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Acratech ballhead
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Review Date: Aug 29, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $289.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Weight, smooth operation, unique design, quality construction, reasonable price for a quality piece of equipment.
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Cons:
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This head is a good value for the money. I opted for all rubberized knobs to make it easier to work with in the cold winters where I live, making the head slightly more expensive. The unique design offers a big range of motion. As others have doubtlessly mentioned, to reach some angles, the panning knob must be loosened and repositioned, but it offers a wide variety of available positions without moving the panning knob too and gives alot more flexibility in vertical framing than a traditional ballhead would offer. I would consider this a neutral issue, beacuse while it limits landscape orientation range of motion in some cases, it improves vertical orientation range of motion in all cases.
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Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
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Review Date: Jan 4, 2006
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $679.00
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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IS works well
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Cons:
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focusing problems with distant subjects.
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I've had this lens for about a month. I've had very inconsistant results. Generally with subject between 5 and 500 ft, it seems to be focusing quite well. I've been very impressed with the sharpness of these images from 70mm to 300 mm. IS works very well as advertised. No complaints there. Unfortunately, most of the time when I'm focusing on subject 1/4 mile to infinity, it will not autofocus correctly. I've almost always had to go back in and touch up with manual focus. I'm convinced that this lens is much better than its predecessor (75-300 IS) and overall I'm happy with it.
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Tokina AT-X 287 AF PRO SV 28-70mm f/2.8
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Review Date: Dec 20, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $219.00
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Great value and sharp images
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Cons:
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variable build quality
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I am using this lens with a Rebel XT. The first lens took some great pictures. Very very sharp. Then like some others here, the aperature diaphram stuck and I received Err99 errors on the camera body. I was not able to correct this problem by resetting the camera, removeing the lens etc.
I returned the first lens to the vendor and received a new copy. This seems to be working well so far.
I like the feel of this lens, though it is very heavy. It seems able to capture some very sharp images. This is a nice range on a APS-C camera, and is complimented by something on the wider angle range such as a 10-22 or 17-40. The manual focus clutch system is nice, but finding the gate where you can move back and forth is somewhat ackward. On the first lens, both the focus and zoom rings were tight. On the second, the focus ring feels much lighter, but the zoom ring is still very tight.
This is a nice value in a zoom lens with this range and speed. The included lens hood and lens bag are nice to have. The lens weighs about 1.5 pounds, and it feels heavy.
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