Have 70-300mm VR need teleconverter lens

Hi guys I have a 70-300mm VR lens (and a 180mm 2.8, which i want to use the teleconverter lens I buy on both lens if possible). My thing is I like sports photography and was thinking about buying a good 2X teleconverter lens for my 70-300mm but don't find any for that lens. Any suggestions?

Do I need to upgrade in lens? If so which would be your top pick for my D7100?

Thanks alot for your feedback.

James
D7100 fan.

AFAIK there is no tele convertor for the 70-300. Besides, it's far too slow a lens for sports photography. Adding in a TC will just make it slower.

The Nikon TC-20E 2X converter is not compatible with the lenses you have according to the information on the Nikon website


It appears the the TC-17E 1.7X converter should b compatible with your lenses.


If you want a 2X converter you may need to look at something like the ones made by Kenko however, I'm not sure whether they are compatible with your lenses.


or




Just be aware that using a teleconverter will make the lens a few stops slower which means that the AF may not work as well and they will not work as well for sport in low light as the shutter speed would be too slow.

dtnjnq said:

The Nikon TC-20E 2X converter is not compatible with the lenses you have according to the information on the Nikon website

http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/lens/teleconverters/af-s_tc-20e_3/index.htm

It appears the the TC-17E 1.7X converter should b compatible with your lenses.

http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/lens/teleconverters/af-s_tc-17e_2/index.htm

If you want a 2X converter you may need to look at something like the ones made by Kenko however, I'm not sure whether they are compatible with your lenses.

http://www.kenkoglobal.com/photo/le...lens_accessories/teleplus_mc7_af_20x_dgx.html

or

http://www.kenkoglobal.com/photo/le..._accessories/teleplus_pro_300_af_20x_dgx.html

Just be aware that using a teleconverter will make the lens a few stops slower which means that the AF may not work as well and they will not work as well for sport in low light as the shutter speed would be too slow.

Click to expand...

The Nikon 70-300 VR lens is not compatible with any of the Nikon TCs mentioned (TC-20E III, TC-17E II and TC14E II) despite what Nikon say in the Nikon links above. The Nikon 180 f/2.8 lens is also not compatible. with these TCs There is a tab on the Nikon TCs which stops incompatible lenses being mounted. The tab may be broken off but it is there for a reason.

You should be able to use a Kenko TC with the 180 f/2.8 lens.

You would lose 1 stop with a x1.4 TC and 2 stops with a x2 TC. It is not recommended to use a TC on a Nikon 70-300 VR lens because the auto-focussing and the image quality will be very poor. A x2 TC would turn the lens into a 140-600mm f 8.5 - 11 lens. Nikon say that a D7100 will only reliably AF with lenses with a maximum aperture of f/5.6.

I think you would get very frustrated trying to use the 70-300 lens with a TC and particularly so with sports.

Regards

Paul

...or you could buy a Nikon 1 camera which has a 2.7 x crop factor - longer than any teleconverter and no loss of light....

D7100fan said:

Hi guys I have a 70-300mm VR lens (and a 180mm 2.8, which i want to use the teleconverter lens I buy on both lens if possible). My thing is I like sports photography and was thinking about buying a good 2X teleconverter lens for my 70-300mm but don't find any for that lens. Any suggestions?

Do I need to upgrade in lens? If so which would be your top pick for my D7100?

Click to expand...

James, your results will be rubbish. Sticking a teleconverter on a consumer zoom lens is a recipe for disastrous image quality: too many optical compromises already in any zoom lens. You'll be better off just cropping in postprocessing.

Having said that, I did see some fair images from a Nik 70-200 F2.8 with a TC but that is a very expensive lens and the results were only fair. You could save up for a Nik 300/F4 (or F2.8) and put a TC on that.

I don't do sports but I do use my 300/F4 for birds providing they don't come too close (when I need something shorter): peregrine falcon flying, D300, Nik 300/F4, touch of flash.



My recipe is to get as close as I can rather than mess about with TCs and what not. I imagine it is the same for sports.

David

How about using the D7100's 1.3 crop factor mode?

VanA said:

How about using the D7100's 1.3 crop factor mode?

Click to expand...

The only benefit that gives over cropping post post processing is more FPS actually. If you don't need the extra frames per second, I would stay away from it.

D7100fan said:

Hi guys I have a 70-300mm VR lens (and a 180mm 2.8, which i want to use the teleconverter lens I buy on both lens if possible). My thing is I like sports photography and was thinking about buying a good 2X teleconverter lens for my 70-300mm but don't find any for that lens. Any suggestions?

Do I need to upgrade in lens? If so which would be your top pick for my D7100?

Thanks alot for your feedback.

James
D7100 fan.

