Sony and the perfect tele-converter?

I'm pretty sure this is going to be a dumb question, but I've gotta know...

I shoot Nikon - D850, D500, D7200, D300. And several Nikon lenses including a 500/f4.

And a Nikon 1.4X and 2.0X.

And a Sigma 150-600C with the Sigma 1.4X.

Like a lot of people, I'm starting to nibble at mirrorless cameras and considering moving to Sony.

Several weeks ago I made a statement that I don't dislike tele-converters but try not to use them unless necessary because of the perceptible loss of quality.

Yesterday, a colleague was displaying a series of images she'd captured with her Sony A III and Sony 100-400. They looked good on the screen and she stated categorically that every bird in the image, had eyes that were ABSOLUTELY sharp. I was surprised because the image was at 400mm, and the birds covered at least 15-20 feet in DOF.

After showing several images, she claimed that "Not ONLY were these shot with the 100-400, but EVERY ONE was shot with a 1.4X and there is ABSOLUTELY NO LOSS OF SHARPNESS. I questioned her accuracy and she became very adamant that every image was sharp, with great DOF, and absolutely sharp even WITH the Sony 1.4X on her lens.

I recently tested my 150-600 with my 1.4X on my D500 body. The lens has been micro-AF calibrated both with and without the tele-converter. It's a good lens, and it does a good job, but I would NEVER claim it's a sharp WITH the tele-converter as without.

I have done exactly the same thing with my Nikon 500/f4 and the matching Nikon tele-converter - micro AF calibration and tested with and without. Again, the 500/f4 on the D500 or D850 is a very good lens, but I was STILL never claim it's as sharp WITH the 1.4X as without...

If her claims are valid, or even extremely CLOSE to valid, that would certainly be another push toward Sony. An Alpha 1 with the Sony 200-600 and their 1.4X that could capture images with no loss of sharpness would be very nice in difficult situations...

In y'all's experience with your Sony mirrorless cameras and lenses like the 100-400 (not the $7000 150-400) and tele-converter(s), is their quality actually this perfect?

I've tried using Kenko teleconverters to test lens sharpness, but I found teleconverters never reduced the sharpness of the base lens at least in the center of the frame. I gave up on that idea. Teleconverters can be misaligned like any other lens, though that is fairly rare even with inexpensive ones.

I can add that the SEL14TC works well on the 200-600 G.

The 1.4x is good, the 2.0x not so much, its not bad its just that the 1.4x is better but that's understandable, the teleconverters are just magnifiers and extra glass. They work best with tele primes.

By coincidence, I have just taken an image for someone on the m43 forum with the A1, 200-600 + 1.4x TC as he wanted to know about the resolution. I would say that the 1.4x is very good but of course, it muct have lower resolution than the bare lens even if using it gives more detail in the image.

Here's my test image and a 100% crop from it. I hope that helps. The guy on the m43 forum thought it was poor. I think it's good. Ho hum.



View attachment b10d527d2ed841f18f671bc44111b74d.jpg







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I use a the Sony 600mm f4 with Sony 1.4x and occasionally the 2.0x converter. In my use, I find the conditions are more important in terms of sharpness. Thursday
i went to a preserve. The air seemed clear, maybe a light haze in the distance as the preserve is surrounded by farms and farms mean dust from the tractors. I have photographed there many times during this winter but on Thursday my images were dismal using the A1, 600mm and 1.4x. The images were soft and noisy.

Yesterday I went to another preserve. But the conditions were cold and windy. And the combination nailed nearly every shot.

I used to shoot Nikon. And not offend anyone, I could never get my Nikon D500 and D850 to render as sharply as the Sony (a9, A7R4 or A1) with the 600mm and converters. The Sony 600 is superb and so are converters.

Anyway, here is one from yesterday with the A1, 600mm f4 and Sony 1.4x converter. BTW, the converter stays on my 600mm about 80% of the time now. The 2x converter: well I have not played with it all that much so I cannot give you a definitvie answer on it's performance.



Dave

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that is an absolutely insane image...crisp and sharp.

tri-pod?

i'd love to see the full res version.

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as always,
thank you fellow DPR members for your kind words and encouragement.

Paul Auclair said:

that is an absolutely insane image...crisp and sharp.

tri-pod?

i'd love to see the full res version.

Click to expand...

Yes, tripod.

Thanks!

Dave

Thanks for the replies... I'm a little confused about the image of the pigeon... In that 100% view, the person thought it WASN'T sharp?

If that's a "poor" image from an A1 (I presume that means Alpha 1?), I definitely need to seriously consider a Sony in the future. I'd LIKE to be more excited about the Nikon Z9, but its vaporware...

