I went up to the UP to do some night-sky astrophotography (seen elsewhere on this website). During the day, I went up to the oldest lighthouse on Lake Michigan - at Whitefish Point, just north of Paradise Michigan. I decided to use the lighthouse as an object to compare the "magnification" of the various lenses that I have : a 19 mm "wide angle" lens, a 35-70 mm variable zoom, and a 400 mm fixed zoom .. plust a "tele-doubler" lens which lets me double the focal length of any of the lenses (thus I can get 70x2=140 mm and 400x2=800 mm). [It wouldn't make sense to double the 19 mm - only give a view slightly wider than the 35 mm.] Here is the secquence of the lenses listed above - I was standing on the beach, looking back at the lighthouse:
| 19 mm - my widest lens (90 degrees) |
35 mm - slightly more than normal view |
| 50 mm - what you would normally see |
70 mm - slighly magnified from normal |
| 70x2=140 mm (teledoubler) |
400 mm (zoom lens) |
| 400x2=800 mm (doubler) - max zoom! |
Just to point out the range! |
Just to show you what I'm willing to go through for
my "art" ... there were 1.3 million beach flies (some biting)
swirling around any animate object on the beach! (I'm talking about
those black dots all over me!) |