back to Australia (I am currently in Virginia, USA). Looking for any other experience...

DON

[Roger Clark]

Hello Don,

I made a simple sight. I added telescope finder bracket to my wimberly flash bracket. and a small black tube as the sight. A bracket like one of these,
http://www.meridiantelescopes.com/finders.htm

I positioned it so that with my 500 f/4 I can look through the camera with one eye and through the finder tube with the other eye. I find it useful when I'm tracking a subject with a 1.4x or 2x TC, so working at 700 to 1000 mm and then I only use it if I lose the subject in the camera's viewfinder.

Roger

[Don Railton]

Thank you Roger for your input...

I spent $50 on a new browning reflex laser sight which I plan to mount on the foot of the 500mm initally for trial purposes to use hand held. I will make a more perminant bracket in the form of a 'C' to allow the foot to be used also with a monopod later on should my tests be sucessful. The $50 reflex sight is cheap enough to trial and i hope it will give me good accuracy while retaining a wide field of view.

DON

[Roger Clark]

I would strongly discourage the use of lasers being pointed at any subject. If the laser hit their eye, it would be traumatic.

Roger

[Don Railton]

Hi Roger.

Yes I agree completely. Be assured the sight I plan to experiment with projects the laser dot into a screen within the sight. You view the subject through the screen and use the dot to 'aim' the lens. No laser light projects outside the sight, so no chance of any trauma from this sight. I know others do project the laser onto the target, this is a different type to what i plan to use...

Thanks again for your input..

DON

[Charles Glatzer]

External sights are a waste of time and dollars! Practice sighting on a stationary subject with your eye and bringing the camera to your eye. Therafter you can progress to moving targets. Starting without converters is recommended, increase focal length as your skill set advances. If you can.. keep both eyes open.

Chas

[WIlliam Maroldo]

I agree with Charles. It takes skill, which can be learned. The funny thing is the samples I've seen with people that advovate this ridiculous idea always show a distant bird against a large background. Even if a external sight helps, the fact is a small subject with a large background is useless as far as avian photography goes.
I've seen this stuff at other websites, and the advocates swear by it. Funny thing is they will respond to a post dealing with something completely different, and feel compelled to somehow insert the laser sight garbage in, and offer plans if requested. If they would just spend their time and energy refining the proper technique, they wouldn't have to come up with a solution to a problem that does not exist. regards~Bill

[Jim Neiger]

External sights are a waste of time and dollars! Practice sighting on a stationary subject with your eye and bringing the camera to your eye. Therafter you can progress to moving targets. Starting without converters is recommended, increase focal length as your skill set advances. If you can.. keep both eyes open.

Chas

Chas has given you great advice. This is one of the things I teach in my workshops. The secret is to keep your eye on the subject and then try to pop the camera and lens up to your eye so that the imaginary line running down the center of the barrel of the lens to the camera sensor lines up exactly with the imaginary line between your eye and the subject. With practice it is possible to put the subject in the center of the view finder instantly almost every time. Adding focal length increases the difficulty, but with lots of practice you can do it almost every time with any subject, moving or not. If you pre-focus at the expected distance of the subject, you can also focus on it almost instantly. Tracking moving subjects and getting them in focus at the critical moment(s) requires additional skills that also take lots of practice. Still subjects are easy.

[Doug Brown]

The key to target acquisition with a 500mm + focal length supertelephoto lens is PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. I would not spend the money on an external sight. Jim's technique is the way to go!

[Roger Clark]

Well, guys, these positions seem a little extreme. Would you advocate no sites on a rifle?

As focal length increases, the field of view decreases, so pointing becomes more uncertain. The large diameter of super telephoto lenses means accurate assessment of the direction is difficult; certainly more difficult than pointing a rifle.

But people have different physical limits. For you guys with perfect vision, you may not need sights. But not everyone is so blessed, and no amount of practice will make it so.

In my case an injury when I was very small means one eye looks up compared to the other eye by several degrees. Even with glasses it is difficult to get the two images to merge. Then in 1999 I had a detached retina. When the retina was pasted back down, it was rotated slightly and not uniform. Thus straight lines are not straight, and the image in one eye is rotated relative to the other eye. Thus, I have great difficulty lining up the lens axis when the focal length goes above about 700 mm on a 1.3x crop sensor. That is why I made my site. It cost me a little time and about $2 for the plastic tube (I already had old finder scope rings from an old telescope). And it works well in practice.

Roger

[Don Railton]

Hi guys

Thanks for the input, albeit varied. Its interesting to get such different answers from folks whos photos i continually admire. I agree that practice is the key to learning, including tracking BIF with a 500mm and i thank Jim for his tips on how to do this. Be assured I will try his technique.
Regarding the waste of money to try this idea, well $50 is trivial relatively speaking and i will probably continue with the experiment also now that i have already purchased the sight... I this way I can form my own conclusions.

Thanks again...

DON

[Jim Neiger]

Hi guys

Thanks for the input, albeit varied. Its interesting to get such different answers from folks whos photos i continually admire. I agree that practice is the key to learning, including tracking BIF with a 500mm and i thank Jim for his tips on how to do this. Be assured I will try his technique.
Regarding the waste of money to try this idea, well $50 is trivial relatively speaking and i will probably continue with the experiment also now that i have already purchased the sight... I this way I can form my own conclusions.

Thanks again...

DON

Don,

I think the sight may be effective when using a tripod, but it will be a handicap when shooting handheld.

[Roger Clark]

Don,

I think the sight may be effective when using a tripod, but it will be a handicap when shooting handheld.

Jim,
I agree with that. I use my site with 500 +TCs on a wimberly. When hand holding I don't use it. But then I don't often hand hold the 500 with TCs. And without TC, the 500 mm field of view is large enough for me to not need a site, 700 mm is borderline, and 1000 mm it really helps (on 1.3x crop bodies). With a 1.6x crop body, at 700 mm a site would be a big help for me.

Roger