TC-E3ED 3x telephoto lens converter - worth it?

Hi,

I'm considering buying this lens for my Coolpix 880. Is it worth it?

Has anybody around here bought it?

Thank you in advance for the answers!

Julien

Julien said:

Hi,

I'm considering buying this lens for my Coolpix 880. Is it worth it?

Has anybody around here bought it?

Thank you in advance for the answers!

Julien

I purchased it for 990 and am very happy with it. Takes a little getting use to since you must use the monitor. Bought a shade for $8.00 that cuts down light on the monitor on a sunny day that helped also (Ritz). The Nikon lens is excellent.

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Julien40923 said:

Jack

Click to expand...

I just bought one. Useful, but the jury is still out. Do a search of this forum. You will find manyy threads (including mine) that may help in your decision

Julien said:

Hi,

I'm considering buying this lens for my Coolpix 880. Is it worth it?

Has anybody around here bought it?

Thank you in advance for the answers!

Julien

Click to expand...

In just the past several days there was a good thread discussing E3 vs E2. Also discussed, the consderation for getting an E2 for general ease of use, then also something "serious," such as an inexpensive (under $200) EagleEye 5x or Kenko 8x32 for big tele stuff.

== jim

logan ross said:

Julien said:

Hi,

I'm considering buying this lens for my Coolpix 880. Is it worth it?

Has anybody around here bought it?

Thank you in advance for the answers!

Julien

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Well that's precisely the kind of information I'd like to read! I'll do a search!

As a matter of fact I also considered getting the E2 for a while, but I just thought I might as well get something more serious, as you say, so that's why I was thinking about the E3 rather.

As for the EagleEye 5X and the Kenko 8x32, I've never heard about them as I'm fairly new to digtal cameras.

However, do you have any url I could look up for those? One point also to consider is that I'm leaving in Europe, so I'm ok for buying anything online, but I don't want to spend half the price to have the item shipped over!

Thanx everybody for your comment so far!

Julien

jim=NDez said:

In just the past several days there was a good thread discussing E3
vs E2. Also discussed, the consderation for getting an E2 for
general ease of use, then also something "serious," such as an
inexpensive (under $200) EagleEye 5x or Kenko 8x32 for big tele
stuff.

== jim

Click to expand...

Julien said:

Hi,

I'm considering buying this lens for my Coolpix 880. Is it worth it?

Has anybody around here bought it?

Thank you in advance for the answers!

Julien

Click to expand...

Julien,

The following images were taken of the March 8, 2001 liftoff of Discovery. I was 2.5 miles from the pad right at sunset using the TC-E3ED at full zoom. The images are 1024 x 768.



Go for main engine start



Liftoff + 4



Start of roll program



Max Q



"Discovery, go at throttleup"



Booster separation

It's a good lens and I'm happy with it. I hope to have some more telephoto shots this Saturday, April 7 when I get shots of the Mars Odyssey 2001 launch.

Regards,
Frank

Hi Frank,

well that looks good! As a matter of fact the reason why I want to get such a lens is because I'm a great motorsport fan, and I enjoy making pictures at the races.

The major problem is that one is usually standing far away from the track. In the past years I've made pictures using a 35-105mm lens and a 210mm lens on a Canon T90 - not a digital one of course! The 35-105 is a too "short" for this kind of pictures while the 210 is much more comfortable but still not enough really - appart from Monaco where you're really close to the action, but that's an exception.

So I though that the E3 was a good solution - equivalent to 290mm, that's kind of what I'm looking for - and looking at your pictures, it definitely looks like it!

There had previous posts on this matter, which I also read, but I'm affraid t's might be a problem to get the lenses here in Europe - France precisely.

I'll go to the shop tomorrow, check out if they have these EagleEye or Kenko lenses, but if not I'll go for the E3.

Thanx everybody!

Frank said:

Julien said:

Hi,

I'm considering buying this lens for my Coolpix 880. Is it worth it?

Has anybody around here bought it?

Thank you in advance for the answers!

Julien

Click to expand...

Julien,

The following images were taken of the March 8, 2001 liftoff of
Discovery. I was 2.5 miles from the pad right at sunset using the
TC-E3ED at full zoom. The images are 1024 x 768.



