- All right, so today we're talking about
super telephoto lenses,
but first you guys have to check out this photo
that my mom just sent me.
It's me and that above is my aunt
with those awesome sunglasses.
I need a pair of those.
Where do I get some of those, Sam?
- Actually, Sam's not here.
He's like doing some Netflix stuff, but I'm here.
- All right, well, I'm assuming he taught you
how to run the cameras and everything?
- Not at all, but I'm here anyway.
- Okay, well, hey, we have two lenses here.
And this one I actually got on Amazon for like 80 bucks.
It's made by Opteka or some generic ass likes of brand.
Focus ring up here,
and there's a lock,
and if I open it, then I can zoom.
And check that, I could go between 420 and 800 millimeters.
Even comes with this 2x teleconverter.
So it makes the reach from 800 to 1,600.
- Sounds like some James Bond stuff.
- Uh-huh. - Seeing stuff on the moon.
- Stuff like that, shooting lasers.
- It doesn't shoot lasers,
but all of this for like $80.
Can this be any good?
Probably not, but I am very curious to see
what kind of results we can get out of this.
And this is a lens that Tamron is letting me borrow.
It's 150 to 500.
It's way bigger. - Yeah, dude,
it looks like a thermos.
- It actually does look like a thermos.
Even has that handle right there.
- Yeah, dude.
Question is, if we set both of these lenses
to 500 millimeters,
will you be able to tell the difference?
- I can say not knowing cameras, I would not.
- So let's go ahead and do a little experiment.
Gonna label one of these as lens A
and the other is lens B.
We'll go get some shots of Dylan outside
and you tell me if you can figure out which one is which.
- Oh, hi, didn't see you there.
No, seriously, I didn't see you there.
You're like super far away.
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- What's up Armando?
- Hey, what's up, man? - Here, catch.
- Whoo.
- You guys think you could tell the difference
between this lens that's $80
and a lens that's 1,300 bucks?
I think I'll be able to tell that difference.
- While your mind might be melting at how expensive-
- I already know.
- Dude, you just got started.
- I just got to B and I know that B is a little more-
- Okay, let's just continue.
- Look at the background.
- Yeah, it's shaking.
That means it has not stabilization.
- No stabilization.
- Unless they're doing that on purpose to fool us.
- This bokeh, looks better.
B looks better.
- I like B better.
The colors are better on B.
- [Gene] Was that obvious?
- A little obvious.
Yeah, to some extent.
Well, I did see some shaking in the A the first time,
so I'm thinking no stabilization.
This is A, - Right.
- and this was price stabilized
and this is B.
- And he's right, the stabilization part of it
is a key factor unless you're purposely trying to fool us.
- For me, it was this clip right here at the very end.
This one gives me that lemon shape bokeh,
while this one over here,
this one has those like onion rings inside of it.
So I figured the one with the onion rings
inside the bokeh-
- Chromatic abberation. - Yeah,
it's the one with less quality glass.
- That's B, that's A.
Well, I think we all noticed
that B has much better stabilization.
And here's the thing.
It was on a tripod,
and I was trying to use my body to block the wind,
but just at this focal length at 500 millimeters,
even just the slightest little breeze with shaking,
create a ton of vibration.
You need a really good tripod
to really secure that hold on the camera.
But the first shot,
I think was the most obvious for me,
'cause it's so clean and it looks so good.
But this is actually isn't really that great of a comparison
'cause this is a 150 to a 500,
and this is a 420 to 800.
So this $80 lens actually has more reach.
But look at this.
Look at this.
Frank always keeps all these lenses on his belt. (chuckles)
You're like the tool man of lenses.
- This is an 800 millimeter right here,
with a two times converter
which turns it into a 1,600 millimeter F22.
- [Gene] Oh, F22?
- Yeah, because originally this is F11,
but with this, it turns into an F22.
- You know, what's funny is for $80,
this also comes with a 2x teleconverter.
