Strange Question/technique

[MackieStaggie]

Ok....not sure if this is the right forum for this, but I need to get some thoughts on something I witnessed today, and whether I'm missing a trick here. I was at a Shinty game today and noticed a fellow photographer was pushing and pulling the hood of his lens to move the zoom in and out rather than the zoom ring. Not sure what lens he was using but looked like it was something larger than a 70-300mm.

Wouldn't that cause damage to the zoom mechanism doing it that way, or is it a perfectly valid technique. I managed to get a shot of a 150-600 Sigma today and found that zooming in and out was a tad awkward but didn't want to copy his technique as the lens is not mine.

 

[redsnappa]

Some older zoom lens had push-pull mechanisms for changing the zoom.

 

[JackBarley]

Older canon 100-400mm was push pull to zoom.

 

[MackieStaggie]

Cheers guys, never came across something like this before so wasn't sure. I would be right in thinking if it was a newer lens this type of action would cause damage?

 

[HoppyUK]

Some older zoom lens had push-pull mechanisms for changing the zoom.

Yes, it was very popular. Many zooms adopted a push-pull mechanism though in more recent years the Canon 100-400 Mk1 was just about the only survivor. Even that is now discontinued and the Mk2 version has a twist zoom ring.

Some tele-zooms with twist-rings are actually quite okay to be push-pulled. The Sigma 150-600 S-version is advertised as such, not sure about the C-version but I'd say if it feels okay and moves smoothly without undue resistance, then no harm will come of it.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

The problem is that you can not see what is going on inside the lens, the main helix might move in and out easily enough, but in most modern lenses a number of the elements are also scuttling about like spiders in a sort of dance, and they might not be so happy about being forced in this way.
It is probably best to use the zoom ring unless the manufacturer says differently.

 

[myotis]

I was at a Shinty game today and noticed a fellow photographer was pushing and pulling the hood of his lens to move the zoom in and out rather than the zoom ring. Not sure what lens he was using but looked like it was something larger than a 70-300mm.

The new Sigma 100 - 400mm is designed to be used with this push-pull action as well as using the zooming ring. And the lens hood is meant to be designed to allow this.

Useful for Nikon users as the zoom ring on Sigmas turn the wrong way for us.

Not sure if this applies to any other lenses though. I see it’s mentioned earlier that this also applies to some other Sigma lenses.