Go for main engine start



Liftoff + 4



Start of roll program



Max Q



"Discovery, go at throttleup"



Booster separation

It's a good lens and I'm happy with it. I hope to have some more
telephoto shots this Saturday, April 7 when I get shots of the Mars
Odyssey 2001 launch.

Regards,
Frank

Click to expand...

Julien said:

Well that's precisely the kind of information I'd like to read!
I'll do a search!

As a matter of fact I also considered getting the E2 for a while,
but I just thought I might as well get something more serious, as
you say, so that's why I was thinking about the E3 rather.
As for the EagleEye 5X and the Kenko 8x32, I've never heard about
them as I'm fairly new to digtal cameras.

However, do you have any url I could look up for those? One point
also to consider is that I'm leaving in Europe, so I'm ok for
buying anything online, but I don't want to spend half the price to
have the item shipped over!

Thanx everybody for your comment so far!

Click to expand...

Julien40923 said:

Julien

Click to expand...

Here's a few URL's for you. The Eagle Eye OpticZoom 5x can be purchased from Eagle Eye in the UK or from PhotoSolve in the US. The Kenko 8x32 and CrystalVue 8x from CKC Power in the US. The Eagle Eye OpticZoom is a more useful lens that the two 8x, gathers more light - better optics, but all will perform with the CP950/990.

http://www.eagleeyeuk.com
http://www.photosolve.com
http://www.ckcpower.com
Lin

I had a few reasons for picking the TC-E3ED

1) The Nikon name

2) The relatlivly small size, fitting my three compartment waist pouch with ease along with the Wide Angle lens
3) Color and low distortion

Here are two pics (standard and E3) . The first two out of the box . No pictorial pics, just taken to get a feel for the lens.

Julien said:

Hi,

I'm considering buying this lens for my Coolpix 880. Is it worth it?

Has anybody around here bought it?

Thank you in advance for the answers!

Julien

Click to expand...

I stopped @ a local camera shop in NJ today to do a quick test with a few lenes ansd a Baush and Lomb 78-1600 Discoverer scope. it was a very cloudy day.The pics with the scope, I was just holding the camera up to the scope by hand. I had no way to mount it. And the pics were @400 ISO.

Since it was a quick test, very cloudy out, pics taken inside store, hard to hold the camera against the scope, especially at the higher powers, results may be better under different circumstances.

But the real reason for the post is to show you the difference with the TC-E2 and the TC-E2 + B300 direct comparison. It's a little more versatile than just the TC-E3.

Here's some pics:

990@3x:



990@3x + TC-E2:



990@3x + TC-E2 + B300:



990@3x + scope @15x:



990@3x + scope@20x:



990@3x + scope@25x:



990@3x + scope@30x:



990@3x + scope@40x:



990@3x + scope@50x:



990@3x + scope@60x:

Julien said:

As a matter of fact I also considered getting the E2 for a while,
but I just thought I might as well get something more serious, as
you say, so that's why I was thinking about the E3 rather.
As for the EagleEye 5X and the Kenko 8x32, I've never heard about
them as I'm fairly new to digtal cameras.

However, do you have any url I could look up for those? One point
also to consider is that I'm leaving in Europe, so I'm ok for
buying anything online, but I don't want to spend half the price to
have the item shipped over!

Thanx everybody for your comment so far!

Julien

jim=NDez said:

In just the past several days there was a good thread discussing E3
vs E2. Also discussed, the consderation for getting an E2 for
general ease of use, then also something "serious," such as an
inexpensive (under $200) EagleEye 5x or Kenko 8x32 for big tele
stuff.

== jim

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

If you have this tele, or the TC-E2, or the Eagle eye, actually ANY lens attachment (even use mine with the fisheye), get yourself an Xtend-a-view Pro from photosolve.com. Makes your 990 or 880 feel like an SLR, at least a little. Also steadier for handholding that monster lens.

Now that I have had the E3 for a couple of days, let me tell you what my first impressions are:

I like it...I like it alot. The resulting pictures are very sharp. One of the biggest objections to the E3 I have seen is that its weight is too much for the 990 swivel. While this might be the case, the lack of a swivel on the 880 makes this a moot point for me.

I find that low light (indoor) pictures are tough because they require a slower shutter speed and without a tripod the pictures always seem to be a bit blurry and using faster shutter speeds results in a black box (no picture). In well lit settings (outside for instance), its a whole nother picture (no pun intended). I had no problem taking hand-held, crisp, sharp pictures. I also did not find the lens too bulky to be useful.

