Stuart:
>I loved all the recommendations for the Canon L2 a very impressive piece of
>equipment with an eye-watering price of $4,200. Slightly over my buget. I'd
>have to go into movie making to justify splashing out on that.

OUCH!!! Lobby congress to get real about cows, to quit liquidating
our national forests, AND TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE *BLEEPING* YEN!!!

I can't tell you how much I dread looking at mail order ads each month.

I assume, Stuart, you're checking mail-order houses, i.e. B&H in
New York is the ONLY way to buy. Not the cheapest but honest and
reliable and, of course, no WA sales tax (shhh!!!! burn your e-mail!)

>2. Optical stabilisation. Only the Canon's and a couple of high end Sony
>camcorders have this. Everybody else uses electronic stabilisation which is
>not as good since it relies on a computer measuring the wobbles and
>compensating for it. In optical stabilisatoin, the lens is mounted in a fluid
>(well that's my interpretation of the jargon) and the inertia of the liquid
>keeps the thing steady

Hmm...if this is true then they're using different technology in the
new telephoto I described (moving an optical element to compensate
for motion detected by small gyroscopes, driven by a high-speed CPU).

On the other hand, the fluid would not only stabilize but would make
any motion much smoother, which is also important in video/film
work - with still equipment you're only interested in freezing the
frame.

>The list price is about $1,600. The ES800 offers all the same goodies for
>$1,100 but with a 12x zoom. I decided to go with the higher magnification so
>it doesn't limit my options - not sure whether the sanderling will be shy
>enough to justify it though.

They will be. 12x == 600mm, 20x = 900mm. I use my 600mm with a 1.4x
convertor for peeps a lot - they're really tiny. I think my photos
on the web have a couple of least or westerns included, the ones
I scanned were taken at 840mm from between 15-20 ft. Sanderling are
a bit bigger, but run like crazy away from you when they're feeding.
20 ft away sounds like quite a distance until you actually sit down
and try it - pointing things at them makes them shy. Since you
want to video them feeding, especially, I'm certain you won't regret
the investment. Also, I'm sure you'll want to play with it next
year at Bowerman and the birds are a bit further away except on
the highest tides (now that the masses have discovered the place and
there are boundaries marked out). Of course, if you're banding
you may have freer access.

There are always occasions when you can get extremely close, but
that's usually when Murphy kills your battery, etc.

Hey, speaking of banding, what's the status on your permit? (e-mail
me).

Again - think B&H Mailorder if you haven't already...

- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>