This isn't an Olympus question, but in a recent webinar, the presenter gave a BIG push for the Olympus M1X because with the tiny sensor it makes a 100-400 a 200-800, AND it yields 2 stops of light over a FF body since f/4 on the Olympus is the same as f/8 on the FF... Smaller, lighter (though the M1X appears about the same weight as the D850), and so on sounds good, but the loss of dynamic range and headroom, and the tiny, low resolution sensor sounds less good... The BIGGEST thing I see on the Olympus is the Pro Capture where it starts shooting when you focus than keeps the previous 30 (34?) shots when you shoot, along with the next 140 or some such at 18fps.

I haven't noticed that on any of the other mirrorless cameras. The presenter claimed no more missed take-offs and a lot of other no-more-missed stuff.

dperez said:

Thanks for the replies... I'm a little confused about the image of the pigeon... In that 100% view, the person thought it WASN'T sharp?

If that's a "poor" image from an A1 (I presume that means Alpha 1?), I definitely need to seriously consider a Sony in the future. I'd LIKE to be more excited about the Nikon Z9, but its vaporware...

This isn't an Olympus question, but in a recent webinar, the presenter gave a BIG push for the Olympus M1X because with the tiny sensor it makes a 100-400 a 200-800, AND it yields 2 stops of light over a FF body since f/4 on the Olympus is the same as f/8 on the FF... Smaller, lighter (though the M1X appears about the same weight as the D850), and so on sounds good, but the loss of dynamic range and headroom, and the tiny, low resolution sensor sounds less good... The BIGGEST thing I see on the Olympus is the Pro Capture where it starts shooting when you focus than keeps the previous 30 (34?) shots when you shoot, along with the next 140 or some such at 18fps.

Click to expand...

shutter half press locks focus (with ProCap High speed, or begins C-AF with ProCap Low speed) and begins the 'buffering' of images. full shutter press records your predetermined number of frames to the card.

you can set the number of images recorded after the shutter press higher than the number of images captured before the shutter press but you'd generally want to set the majority of burst images to be captured before the shutter press.

ie. set ProCap to capture 30 frames before the full shutter press and 5 frames after the full shutter press. the 5 frames after the full shutter press is a safety net in case you jumped the gun on the shutter press. you can choose a bigger safety net at the expense of filling your card.

so you'd want to half press the shutter to begin the buffering and once you've seen the subject do whatever it is your hoping to capture, you then fully depress the shutter to record the sequence to the card.

if you set ProCap to capture 5 frames before the shutter press and 30 frames after the shutter press...you'd likely not have captured the image...too late...you might as well just shoot high speed bursts.

the difference with with ProCap and just shooting bursts is ProCap's buffering of images while not recording all of the images...so you can simply hold the half press all day long until you see the 'thing' happen and then full press shutter to save the sequence.

dperez said:

I haven't noticed that on any of the other mirrorless cameras. The presenter claimed no more missed take-offs and a lot of other no-more-missed stuff.

Click to expand...

i like to capture birds and BIF and the closer to the subject the better.

i've 'tried' several times with ProCap but never have been happy with it so i'm not a fan of Olympus' ProCap High (S-AF up to 60fps) or ProCap Low (C-AF up to 18 fps)...therefor one can take the following with a grain of salt.

with ProCap High, it's single AF lock (and AEL) at the start of the half shutter press.

the closer the subject is to the camera the faster the subject leaves the DoF. i've tried numerous times to capture small birds in flight (either landing on a perch or leaving a perch) with ProCap H and have yet to succeed in capturing one single image, worth printing/posting, which meets my personal standards for printing/posting.

i've found, at the same close range as above, ProCap Low (which uses C-AF for each frame) does no better because the AF is still not fast enough to capture a bird quickly leaving the DoF. same as above....no results worth printing or posting.

i've not managed to will any birds, at the close distances i like to shoot with, to consistently leave/arrive at a perch on a perfectly parallel plane to my lens' focus...therefor the birds are never in the DoF of the camera lens long enough to capture them.

folks with more skill than me may achieve better results than me (i haven't seen any evidence of it) but from what i've seen most folks use ProCap with the subject being at a much further distance than I care to capture. also at longer distances the DoF is larger and any slight OoF is harder to ascertain.

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as always,
thank you fellow DPR members for your kind words and encouragement.

Djehuty said:

The 1.4x is good, the 2.0x not so much, its not bad its just that the 1.4x is better but that's understandable, the teleconverters are just magnifiers and extra glass. They work best with tele primes.

Click to expand...

The 1.4x teleconverter is also easier to use (less demanding).

The 2x Sony teleconverter do add detail, but at a lower f/ratio exposure times becomes longer and focusing becomes a bit less reliable too. And often turbulent air (air currents) limit the resolution too when shooting at a distance.

At my location even the Sony 100-400 GM is very often limited by turbulence at the longer end with a 24MP camera. The atmosphere is the limit pretty often.

