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Hack: pl 100-400 +oly mc14 = 140-560 mm . good or bad idea?

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Nacha

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all the hoopla of the oly 100-400mm being useable with a teleconverter has maybe left some of us pl 100-400 users feeling a little left out of the party.

hack video by Richart Asia:


what is the risk to the lens by removing this part? i assume that contaminants getting into this part of the lens normally protected by this piece would be deleterious to the operation of the lens, but is that a correct assumption? what if a tc was "permanently" connected, in effect sealing this rear element of the lens. it would not longer be a 100-400mm, but more like a 280-560mm lens. with my 50-200mm , get an effective range of 50-560mm. sounds kind of neat.
 
What's the goal/payoff? Is the loss of a stop on a lens not terribly fast on the long end, worth the inherent risks of gear surgery and/or banging the two elements together?

Cheers,

Rick

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I find that pretty interesting. Thanks for pointing that out.

It seems the technical info in the images shown at the end of the video is a little off. At 400mm WITH 1,4x attached f6.3 is impossible. Should be f8 instead.
 
Nacha said:
all the hoopla of the oly 100-400mm being useable with a teleconverter has maybe left some of us pl 100-400 users feeling a little left out of the party.

…..
Click to expand...
Interesting hack. I have both the TC and the Panasonic 100-400, but I'm not interested enough to modify my lens to get a F8 to F9-combo. It's sad though that you have to do a hack to use this combination. It could clearly have been done without a hack if Panasonic and Olympus cooperated more to get best possible "compatibility" between brands.
 
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Lumix make 1.4x and 2x TC too. To make the PL 100-400 compatible at all focal lengths, the lens would have needed to be physically longer.
 
Good point, but using the TC is obviously most interesting in the long end. I'd be happy with compatibility from 200-400mm.
 
My first, and last, reaction is the same: You can hack my $1,500 lens when you pull it from my cold, dead hands. I recall the "Warranty is void if this panel is removed" labels.
 
Nacha said:
all the hoopla of the oly 100-400mm being useable with a teleconverter has maybe left some of us pl 100-400 users feeling a little left out of the party.

hack video by Richart Asia:


what is the risk to the lens by removing this part? i assume that contaminants getting into this part of the lens normally protected by this piece would be deleterious to the operation of the lens, but is that a correct assumption? what if a tc was "permanently" connected, in effect sealing this rear element of the lens. it would not longer be a 100-400mm, but more like a 280-560mm lens. with my 50-200mm , get an effective range of 50-560mm. sounds kind of neat.
Click to expand...
It can be done, but can you use what is effectively a 1120mm field of view well enough to acquire a bird, follow it focus with the small aperture and keep on the bird during a sequence. I don't think I can, but some seem to be able to.

I realised some years ago that around 800m field of view is my limit for getting sharp hand held images. If I want more a quarter crop (5mpx) still gives me a sharp 1600mm field of view image. That's good enough for me.

You already have a lens which is at my limit. Can you handle more?
 
My first question would be whether this hack actually offers any image quality advantage over a crop without the TC?

The 100-400mm isn't fantastically sharp at 400mm f/6.3. Then you're magnifying the centre of the image with a TC that wasn't designed to work with it.

You can't really tell much about quality from a few sample shots in a youtube video, but to me the bokeh in some of the out of focus backgrounds looked a bit odd.
 
Just two screws and you can now :)
 
SteveY80 said:
My first question would be whether this hack actually offers any image quality advantage over a crop without the TC?

The 100-400mm isn't fantastically sharp at 400mm f/6.3. Then you're magnifying the centre of the image with a TC that wasn't designed to work with it.

You can't really tell much about quality from a few sample shots in a youtube video, but to me the bokeh in some of the out of focus backgrounds looked a bit odd.
Click to expand...
There are some higher res examples on his Facebook page. Most are quite high ISO, so hard to gauge. Interesting though.



165960978_1894243324056384_1514732109385741882_n.jpg






--
Just birds
Flickr
 
Ruairi said:
SteveY80 said:
My first question would be whether this hack actually offers any image quality advantage over a crop without the TC?

The 100-400mm isn't fantastically sharp at 400mm f/6.3. Then you're magnifying the centre of the image with a TC that wasn't designed to work with it.

