Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/11/15

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Aerial photography
From: Pascal <cyberdog@ibm.net>
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 10:59:48 +0100

On 15-11-1998 03:46 Donal Philby wrote:

>Just last month I shot lots of stuff from Chopper with an 80-200 doing
>tight closeups at 200 of people on boat from about 20-30 feet.  Sure you
>miss a few, especially from focus.  A push pull zoom is so much faster,
>though, with everything changing at once--your distance from subject,
>the framing, height.  The two ring zoom without AF is really at a
>disadvantage here and at $500-700/hr for helicopter you don't want to
>waste much fooling around.  But I do wish I could attach the gyro to the
>lens rather than the body for better control, though that would
>eliminate quick lens changes.  Recently bought a second gyro, so now can
>have two cameras stabilized.  And you thought Leica was a dangerous
>habit!

Thanks for the report.
I guess such assignment would be much easier with e.g. a Nikon F5 and the 
new 80-200/2.8  AF-S zoom lens than with a Leica R8 plus Vario-Apo 
70-180/2.8. The optical advantage of the latter would almost certainly be 
lost due to focusing troubles. I can imagine it is hard (not to say 
virtually impossible) to do such job with manual lenses, especially two 
ring zooms like the Leica one. The rate of successful pictures would 
probably be much higher with an AF system than with a manual system.

Pascal

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