Click to expand...

You need a longer lens. The 70-300 VR isn't teleconverter compatible and it is already rather soft at 300mm. It would be a better idea to buy the new Tamron 150-600 ($1000). The lens also gets somewhat soft at 600mm. A 300mm f4 with TC is a great combination at a reasonable price for an exotic tele.

Somebody mentioned the Nikon 1. I think it'd be a great idea for a variety of reasons. As for the original question, it's absolutely meaningless to use a teleconverter with a consumer lens. Even if we ignored all the ergonomics issues (no AF, dark viewfinder), the image quality will be somewhere between poor and atrocious.

Let's assume a 300mm f/5.6 + 2x teleconverter. Considering the DX crop factor, we then have a 900mm f/11 lens (wide-open at f/11!). Stopping down one stop, attempting - in vain - to improve image quality, we get 900mm and f/16. Good luck...

'twas me!

You can pick up a used Nikon V1 for the price of a teleconverter.

I love the combination giving a 200-800 eq crop factor:

























Just be aware that its an addictive combination and you may end up selling your DSLR like I did...

mosswings said:

You need a longer lens. The 70-300 VR isn't teleconverter compatible and it is already rather soft at 300mm. It would be a better idea to buy the new Tamron 150-600 ($1000). The lens also gets somewhat soft at 600mm. A 300mm f4 with TC is a great combination at a reasonable price for an exotic tele.

Click to expand...

I have owned two 70-300vr lenses and neither one of them was rather soft at all at 300mm. This was on D90, D300s and lately a D3200 with a new copy of 70-300vr. The latest is much sharper than my Canon 70D/70-300is at any focal length. Actually surprised me at 300/5.6 how sharp it was.

James

I find my 70-300VR sharpens up best ( at 300mm ) between f8 and f13. as always with zooms you need to keep the speed up too if possible.

jbarber said:

mosswings said:

You need a longer lens. The 70-300 VR isn't teleconverter compatible and it is already rather soft at 300mm. It would be a better idea to buy the new Tamron 150-600 ($1000). The lens also gets somewhat soft at 600mm. A 300mm f4 with TC is a great combination at a reasonable price for an exotic tele.

Click to expand...

I have owned two 70-300vr lenses and neither one of them was rather soft at all at 300mm. This was on D90, D300s and lately a D3200 with a new copy of 70-300vr. The latest is much sharper than my Canon 70D/70-300is at any focal length. Actually surprised me at 300/5.6 how sharp it was.

James

Click to expand...

"Rather soft" is of course a subjective description, and perhaps a better description would be "softens slightly". The 70-300 is at its sharpest up to about 220mm and loses a bit beyond that. My copy clearly exhibits this behavior; I regularly stop down to f/8 or more to compensate. Perhaps I have a bad copy, but many reports I've read agree with my observations. The 150-600 has the same behavior, but doesn't start going downhill until 400-450mm. The Tamron 70-300 remains a bit sharper at 300mm. For an all-purpose $600 consumer lens, the 70-300 is a good product, but it is showing its age a bit. And if you're putting a teleconverter on your lens, you're doing so because you want more magnification, and you need the lens to still be delivering at its longest FLs to make up for the loss in IQ from using the teleconverter. For longer FLs, I'd go a different path: start out with a 300 f/4.

I have been in the Canon world for a while and just bought a small Nikon kit of D3200/16-85/70-300 to get back to Nikon. My Canon 70-300 needs at least f10 at 300mm so I was quite surprised to see the Nikon 70-300 sharp at 300mm/5.6. I would never think of putting a teleconvertor on any of these lenses. My reason for responding was more the blanket statement about the 70-300 being rather soft at 300mm which has not been my experience at all. Maybe just got good samples. I am sure there are also bad ones.I have no experience at all with the Tamron so I can't speak to that.

James

If you're honestly in to shooting sports, you're going to have to break down sooner or later and buy a minimum of a 70-200 2.8 (VR I or II), 80-200 2.8, or MAYBE (if you shoot very little night time sports or indoor sports) a 70-200 f4. The next step is a 300 f4 or 300 2.8. Anything beyond that, and you better have a very well paying job, a trust fund, or do it for a living.

I don't know what kind of sports you shoot, but you can pick up an 80-200 f2.8 rather inexpensively however you aren't going to be using a TC with one. And for the record, the shooting the crop mode on a D7100 does more than give you an extra fps.....it also gives you a deeper buffer shooting RAW, and enhances your ability to time your shots and lessen the need for a deeper buffer by being able to anticipate when your shot is going to be entering your frame in many instances.

If you are really going to need a TC, you're going to have to bite the bullet and pony up for a 70-200 2.8, but as they say....buy once, cry once.