Hi Sherm, Related to your suggestion the other day:
For the P900/950, I think you'd find something like the Canon 500D much more useful. It's available in several diameters - I'd suggest the 58mm with a 67-58mm stepdown ring, since that won't interfere with the lens retraction.
I have a Canon 500D 58mm on the way. Got a new in the box on Ebay for $48 that included shipping and tax.
Want to make sure I get the right stepdown ring - this one is free shipping, ships from NJ,
https://tinyl.io/8jQu
Thanks for looking at this. Ev
The description is correct. The picture is wrong. The picture is showing a step up ring. Perhaps it is just an generic picture of a ring.
On the P900/950, does the lens pull back so far as to be a problem if the closeup filter were larger than the lens? I have the P1000 which takes a 77mm filter size, and I have the 77mm 500D, perfectly matches the size of the lens. When retracted, the closeup lens would not hit anything since it does not retract into the camera, and it could be larger. But I don't know about the P900/950.
You may need to stop down a bit with the 58mm closeup filter in place to avoid vignetting.
Agree. The picture is wrong. The larger lens would have worked, but it's a bit heavy.
Have I purchased the wrong stepdown ring? Or the wrong lens? Or both wrong?
Thanks. Ev
You're OK - It's likely that the vendor uses the same picture for all the stepup/stepdown variants.
There are several diameters of 500D. I think the one you purchased will be just fine for the P950.
OK - great news. They have been shipped and on the way. Thanks.
Ev
Whats the difference between this lens and the close up filter lenses I got with my P900? I have a +1 a +4 a +7 and a +10 and I can stack them for even more power.
The more expensive lenses are "achromatic" -They're made of two layers of glass and are designed to minimize chromatic aberration. The low-end sets of 4 lenses consist of a single layer of glass and their images have lots of colored fringing.
I can show an example. First, I do have the Canon 500D and there is no color fringing. And I have the three Minolta closeup ring set with #0, #1 and #2 for which there is no color fringing also.
But during my photography dark ages, I bought a 3 ring set from Tiffen, a +1 diopter, a +2 diopter and a +4 diopter. And I remember buying them in the photography section of Best Buy. That was the brand that they carried.
Here is the +1 diopter on a Hibiscus flower. Not much magnification with the +1 diopter and I don't see any fringing. And you can clearly see the yellow pollen balls.
Now let's go to a +4 diopter. And if you zoom in all the way, you can see lots of purple fringing.
Now it so happens that I can correct this fringing, if I wanted to. But bear in mind that fringing is actually destructive to the image, and I think that fixing is not a correct description for what we do to it. Instead, what we are really doing is hiding the fringing to the point that it is not so noticeable. Some may feel OK with this method. Others don't want anything to do with it. And sometimes, the fringing is so bad, that hiding it no longer works.
Do these close up filters work well with the 75-300 lens? I might use them there since I also have a 58mm close up filter kit (alas it's from Tiffen lol.)
I also got my hands on a 1.7x light weight (250g) Sony frontside TC and it works amazingly well with the 75-300 lens and also with my Fuji HS50. I took strawberry full moon shots and it's very easy to handhold on both lenses!
The 75-300 at the tele end becomes 1020mm EFL (2040mm with the x2 DTC) and 1700mm EFL on the Fuji HS50 at f/5.6 (3400mm EFL with x2 IDZ)!
That makes it brighter than what the P1000 can do, because if I remember correctly, it only goes to 1600mm at f/5.6? Beyond f/5.6 is where diffraction sets in and resolution suffers.
I have two of the front side TCs. One is a 1.7x made by Olympus called the TCON-17X. And the other is the Minolta 1.5X ACT-100. The TCON-17X fits in 55mm filter threads and the ACT-100 fits in 49mm filter threads.
I find that they can work quite well, but you should experiment with what f-stop works best for any given lens. Also, it is not a good idea to use IBIS for image stabilization. The camera has no idea that the TC is hanging out there an can compensate incorrectly. Besides, hanging that heavy weight out on the end of the lens is not an easy thing to deal with if you try hand holding. Best bet is to turn off IBIS and to mount the camera on a tripod.
I don't used these front end TCs very much and find that I only use them to answer questions about how well, or not so well, that they might work. I don't think I have actually tried it on my Olympus 75-300mm lens.
Here are 2 sites that have done some comparison's of several TC's:
Tele Converter Comparisons (mtu.edu)
Some High Quality Telephoto Converter Lenses (mtu.edu)
Here is a shot that I once did using an older Olympus 70-300mm lens on an EM1. This house and gazebo is about at 1 mile distance. I started at 300mm, but the weight of the TC had walked it back to only 226mm for an eqivalent 453 mm before the 1.7x TC and for a final equivalent 770mm. If I were to critique this image is that just above the roof of the gazebo, the white has sort of bloomed a bit and you can see the effect immediately above it. This may also be due to atmospheric distortion considering that this is about 1 mile as measured on Google Maps. Also about 1000 feet higher in elevation to where I was at.
And a resize of 4x using Gigapixel AI of the gazebo.
As for close up filters on the 75-300mm lens, I only tried it with the el cheapo Tiffen filters, which I shared above, but haven't tried it using better close up filters. I could do this, but today has been some rain and gloomy weather.
For comparison, here is a shot of the same gazebo taken with the P1000. It is a different day, and the atmospherics are somewhat different. This is ISO 110, f8 and an effective FL of 1800mm. In my opinion, diffraction is not yet a major problem at f8, but I am seeing more atmospheric distortion on this day compared to the earlier shot. I can also tell I was not exactly in the same spot as the house is more hidden, but I was close to where I had been before. And it a different time of the year and the grasses are brown this time.
And here is a P1000 at the full 3000mm equiv FL of something close enough that atmospherics are not a concern. ISO 100, and f8. Again, diffraction is not yet a concern.