The 2x converter has probably gotten a worse reputation simply because it is more demanding - and so also more phrone to sub optimal outcome.

dperez said:

Thanks for the replies... I'm a little confused about the image of the pigeon... In that 100% view, the person thought it WASN'T sharp?

Click to expand...

That's what he said. He said the 200-600 had half the resolution of the Panasonic Leica 100-400. I think he's wrong.

dperez said:

If that's a "poor" image from an A1 (I presume that means Alpha 1?), I definitely need to seriously consider a Sony in the future. I'd LIKE to be more excited about the Nikon Z9, but its vaporware...

Click to expand...

It is a Sony Alpha 1.

dperez said:

This isn't an Olympus question, but in a recent webinar, the presenter gave a BIG push for the Olympus M1X because with the tiny sensor it makes a 100-400 a 200-800, AND it yields 2 stops of light over a FF body since f/4 on the Olympus is the same as f/8 on the FF... Smaller, lighter (though the M1X appears about the same weight as the D850), and so on sounds good, but the loss of dynamic range and headroom, and the tiny, low resolution sensor sounds less good... The BIGGEST thing I see on the Olympus is the Pro Capture where it starts shooting when you focus than keeps the previous 30 (34?) shots when you shoot, along with the next 140 or some such at 18fps.

I haven't noticed that on any of the other mirrorless cameras. The presenter claimed no more missed take-offs and a lot of other no-more-missed stuff.

Click to expand...

Tony Rogers said:

Here's my test image and a 100% crop from it. I hope that helps. The guy on the m43 forum thought it was poor. I think it's good. Ho hum.

View attachment b10d527d2ed841f18f671bc44111b74d.jpg

Click to expand...

Poor? Poor! Yeah..more like jealous. Very sharp!

Mark Smith just did a video explaining why he left Nikon (still has some Nikon gear) for Sony. As for teleconverters I've seen some amazing photos with the 1.4. Also with the 2x I've seen some great photos as well. But many say the opposite.

Tony Rogers said:

By coincidence, I have just taken an image for someone on the m43 forum with the A1, 200-600 + 1.4x TC as he wanted to know about the resolution. I would say that the 1.4x is very good but of course, it muct have lower resolution than the bare lens even if using it gives more detail in the image.

Here's my test image and a 100% crop from it. I hope that helps. The guy on the m43 forum thought it was poor. I think it's good. Ho hum.

View attachment b10d527d2ed841f18f671bc44111b74d.jpg

Click to expand...

Some people just don't like Sonys, gotta get used to it.

I'm not familiar with Mark Smith, but the video is interesting. It's long, but it echoes, I believe, the struggle some of us are having with the changing technology.

I could virtually echo some of his statements - have a D850 and a D500, and a Nikon 500/f4 (which isn't quite as bad as the 600), but it's still a chunk. And several other Nikon lenses.

Thanks for the additional info on the Olympus. I'd see the blurb, and got a BIG push from the presenter, but other than that I'm not familiar with them at all.

I read FOUR reviews of the Nikon Z7 II, because I'm STILL trying NOT to uproot my whole photographic world, but GADS, the thing got absolutely butchered in EVERY ONE of them. Ken Rockwell was probably the worst, but the best that can be said about ANY of them was "damning with faint praise". Of the, "this is pretty good, but lags behind Sony" type. LOTS of those. And quite a few that felt the Canon was ALSO better in a number of respects than the Nikon.

The BIGGEST problem was that EVERY review flatly stated that the Z6 and Z7 are NOT suitable for sports or birds or anything that moves fast. One review I could ignore, but it seems fairly consistent...

And the video was another nail in the coffin...

I can't wait to tell the domestic associate I NEED a $6500 Alpha 1 and a half dozen lenses. I may be living in the garage.

An image says more than 1000 words. The 200-600 is doing pretty well against a 12000€ lens.

Saying you don't lose sharpness with the 1.4tc is not true. You always lose a little but you will have a hard time keeping the pictures apart.

Oddly, I have the SAME problem getting the *&^%$# birds to take off PARALLEL to me! They INSIST on going in whatever direction THEY want! I've tried talking to them, but so far that hasn't worked.

I have a friend who was a Canon shooter for years. Late autumn she replaced her 5D with an A7RIII. Seemed happy with it. She was the genesis for my original question about tele-converters. She insists the Sony setup works PERCEPTIBLY better than her 5D and 100-400 with 1.4X EVER did in terms of sharpness. And better than her Tamron Gen 2 150-600, period.

Sent an email asking about her thoughts, and found out she's now COMPLETELY left Canon, replaced her 7DII with an A9 and says her rate of keepers WITH the 100-400 and 1.4X is FAR higher than it ever was. And that the whole THING is lighter, quicker and easier for her "tired old bones" to handle.

