Teleconverters?

I

iggy4mayor

New member
Didn't see much about teleconverters on here.

So I know there are some extreme pros and cons with teleconverters. Most people want to get a teleconverter to make their 70 - 300 a 600mm lens for ~$200 (instead of thousands). Of course the downside is that most teleconverters are 2 f-stops, I believe. That would make your 600mm f/11. Woof, that sounds like a tough go in anything besides daytime. Which is what I want to shoot. Then figure that I need the SS to be at least 1/600 (but would probably wanna jump that to 1/1200+ for fast shots) and the f/11 and you're looking for something more than just bright sunlight. So, are teleconverters worth it?
 
Are you talking about video or stills?

For both video and stills, a 2x TC will severely degrade the image quality, the image will be noticeably softer, chromatic aberations, purple fringing etc will be more prominent.

For stills, AF won't work and the much higher resolution of the DSLR's 18MP is already taxing the optical resolution of lenses now, a 2x TC will not be an improvement, you're better off just cropping the image.
 
David W. Jones said:
Never had a problem with my Zeiss Mutar teleconverters.
Click to expand...

There may be a few exceptions, but most quality extenders are expensive, where it can equal the cost of an additional lens. The Zeiss Mutar how ever sharp, will not match up with Canon's auto focus and exposure control.
Extenders work, just depends what road you want to take.
 
Last edited:
The built-in doublers on high-end pro video zooms from Fujinon and Canon were quite satisfactory, these were 5 figure plus lenses and after testing them I did find they had a definite sweet-spot and I wasn't comfortable using them at all apertures for broadcast stuff. Still photography teleconverters seem to be generally worse. I did see some recent stuff shot with a Canon 300mm f4 L with a x1.4 that I thought looked ok. I think a lot of it depends on your delivery target; SD internet? no problem, 1080i broadcast? maybe but you better test it.
 
Start with good glass and you'll get satisfactory results... start with average glass and you'll get bad results.

I'm using a 2x teleconvertor with my Tamron 70-200 f/2.8, giving me a 140-400mm f/5.6, with funtioning autofocus (not that you need it for video). I'm more than happy with the results, and in 720p mode you would not even know the convertor is there.

Check out the Kenko Teleplus Pro 300 2x convertor - it is almost on par with the original Canon one optically. I also like it's shorter body length which makes your rig less unbalanced. In the 'usable' category are the MC7 convertors - the same one sold by Kenko is rebadged by Tamron. This is what I use and so far no issues. Avoid the MC4 versions - they are nowhere near as good.
 
I love it! The only thing I don't like about it is the short focus throw, though I don't know if the Canon version is any better in that department.
 
I know it's hard to gauge quality with vimeo compression but thise whole thing was shot with the 2x convertor on:


And this without:

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top