So we could actually get this to 1,600 also.
- Do you have it?
- [Gene] Yeah, I got it.
- Oh, okay. - [Gene] You wanna see it?
- Let's do it.
- The 2x teleconverter just threads on.
This is a like T-mount, I guess,
so we just attach that.
All right, so we have both of these cameras at 1,600 mil.
This thing has some reach.
All right, check this out.
If I tap the camera and look how much this footage shakes.
Just a little,
look at that, it's like (growls).
If I do the same thing to the Canon lens,
it's way less insane.
So the image stabilization makes a huge difference.
Let's try a little handheld test.
Hold on, let me hold my breath.
Oh my God, this is impossible.
Yeah, no.
Let me try again with the Canon lens.
It's still kinda hopping around a little bit,
but it's much more tolerable.
'Cause without image stabilization,
you're literally seeing every single jitter.
And at least, this gets rid of that.
So you use this to shoot the moon or what?
- It's for birding for a wildlife friendly.
- You go bird photography? - I do.
- You never struck me as the bird photography
kind of guy. - It's fun.
I just started like a month ago.
- Really? - Yeah, really.
- Or are you just saying this
so that you don't come across as a creep
to the YouTube video?
- Yup, see you later, my friend.
- All right, bye Frank.
Okay, so the reach, no doubt, really impressive.
I'm shooting a car
all the way on the other side of this lake.
I could barely see it.
It's like over here somewhere.
But without good image stabilization,
it's really hard to get much useful out of this.
But it is still impressive that this lens is $80,
and now your camera is kinda like a telescope.
But if you're gonna do anything serious with it,
you really need good images stabilization
and just better quality glass.
See that guy on the kayak right there?
He's somewhere over there somewhere.
Now, in an attempt to get some stabilized footage,
I'm pulling out the Sachtler,
and let's see if we can get anything worthwhile here.
It's interesting, you could actually see
the heat waves coming off the ground here.
You can see how much chromatic aberration
is bleeding off these cars.
That's kinda like that purple that you see, oop, plane.
It's really tricky to find things in the air with this lens.
Oh, oh, I just saw a wing.
It's tough finding some with this lens.
Like you're looking at such a small little cutout.
But this lens is definitely much more pleasant to use
with this fluid head tripod.
I'm actually able to get some tracking shots.
Here, Dylan, you give it a shot.
- Honestly, this reminds me of like,
you know, those movies
where they're like scoping people out.
It's like, "Okay, that's where deal's going down."
It's like cops who are like looking through the scope.
"Okay, on the rooftop over there.
You hear that, roger.
Target acquired."
- [Gene] But just to tell you how tight that really is,
we're at 1,600 now.
I'm gonna zoom out.
Then this is 840 millimeters.
I pulled off the teleconverter so we're at 800.
Now let's go to 500s.
And now let's switch over to the Tamron.
So here we are at 500.
Now let's go to 150,
which is the range of the Tamron.
Got to switch lenses again now.
We go from 150 to 24.
And you almost lose sight of the plane entirely
when you're at 24.
And now to my widest lens,
which is a 24 all the way to 12.
So when you compare the 12 mil to the 1,600,
you can really get an idea
of how impressive 1,600 mil actually is.
Dylan, was this a very informative video?
- Very informative.
I learned that one lens is not very choice.
- What? (chuckles)
Oh, look at this bird shot.
Have you guys seen "Planet Earth?"
Some of those shots that they get on there,
I don't know how they do it.
'Cause they film in super slow motion
and they track a bird.
I have a hard time just finding the birds.
I wanna know how the hell
you get a shot of a bird in the air.
Yeah, see, as soon as I see a bird flying,
I'm like, I can't get that.
That's not happening.
You know, this is not easy.
This really is not easy at all.
I can get a shot of a bird when it's stopped.
Yeah, I wanna know,
oh, yeah, see, there's one flying right there.
