new shots in gallery

I have recently added some new content to my gallery.

Columbia Skytrain station, New Westminster. This was about an 8 sec exposure. The train is hardly visible, except for the streak of the running lights.

Coal Island, outside Swartz Bay, Victoria. This is a small boat wharf at the end of Coal Island. The is the first island upon leaving Swartz Bay. I shot this with my 600mm mirror lens using a red filter.

water fountain outside Bay Centre, Victoria. I had to shoot fast enough in order to freeze the motion of the water.

Hotel Douglas, Victoria. This is actually the old sign on the top side of the hotel.

parkade jumper, Victoria. Back in Sept/06 I was in Victoria. I noticed the bottom end of Yates St was closed off, and many people were hanging around. Soon I discovered why: a guy was at the top of a 6-storey parkade. He was sitting on the top of the wall with his feet dangling over the edge. The police had cordoned off two blocks. I took a couple of shots from over a block away. But even a 600mm lens was straining to get a good picture. Besides, he was in the shadow of a pillar. I had to go around 3 blocks to get to the other end of the street; at which point I was virtually opposite the jumper. Now my 600mm zoom lens was getting much more detail of this guy. I set up my tripod and proceeded to shoot away. I shot over a roll. Even a couple of shots of the police. In two of the pictures there is another person in there. He was giving the jumper some smokes! I was so excited because I figured this was news! I got on the phone with the editor of the Victoria Times-Colonist. The response was: "people in Victoria don't want to see death in the newspaper." What? I couldn't believe it! I responded: "not even page 3?" No, sorry, not interested. Well, I was bummed. Had this been Vancouver, this certainly would've been in one of the local papers. I guess Victoria doesn't like news like that, it's bad for tourism. Eventually I left because the light was starting to go. I don't know what ever became of the jumper.

Zeiss has created the world's largest telephoto lens

At 1700 mm focal length (which means the front element is 13 inches across!) and a speed of f/4 this lens put requirements on optical glass, lens assembly and quality assurance methods, never before encountered in photo lens manufacture.
BTW, this would be about the equivalent of putting a 960mm f/4 lens on a 35mm camera!
This 256 kg (that's 564 pounds folks! you nearly need a construction crane to lift it up!) behemoth also required Carl Zeiss to develop totally new ways of operating a telephoto lens, including servo controlled aiming and focusing.
Never before has the world of photography seen such a lens. This supertelephoto lens provides 21x magnification.

Based on the company's press release, it sounds like it was custom-built for a client who wanted to shoot wildlife at a distance. In search of the highest imaginable image quality the client decided for 6x6 medium format and the Hasselblad 203 FE as the best camera he is aware of. It was on display at the Photokina 2006 convention in Cologne, Germany.

Hardly portable, you think? Forget a tripod, you need a special kind of steel frame to hold that sucker in place! I'm guessing the client is shooting wildlife at a distance of 50 miles!
Check out these images:
(note the digital display near the camera),
(notice the Arabic lettering on the side).
It looks like the fuselage from an Airbus A380!
Look very carefully at how the camera is dwarfed by the lens! The lens is 5.5 ft long!
With this lens you go to the head of the class! (and I thought my 600mm f8 mirror lens was pretty impressive, especially when I double it to 1200mm...)
I wouldn't mind having one of these under my Xmas tree! [grin]