My reservation about that combination is that currently my D500 with 150-600 is a DX sensor and 900mm. At only 24 megapixels, I can't see being able to shoot the A9 in DX mode 'cause the size would be like images from 2008.

I CAN shoot the D850 in DX mode and get a reasonable size, but I don't because among other things the DX area is small in the viewfinder. From what I understand, the A7R III is good for a lot of things, but it's not OPTIMAL for chasing birds and creatures and things that move fast like race cars and air shows.

Losing that 300mm with the A9 would seem like a problem.

If the Alpha 1 can do what the A9 does as well as the A9, and what the A7R does as well as the A7R, and it gives me a full viewfinder view in DX mode, it seems like a good solution and only 1 body to carry.

I ALSO found out there are adapters that will let me use Nikon lenses on the Sony. I'm guessing it'll have the same limitations as the Nikon adapter has on the Nikons (MANY many limitations), but it MIGHT let me use my Nikon 28-300 walkaround lens and 16-35 wide angle 'til I replace them...

The OTHER issue I have is we photograph cat shows. I have to be tethered to Lightroom to work with clients, and the D850 does that really well. It doesn't appear that the A7R? (or an Sony I'd buy) will tether.

Trollmannx said:

Djehuty said:

The 1.4x is good, the 2.0x not so much, its not bad its just that the 1.4x is better but that's understandable, the teleconverters are just magnifiers and extra glass. They work best with tele primes.

Click to expand...

The 1.4x teleconverter is also easier to use (less demanding).

The 2x Sony teleconverter do add detail, but at a lower f/ratio exposure times becomes longer and focusing becomes a bit less reliable too. And often turbulent air (air currents) limit the resolution too when shooting at a distance.

At my location even the Sony 100-400 GM is very often limited by turbulence at the longer end with a 24MP camera. The atmosphere is the limit pretty often.

The 2x converter has probably gotten a worse reputation simply because it is more demanding - and so also more phrone to sub optimal outcome.

Click to expand...

With more reach, atmospheric conditions becomes an absolute barrier and it becomes irrelevant how sharp your lens is or how high your megapixels are, all you'd get is wavy soft mush.

All things considered, thus I say the 1.4x is more practical, the 2x is rather specialised and limiting, its not the fault of the device, its just how AF and light works, since A9iis lose PDAF at F8 and A7R4 lose PDAF at F11, the 2x would easily push that limit over.

the SEL14TC is the best tc on the market, but there is a slight p.q. penalty, can't argue with the laws of physics.

the issues are minimized with the 400/2.8 and 600/4, of course

dperez said:

Oddly, I have the SAME problem getting the *&^%$# birds to take off PARALLEL to me! They INSIST on going in whatever direction THEY want! I've tried talking to them, but so far that hasn't worked.

I have a friend who was a Canon shooter for years. Late autumn she replaced her 5D with an A7RIII. Seemed happy with it. She was the genesis for my original question about tele-converters. She insists the Sony setup works PERCEPTIBLY better than her 5D and 100-400 with 1.4X EVER did in terms of sharpness. And better than her Tamron Gen 2 150-600, period.

Sent an email asking about her thoughts, and found out she's now COMPLETELY left Canon, replaced her 7DII with an A9 and says her rate of keepers WITH the 100-400 and 1.4X is FAR higher than it ever was. And that the whole THING is lighter, quicker and easier for her "tired old bones" to handle.

My reservation about that combination is that currently my D500 with 150-600 is a DX sensor and 900mm. At only 24 megapixels, I can't see being able to shoot the A9 in DX mode 'cause the size would be like images from 2008.

I CAN shoot the D850 in DX mode and get a reasonable size, but I don't because among other things the DX area is small in the viewfinder. From what I understand, the A7R III is good for a lot of things, but it's not OPTIMAL for chasing birds and creatures and things that move fast like race cars and air shows.

Losing that 300mm with the A9 would seem like a problem.

If the Alpha 1 can do what the A9 does as well as the A9, and what the A7R does as well as the A7R, and it gives me a full viewfinder view in DX mode, it seems like a good solution and only 1 body to carry.

Click to expand...

The Alpha 1 can certainly do that. This shot is cropped considerably more than APS-C mode.

dperez said:

I ALSO found out there are adapters that will let me use Nikon lenses on the Sony. I'm guessing it'll have the same limitations as the Nikon adapter has on the Nikons (MANY many limitations), but it MIGHT let me use my Nikon 28-300 walkaround lens and 16-35 wide angle 'til I replace them...

The OTHER issue I have is we photograph cat shows. I have to be tethered to Lightroom to work with clients, and the D850 does that really well. It doesn't appear that the A7R? (or an Sony I'd buy) will tether.

Click to expand...

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