I can't get it, I can't get, oh, oh.
I think I got like a very brief
out of focus shot of a bird.
I feel like to get one good shot of a bird flying,
you have to be out here for days with trial and error.
A lot more respect for bird photography
now that I'm trying and realizing
how difficult it actually is.
I gotta say I am enjoying having the reach
all the way out to 500.
Usually, I only go up to 200.
So this extra 500 is pretty fun.
This is a huge step up from that budget lens.
I mean, even though that $80 lens was pretty impressive
for what it could do,
you get bad bird shot?
- [Dylan] Yeah. - Yeah, you got it?
- It's all right.
- You got a better shot of a bird flying than I did.
The difference is pretty obvious though.
I mean the image quality is so much better.
It's so much cleaner.
It's less hazy.
I never felt like I got a sharp,
nice contrast the image out of the budget lens.
You get solid out of focus out of here
so that's one less thing I have to think about.
You also get that gesture aperture out of this lens,
which you cannot do on the other lens.
It's fixed on the other one.
Also you have the vibration control or image stabilization.
I'm noticing that at this height, focal length,
you really need image stabilization
even when you're on a tripod.
Autofocus is really good on here.
And even though this is the size of a thermos,
it's still relatively small
for a lens that can go all the way out to 500.
Ah, there's a bird right behind you, Dylan.
I'm ready.
Here it goes, this is gonna be the most beautiful shot.
Oh my God, nope.
Birds are the worst models, I swear.
Never listen.
At least I got a shot of this duck, right?
That's a good start, right?
- [Dylan] Birds right there.
Look, bird right there.
- Dude, there's so many birds here
and I can't get a shot of one.
I think I got something sorta.
Come on, oh, I think I got something!
Whoo!
Sorry, I got really excited.
Hopefully the producers of "Planet Earth"
will watch this and be like,
"Oh, we need to hire that guy."
There's one dragonfly carrying the other.
Are they mating or something?
- [Dylan] I don't know how they do that, so, maybe.
But if they are, we gotta just cut it off
'cause kids watch this stuff, you know.
- And that is true.
I was kinda making fun of Frank for bird photography,
but I get to actually see how this is really fun.
As soon as they fly, I can't get anything,
but if they're sitting at a park,
I will snipe them with my 500 mil.
Are you ready for some magic?
- [Dylan] Yeah. - I'm gonna get a slow motion
out of this bird flying away.
Come on, birdie.
Yeah, okay, I did not get that at all.
But hey, well, I can't seem to get a shot of the bird,
but I found a squirrel.
And this is way cuter than the bird anyways.
(sentimental music)
And now we're hitting the part of the year
where we're starting to lose our lighting
earlier in the day,
but good thing I have 12,800 ISO on this a7S.
You know what'd be really cool
is to visit one of those places
that have a really long golden hour.
You know, where there's like,
sometimes you have really short days or really short nights,
but if you time it right, you just have golden hour all day.
So everything always just looks at bay.
And today we get to fund the 10th project
for the Potato Farm.
It's already been over $10,000 in rewards and stuff
given to make your ideas come true.
And this one is from Luis in Texas.
So Luis is an immigrant from Venezuela,
and he had to flee because of a political persecution.
So what he wants to do is tell real immigrant stories
and all the feelings of fear
and being in an unknown place and what that's like.
Very excited about that one,
so Luis, some funding coming your way.
And man, that sunset dropped so fast.
Like, now we have very little lighting.
But keep those ideas coming,
we love reading them, especially Dylan.
He spends a lot of time reading
and going through every single one.
- That's what I do on my weekend nights.
- But anyways, I think we're gonna go eat some nachos.
- All right, tutulut.
Dylan, you wanna say bye?
- Wait.
- [Gene] Say tutulut. - No.
- [Gene] Come on, just say tutulut.
- No. - [Gene] Please.
- I'm not gonna say it.
- [Gene] Okay, fine.
(sentimental music)