You can't really tell much about quality from a few sample shots in a youtube video, but to me the bokeh in some of the out of focus backgrounds looked a bit odd.
Click to expand...
There are some higher res examples on his Facebook page. Most are quite high ISO, so hard to gauge. Interesting though.

165960978_1894243324056384_1514732109385741882_n.jpg
Click to expand...
That image is about 4mp and doesn't look super sharp to me.

There's an odd halo/smearing around the white petals, almost like a double image. I noticed something similar in the bokeh of some of the other images. It's not something I've seen with my 100-400mm, so I assume that's an issue caused by the unsupported TC.

Overall, I'm not convinced that it's worth removing bits from my 100-400mm to try it.
 
Skeeterbytes said:
What's the goal/payoff? Is the loss of a stop on a lens not terribly fast on the long end, worth the inherent risks of gear surgery and/or banging the two elements together?

Cheers,

Rick
Click to expand...
good point, some type of barrel stop hack would help to avoid the elements colliding.

re the " loss of a stop on a lens not terribly fast on the long end", i think most of the olympus 100-400 owners think the tc option is a strong positive regarding the buying decision between the oly and pl. otherwise the only other option will cost you $7500.00 and an apparently long wait.

is it "worth the inherent risks of gear surgery and/or banging the two elements together?" some people are really good at this kind of stuff. as hacks go, this is a pretty simple one. if one is willing to commit to having a dedicated tc mounted to seal off the rear, this could make for a very interesting/specialized setup.
 
SteveY80 said:
Ruairi said:
SteveY80 said:
My first question would be whether this hack actually offers any image quality advantage over a crop without the TC?

The 100-400mm isn't fantastically sharp at 400mm f/6.3. Then you're magnifying the centre of the image with a TC that wasn't designed to work with it.

You can't really tell much about quality from a few sample shots in a youtube video, but to me the bokeh in some of the out of focus backgrounds looked a bit odd.
Click to expand...
There are some higher res examples on his Facebook page. Most are quite high ISO, so hard to gauge. Interesting though.

165960978_1894243324056384_1514732109385741882_n.jpg
Click to expand...
That image is about 4mp and doesn't look super sharp to me.

There's an odd halo/smearing around the white petals, almost like a double image. I noticed something similar in the bokeh of some of the other images. It's not something I've seen with my 100-400mm, so I assume that's an issue caused by the unsupported TC.

Overall, I'm not convinced that it's worth removing bits from my 100-400mm to try it.
Click to expand...
Just put the bit back on after then. It's two screws.

That's the lowest ISO image I could find from our trailblazer.

--
Just birds
Flickr
 
Interesting hack. The small ring at the rear of the 100-400 unscrewed easily and came away without issue. Its absence leaves a gap a few millimeters wide through to the interior electronics.

The Oly 1.4x worked just as Richart Asia described. Both the Pana 1.4x and 2.0x teleconverters also worked without a hitch.

I'm mostly curious from a video recording perspective but I'll also test stills when I get the chance. It's currently just after midnight and we have days of torrential rain forecast ahead.
 
SteveY80 said:
My first question would be whether this hack actually offers any image quality advantage over a crop without the TC?
Click to expand...
the olympus would have the same issue, no? people are pretty happy to have the tc option for the olympus in general.

crop vs tc is an interesting discussion as it really depends on a lot of variables, starting with the quality of the optics to be magnified. my experience with the leica branded panasonic lenses is that the optical engineering is very good, and can withstand some magnification without image degradation (ie 50-200mm + tc14, 200f2.8 + tc14/20). granted, those were designed to be used with a tc , but im thinking a tc1.4 will work pretty well under the proper conditions.
SteveY80 said:
The 100-400mm isn't fantastically sharp at 400mm f/6.3. Then you're magnifying the centre of the image with a TC that wasn't designed to work with it.
Click to expand...
individual lens variation, mine is pretty good between 300-400mm, at least equivalent to the sample images i have seen from the oly 100-400.

SteveY80 said:
You can't really tell much about quality from a few sample shots in a youtube video, but to me the bokeh in some of the out of focus backgrounds looked a bit odd.
Click to expand...
fair point, but like many unique /specialized setups, practice may influence results
 
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