Final thoughts:

I am keeping the E3. Perhaps if I had the 990 swivel body or the 990's higher in-camera zoom (3x), I might consider the E2 instead. Either way I believe I made a worthwhile investment.

Logan,

My only major complaint about the TC-E3 on the 880 is its very limited focus range. You pretty much have to have it fully zoomed in order to avoid vignetting. You can only zoom out slightly from full zoom before experiencing the problem. It's real easy to find yourself in a situation where you have too much zoom with this lens. The images however are very sharp, even those with vignetting.

I also agree with you that trying to get good focus indoors with it is very tough. You pretty much have to have a tripod if you're using available light. I haven't tried this with a flash because I don't yet have a slave flash to try this with. Perhaps this would allow you to hand-hold it taking indoor pictures.

I also just got the TC-E2 about a week ago or so. Haven't really played around with it a lot, but it seems to have a much wider focus range. It seems to allow you to zoom out about halfway before experiencing vignetting. I also like the smaller size of this lens. Focusing indoors with available light can still be a problem, however. I do suspect that I'll be using this lens more frequently than the E3.

Regards,

Robert

logan ross said:

Now that I have had the E3 for a couple of days, let me tell you
what my first impressions are:

I like it...I like it alot. The resulting pictures are very sharp.
One of the biggest objections to the E3 I have seen is that its
weight is too much for the 990 swivel. While this might be the
case, the lack of a swivel on the 880 makes this a moot point for
me.

I find that low light (indoor) pictures are tough because they
require a slower shutter speed and without a tripod the pictures
always seem to be a bit blurry and using faster shutter speeds
results in a black box (no picture). In well lit settings (outside
for instance), its a whole nother picture (no pun intended). I had
no problem taking hand-held, crisp, sharp pictures. I also did not
find the lens too bulky to be useful.

Final thoughts:

I am keeping the E3. Perhaps if I had the 990 swivel body or the
990's higher in-camera zoom (3x), I might consider the E2 instead.
Either way I believe I made a worthwhile investment.

Click to expand...

Robert Niesen said:

Logan,

My only major complaint about the TC-E3 on the 880 is its very
limited focus range. You pretty much have to have it fully zoomed
in order to avoid vignetting. You can only zoom out slightly from
full zoom before experiencing the problem. It's real easy to find
yourself in a situation where you have too much zoom with this
lens. The images however are very sharp, even those with
vignetting.

Click to expand...

Maybe this is a dumb question, but, wouldn't it be okey to ignore the vignetting, zoom to whatever XXX you want and then just crop a rectangle out of the middle in your imaging software? I would think there is sufficient resolution to do this with little or no loss of quality in the final image. Just a thought. PatiO.

PatiO,

I actually posed this thought myself on this forum awhile back, and I think you could definitely do this. Just kind of a pain, but you can get some incredibly sharp pictures even with vignetting.

Here's some example shots I took last month at the San Diego Zoo, the first with a lot of vignetting down to the last with none:

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1526260&a=12432536&p=45637027&Sequence=0&res=high

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1526260&a=12432536&p=45637045&Sequence=0&res=high

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1526260&a=12432536&p=45637062&Sequence=0&res=high

As you can see, the images are very sharp, and you could crop the vignetted ones if you wanted to.

Regards,

Robert

PatiO said:

Robert Niesen said:

Logan,

My only major complaint about the TC-E3 on the 880 is its very
limited focus range. You pretty much have to have it fully zoomed
in order to avoid vignetting. You can only zoom out slightly from
full zoom before experiencing the problem. It's real easy to find
yourself in a situation where you have too much zoom with this
lens. The images however are very sharp, even those with
vignetting.

Click to expand...

Maybe this is a dumb question, but, wouldn't it be okey to ignore
the vignetting, zoom to whatever XXX you want and then just crop a
rectangle out of the middle in your imaging software? I would
think there is sufficient resolution to do this with little or no
loss of quality in the final image. Just a thought. PatiO.

Click to expand...

All right, so I got it this evening!

Well, so far I've tryed at home in crapy light condiftion so the pictures quality is just awful, but it looks promising! I can't wait to use it for real!

Thanx everybody for your comments!

Julien