EC14 and the 70-300mm lens

I just received the EC1.4 teleconverter for an anniversary gift from my wife. Evidently it doesn't provide auto focusing for this lens.

Anyone able to confirm this ?

--
Regards,

Steve

Nah, it'll autofocus fine in sufficient light situations. This is one of those situations were Oly CYA's cause there will be problems in low light. Of more concern is holding the thing steady at the long end...
--
Ron

Richard DH said:

I just received the EC1.4 teleconverter for an anniversary gift from
my wife. Evidently it doesn't provide auto focusing for this lens.

Anyone able to confirm this ?

Click to expand...

It certainly does AF. I have shot hundreds of images of birds with this combo. The AF works fine but it tends to hunt a bit in low light situations. 95% of the pictures in my gallery below were taken with this combo S-AF+MF, A Priority, f/8, ISO 400. Most were hand held. At full zoom, I have, at times, experienced some soft images and have used a tripod but by and large they are hand held.
--
Milt

Author of 'Brain Surgery, Self Taught'
http://picasaweb.google.com/okreb1

All 1.4x teleconverters reduce light and slow the lens down by about one stop. With the 70-300 f/4-5.6 the EC-14 reduces the f-stop to about an f/5.6 to f/8 lens across the zoom range. That's pretty slow for a telephoto lens. That's the aperture wide open, where the lens works to find focus. It's often too dim for the camera to focus. It will only work in bright sunlight.

Not counting in-body IS, to get decent photos when hand held you need a shutter speed equal to the inverse of the focal length in 35 mm equivalents, regardless of the camera type, make or size - DSLR or P&S. For the 70-300 on the Oly 4/3 format you need 1/140 sec (or 1/160) for 70 mm and 1/600 (1/1000) for 300 mm. At 300 mm and f/5.6 it will take bright daylight to get 1/1000. Any longer zoom would require bright sunlight, bigger apertures (a fast expensive lens), a tripod, high ISO or a combination of the above. The large aperture (small f-number), more expensive lenses have the bright apertures needed for using the EC-14 and EC-20. It's intended for any of the Pro Grade zooms like the Olympus Zuiko 35-100 mm f/2.0, 150 mm f/2.0 or 90-250 mm f/2.8 due to the need for bigger apertures with a converter.

The 50-200 mm lens is a good choice with the EC-20 or EC-14. The EC-14 also works well on the 50 mm f/2 and the 14-54 f/2.8-3.5 lenses.

The 70-300 on the Oly 4/3 format is equivalent to a 140-600 mm zoom on a 35 mm film camera. That's a good telephoto length on any camera.
--
Dave
Underwater Photographer w/ E-3 & C-8080
http://whaleshark.smugmug.com

I'm not sure what your issue might be, but mine focuses just fine. In fact, I don't really see any real difference in focusing speed using the EC-14. The 70-300mm isn't exactly the speed focusing king of lenses to start with, but once it's locked on, it's accurate. In addition, I find that it actually tracks pretty well with the EC in C-AF mode if you can lock on to your subject to begin with.

Are you saying that you can't attain focus at all in S-AF mode? Perhaps you have have a contact issue, or something is set wrong. Does the EC-14 work fine with your other lenses?

The image below was captured a couple weeks back using this combo and S-AF -- no focus problems here!

God Bless,
Greg
http://www.imagismphotos.com
http://www.pbase.com/daddyo

EUREKA ......when one switches the AF/MF to AF on the lens itself sho do work mo better.

--
me thinks tho taketh thyself too seriously

Been there, done that, missed the T-shirt (and the photo).

dave gaines said:

Not counting in-body IS, to get decent photos when hand held you need
a shutter speed equal to the inverse of the focal length in 35 mm
equivalents, regardless of the camera type, make or size - DSLR or
P&S.

Click to expand...

Have you actually tested this with both a digicam and a dslr?

Digicams do not use 35 mm sized lenses. They use weeny little lenses that match their weenie little sensors, no different than full frame cameras use large lenses that match their large sensors. Neither uses a crop or a system like Olympus uses and the handheld shutter speed rule of 1/focal length applies to each of them individually. At least that is what my tests show. Any photo my digicam can do handheld at 100 ISO and minumum handheld shutter speed, I need to use 800 ISO on my dslr to get the same photo handheld. (Same FOV, DOF...the same photo) That's 3 stops. So looking at it another way, at 1/400 on my dslr (without IS) at 400 mm equivalent and 100 ISO means I should be able to use about 1/50 on my non IS digicam handheld at 400 mm equivalent (63 mm actual) and 100 ISO. I'd been just that for a very long time before I did this test below to show those who wouldn't believe that. If I was limited to 1/400 at the long end of my megazoom, there is no way I would have used it for 3 years. And I chose an in body IS dslr to be able to match those speeds.
All photos are 63mm actual and 400 mm equivalent.