 Justin G. |
What to buy? Teleconverter or ext. tube? All, I'm on a limited budget and I want to buy a cool little gadget but not sure which I should buy. I would like to buy either an extension tube or a teleconverter. I love shooting macro, but I also love shooting wildlife; animals and such in their natural environment. I will probably be shooting macro more but also will be getting into portraits. Anyways, I'm assuming that I could use the teleconverter for both wildlife AND macro, even though its not truly macro. Is this true, if I went with the teleconverter I could obviously zoom more on my 75-300mm but couldn't I throw it on my 28-90mm and play with some macro. A lot have people have told me that "you're going to lose light" which is understandable but both my camera and myself and adjust for the light lost right? Thanks for all your help. V/r Justin
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Jon Close |
Yes, you can use the teleconverter for macro. It increases the focal length by 1.4x or 2x, yet the lenses will still focus to the same minimum distance. The 75-300 f/4-5.6 probably focuses to 1.5m. At 300mm that gives a 1:4 or 1:5 macro (1/4 or 1/5 life size image at the film/sensor plane). With a 1.4x TC you'll have 420mm focused to 1.5m giving 1:2 to 1:2.5. With 2x you have 600mm focused to 1.5m you'll get about 2/3 life size. With a 1.4x TC you'll have 105-420 f/5.6-8; with 2x it'll be 150-600 f/5.6-11. The smaller effective apertures mean that autofocus will not work reliably, the viewfinder will be darker making manual focus difficult, and you'll need longer shutter speeds requiring a tripod and still subject. There is also a loss of sharpness and contrast when using TCs, especially the 2x. TCs are best suited to telephoto lenses and are not recommended for use with wide angle zooms like the 28-90.
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Justin G. |
Am I going to lose a considerable amount of sharpness and contrast. Depending on the situation some situations might not even be noticeable correct? Thanks for your help by the way, I will probably just buy the TC. V/R Justin
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Andrew Laverghetta |
Hmm, I think I might go with the extension tubes myself. I didn't think that the TC's worked with every lens, do they? At least they don't auto focus, right? With a full set of extension tubes you could get some pretty close pictures with a good lens. If you like nature photography and aren't stressed for time when manual focusing, I'm sure you could go for that. Sharpness will probably be noticable as will a little bit of contrast. If your lens isn't toward the professional end, it might show a little more I would suspect.
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Justin G. |
Ok that's cool, now Andrew you say a full set. I'm not "in" yet with extension tube jargon so could you please elaborate. I see only things with numbers like "25", "25 II" and "12" and such. Should I get a 12 & 25? or is there more also? Thanks for your help! V/r Justin
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Justin G. |
Ok that's cool, now Andrew you say a full set. I'm not "in" yet with extension tube jargon so could you please elaborate. I see only things with numbers like "25", "25 II" and "12" and such. Should I get a 12 & 25? or is there more also? Thanks for your help! V/r Justin
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Justin G. |
Ok that's cool, now Andrew you say a full set. I'm not "in" yet with extension tube jargon so could you please elaborate. I see only things with numbers like "25", "25 II" and "12" and such. Should I get a 12 & 25? or is there more also? Thanks for your help! V/r Justin
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Justin G. |
Ok that's cool, now Andrew you say a full set. I'm not "in" yet with extension tube jargon so could you please elaborate. I see only things with numbers like "25", "25 II" and "12" and such. Should I get a 12 & 25? or is there more also? Thanks for your help! V/r Justin
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Justin G. |
Ok that's cool, now Andrew you say a full set. I'm not "in" yet with extension tube jargon so could you please elaborate. I see only things with numbers like "25", "25 II" and "12" and such. Should I get a 12 & 25? or is there more also? Thanks for your help! V/r Justin
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Justin G. |
Ok that's cool, now Andrew you say a full set. I'm not "in" yet with extension tube jargon so could you please elaborate. I see only things with numbers like "25", "25 II" and "12" and such. Should I get a 12 & 25? or is there more also? Thanks for your help! V/r Justin
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Andrew Laverghetta |
I have seen that Kenko makes a set of 3 extention tubes, 12, 20, and 36mm lengths. If you want to better understand what the extension tubes do, simply take off a lens and hold it about 10mm in front of the camera and move in close. This won't give you very good pictures most of the time, but you'll see how moving the lens further away from the film/sensor will get in closer. There's also a "life size" converter that you can get as well. Check this out... Hope this helps!
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