Details

Written by The DIY Hunter

Category: Technical

Published: 10 April 2011

Hits: 4001

2019 Update: My camera of choice right now is the Nikon P1000.

While cruising the internet checking out information on the new FujiFilm HS20 EXR camera I stumbled into a 1.7x teleconverter that people are using with the HS10. After reading many remarks from others using the Sony VCL-DH1758 teleconverter on their HS10 cameras I had to find one of these lenses for myself. I was able to get a used lens from Adorama.com.

The lens works great on the camera! I do find that there is a little distortion towards the edges of the photos taken with the lens on the HS10. With the lens on the camera I have a 51x(1224mm) lens system. Taking video and photos of deer, elk and varmints at long range just got very better.

A few weeks after getting the lens I realized that the lens I thought I was getting wasn't the lens I got. What does that mean? Well I had no idea that there are actually two Sony lenses that are very similarly named, the VCL-DH1758 and the VCL-HG1758. The VCL-HG1758 that I have is nearly twice as heavy, weighing in at 15 oz. while the VCL-DH1758 is only 8.8 oz. In all my research around the web I thought that there was only the one lens and that it was 8.8 oz. Now that I have figured out that there are actually two(maybe more) varieties of 58mm 1.7x Sony lenses I would probably prefer the lighter of the two. The HG1758 might take better photos as it is more expensive, but it is also a little heavy on the end of my HS20 and HS10's extended telephoto lenses. That being, I am very careful when using the cameras with this heavier VCL-HG1758 lens attached. Looks like I will have to track down a VCL-DH1758 and give it a try. I would prefer the lighter and smaller lens.

Other teleconverter options would be the Canon TC-DC58C at 2.0x power which would get the camera up to 60x. This teleconverter weighs in at 12 ounces according to the specs and appears to be longer. Also checking around people are using this lens but the threads are recessed and require a little modification to attach the lens directly to the camera.

The Raynox DCR-2025PRO at 2.2x would be another teleconverter option that intrigues me the most. This would give me a 66x optical zoom. This lens is running around $275 and the lens appears to be much longer than my VCL-DH1758 I am currently using.

Update April 10, 2011: Thanks to Ebay I now have a VCL-DH1758. So far the image quality appears to be a little bit better as I am seeing less blurriness around the edges of the photos. Looks like I will use the VCL-DH1758 over the VCL-HG1758 lens as it is half the weight and I think it takes a little better photos. The only advantage that I can see from the VCL-HG1758 is that it should bring in more light with it's larger diameter.

I love my Fujifilm HS10 but found the speed in taking photos(less delay before I can take another photo) and higher resolution images of the HS20 EXR to be too tempting, and I ordered a HS20 from B&H Photo.

You can see many photos and video clips I took with the FujiFilm HS10 on my 2010 Oklahoma Whitetail Hunt — Hunting with 243 WSSM & 270 WSM Rifles journal entry.

The following bird photos are all the full frame of the original image with no cropping.
This Cedar Waxwing photo was taken with my FujiFilm HS20exr and a Sony VCL-DH1758 teleconverter attached.	This Coopers Hawk photo was taken with my FujiFilm HS20exr being hand held, at dusk and at 30x. Not too bad for a low light, high zoom, hand held photo.
This Bullock's Oriole photo was taken with my FujiFilm HS20exr and a Sony VCL-DH1758 teleconverter attached.	This Blackheaded Grosbeak photo was taken with my FujiFilm HS20exr and a Sony VCL-DH1758 teleconverter attached.
This Western Tanager photo was taken with my FujiFilm HS20exr and a Sony VCL-DH1758 teleconverter attached.	This Lazuli Bunting photo was taken with my FujiFilm HS20exr and a Sony VCL-DH1758 teleconverter attached.
This Gold Finch photo was taken with my FujiFilm HS20exr and a Sony VCL-DH1758 teleconverter attached.	This House Finch photo was taken with my FujiFilm HS20exr and a Sony VCL-DH1758 teleconverter attached.

The HS20 has a disk buffer that allows you to continue to take photos while the photos are being written to the SDHC flash memory. I like to take both raw and jpg photos at the same time and the camera allows me to take a photo about every two seconds while each photo takes about 10 seconds to write to the SDHC memory card. Where on my HS10 I was waiting the full 10 seconds between every photo before I could take another.

Although the HS20 camera does allow for me to take photos quicker it only allows me to do this with the camera in EXR or Auto modes or if I leave the manual setting the same. If I need to manually adjusting the shutter speed, ISO, or aperture I have to wait the full 10 seconds for the image to write to the SDHC card before I can change any setting.

Comparing the video of the HS10 to the HS20exr: They both have full HD 1920x1080 video options. My HS10 had an audible clicking sound in the background that I can only think came from the autofocus but I am not for sure. I do not get the clicking sound on the HS20exr. The autofocusing on the HS10 is better. The default focus setting with the HS20exr drives me crazy as it constantly is going in and out of focus even when the subject matter isn't moving or changing distance. I had to set the camera's "Movie AF Mode" to "Center" to be able to get any decent video. With it set in this mode I have to press the shutter while I am taking a video to refocus if the subject has moved to a different distance. Clicking the shutter during video capture takes a JPG only image and creates a couple second "skip" in the video. Also, the high-speed frame rate options of the HS10 are far superior. I enjoy taking slow-motion action of bullets and the like and the high-speed video options I had on the HS10 I really miss now that I am using the HS20exr. If it wasn't for the clicking sound on the HS10 it would be the hands-down winner of the two when it comes to video.

One thing I really liked for the RAW photos of the HS10 was the ability to open the photos in PhotoShop and adjust them using Adobe's Camera Raw 6.3. The files on both the HS10 and HS20 have RAF extensions however Camera Raw 6.3 is not able to open the HS20's raw formatted images. Hopefully, Adobe will add this format to its list of supported raw formats soon... I'm not really fond of the software that comes with the camera to open the raw files.

Update April 27, 2011: Adobe just released Camera Raw 6.4 and it has support for the FujiFilm HS20EXR camera and other FujiFilm EXR cameras. Thank you Adobe!

Update May 30, 2011: After a month of playing around with Adobe's Camera Raw 6.4 and images from my FujiFilm HS20exr camera, I have found that the images are very noisy and difficult to impossible to remove the noise without degrading the quality of the photos. I'm learning to use "Raw File Converter EX powered by SILKYPIX" that comes with the camera to open my RAW image files. I have no noisy issues on my photos using the SilkyPix software... I just prefer and am more familiar with Adobe's software but until the images come in without all the noise I'm stuck with SilkyPix.

Oct. 2013: After a couple of years of use my HS20exr developed a blurry spot in the center of the lenses internally. I have now upgraded to a HS50exr. View some of the first photos from my HS50exr. See: FujiFilm HS50exr Lens Flaw Not Under Warranty

Here is one of the first photos I took with my new FujiFilm HS20 camera. I was hand holding the camera as the early morning sunlight was lighting up snow-covered mountains near my house. These mountains I would guess are around five miles from where I am taking the photo from.

Here is a panoramic photo I took with my Fujifilm HS20exr while on a trip hunting prairie dogs in the summer of 2011.

Details

Written by The DIY Hunter

Category: Technical

Published: 21 January 2011

Hits: 2774

With me getting an HS10 FujiFilm camera for my hunting and shooting adventures my wife was feeling a little camera envy... or maybe it was the fact that I wouldn't let her touch my camera, hmm... maybe. Anyway, we purchased a Nikon L110 camera for her. It's a great camera with a 15x optical zoom, runs on AA batteries, takes 12MP photos and it just flat out takes great photos with no technical experience needed. Just what my wife needed. My FujiFilm HS10 is a lot more complicated and requires setting the camera into manual mode and adjusting the shutter speed to take good quality photos indoors.

To ease the process of my wife managing our family photos I purchased an Eye-Fi X2 SD card to use in her Nikon L110 camera. What a neat system Eye-Fi has! I will admit there was one major hurdle in getting it set up. Eye-Fi claims that their card works on N based wireless networks as long as your wireless Router/Access Point runs on the 2.4 MHz frequency.

Well, I could never get the Eye-Fi card to connect to my TRENDnet TEW-637AP a wireless Access Point (AP) that according to Eye-Fi support information should work. I couldn't get it to connect even with turning off the N networking on the AP and running as a B/G network.  I would think that this was just a problem with this specific AP if a good friend of my hadn't had the exact same problem with a completely different brand of router. Lucky for me I kept an old G router and it works flawlessly with the Eye-Fi card.

I tried every setting I could think of and searched high and low across the web for some magic setting that would get the Eye-Fi card to connect to my N Access Point to no avail. If you're having troubles like I had getting the Eye-Fi card to connect to your wireless network you might try an older G router something that doesn't have N networking.

Now whenever my wife turns on her camera in the house the chip built into the card is programmed to upload and organize the photos on our family server in date named folders. I also set the card to automatically remove all but the last gig of photos taken on the card as long as it has confirmed that it has uploaded the photos.

So after the Eye-Fi card uploads the photos it will delete the oldest photos and video on the card so that the card only holds the most recent photos and video taken, leaving 3 gigs available for new photos and video. It's a neat system, perfect for my wife who doesn't have to know where, how, and what to do with her pictures once she has taken them. The Eye-Fi card does all the work automatically for her. Really neat!