picked up the TC 1401 for my sigma 150-600 sport lens. not so happy

[dannylightning]

cant seem to get a good photo with the TC... also f/9 is the widest aperture i can use, not f/8 as advertised. it seems to be missing focus and even in descent lighting the ISO gets up there, and the photos have lots of noise..

i have taken photos without the TC in sub-par lighting that had much higher iso and have turned out much better.. ill post 2 examples..

one photo i took in descent lighting with the TC of a squirrel, this photo does not look good at all. The other photo of a great blue heron was taken in much worse lighting conditions and higher ISO and still looks good.

 

[kap55]

The focus point of the first photo looks to be a few inches in front of the squirrel. Also was there much cropping of that photo?

 

[dannylightning]

the focus point on the cameras is set in the center and was directly on the squirrels head, the photo was cropped some, maybe a 50% crop, at 100% crop the photos look really bad.

without the TC and 100% crop my photos usually still look good.

some things i could not get the lens to focus on at all with the TC on it. like the house across the street i was trying to photograph just to see how it would turn out, i took photos of quite a few different things and none of them looked very good.

 

[table1349]

This is not directed at your lens/TC combination as I have no experience with either. It is rather a general comment about TC use. The TC is always going to cause some bit of image degradation due to it's very nature. It is designed to be used with various lenses. With that in mind, from my own experience I find that the only lenses I will use a TC on and be satisfied with the results are the very best of lenses in terms of sharpness. On my 300mm f2.8, 400mm f2.8 I have absolutely no qualms about using it. Both of those lenses are sharp enough to shave with. The IQ is well within my acceptable range when I use either the EF 1.4x III or the EF 2x III. On my 70-200 f2.8 II I have used with satisfactory results the 1.4 as well. The 2x was marginally acceptable on that lens and not something I would do by choice.

The second of the two photos lends me to suggest that you ask for an exchange of the TC and see if that makes a difference. It may be an issue with that particular TC.

 

[robbins.photo]

Ok, so a couple of things here.. in regards to the autofocus - the TC does cause you to lose one Fstop of light, so when you zoom out with the TC unless your shooting in really good lighting the camera's AF system apparently isn't getting enough light for the AF system to work. Your pretty much at the upper end limit of what the camera's AF can handle at F8, so that isn't too surprising.

My guess is you are hand holding and you have the OS system set to OS-1. Try setting it for OS-2 or even shutting it off and shooting with a tripod, and see if that makes a difference.

 

[JacaRanda]

Totally with Gryph on this one. From pretty much everything I have ever read about TC's, you pretty much need top notch lenses to get good consistent results. You already have a crop camera, and decent lens to 600mm. Crop and Stalk. It's kind of a be happy with that scenario.

I have a 1.4 TC version III for Canon and will only put it on a 300F4 or 70-200F4 lens .......when I want to be frustrated. Can't wait to use it on an 500f4 II some day. That's kicking it up a few notches.

 

[table1349]

Ok, so a couple of things here.. in regards to the autofocus - the TC does cause you to lose one Fstop of light, so when you zoom out with the TC unless your shooting in really good lighting the camera's AF system apparently isn't getting enough light for the AF system to work. Your pretty much at the upper end limit of what the camera's AF can handle at F8, so that isn't too surprising.

My guess is you are hand holding and you have the OS system set to OS-1. Try setting it for OS-2 or even shutting it off and shooting with a tripod, and see if that makes a difference.

Ok, I'm not a Digital Nikonian, but it was my understanding that if the lens is an f8 or faster the AF will work. With the one stop of light loss it becomes an f8-f9. If it is the f9 you are concerned about then I would suggest to the op that he shot a couple of test shots at the short end of the range making it an f8 and see if the AF responds better then. If so then I think the problem is isolated. If not then it may be in that tc/lens compatibility.

 

[SCraig]

This has pretty much been my experience when using a TC with a long lens as well. I can get better shots by cropping rather than using the TC most of the time.

Edit ... Incorrect and misleading statement removed.

 

[coastalconn]

Regardless of what marketing people say, you are asking too much to put a TC on any of the 150-600 lenses. You are making it a F9 lens and it will not AF well except in perfect light. Also you need to fine tune it. You are pushing the ISO too high in both shots in my humble opinion...

 

[dannylightning]

This is not directed at your lens/TC combination as I have no experience with either. It is rather a general comment about TC use. The TC is always going to cause some bit of image degradation due to it's very nature. It is designed to be used with various lenses. With that in mind, from my own experience I find that the only lenses I will use a TC on and be satisfied with the results are the very best of lenses in terms of sharpness. On my 300mm f2.8, 400mm f2.8 I have absolutely no qualms about using it. Both of those lenses are sharp enough to shave with. The IQ is well within my acceptable range when I use either the EF 1.4x III or the EF 2x III. On my 70-200 f2.8 II I have used with satisfactory results the 1.4 as well. The 2x was marginally acceptable on that lens and not something I would do by choice.

The second of the two photos lends me to suggest that you ask for an exchange of the TC and see if that makes a difference. It may be an issue with that particular TC.

Ok, so a couple of things here.. in regards to the autofocus - the TC does cause you to lose one Fstop of light, so when you zoom out with the TC unless your shooting in really good lighting the camera's AF system apparently isn't getting enough light for the AF system to work. Your pretty much at the upper end limit of what the camera's AF can handle at F8, so that isn't too surprising.

My guess is you are hand holding and you have the OS system set to OS-1. Try setting it for OS-2 or even shutting it off and shooting with a tripod, and see if that makes a difference.

that TC is designed for use with the lens that i have and 2 other lenses only... so its basically made for my lens.

the main 2 issues are is the focus is off and its reading f/9 instead of f/8 like they say.. someone else also wrote a review saying that says f/9 is the best they can get instead of F/8 like sigma claims.. have not saw any other people saying they have a focus problem. the lighting was not bad at all when i took that photo it was not mid day and super bright but its what i would consider to be good-descent lighting..

i shoot do shoot hand held, or with a mono pod but i often pick the mono pod up off the ground to shoot, i hate using a tripod, make me miss allot of shots, slows me down too much.

i have tried the different OS settings and that does not help..

 

[dannylightning]

Regardless of what marketing people say, you are asking too much to put a TC on any of the 150-600 lenses. You are making it a F9 lens and it will not AF well except in perfect light. Also you need to fine tune it. You are pushing the ISO too high in both shots in my humble opinion...

are you saying i need to do a fine tune with the TC on the lens..

 

[robbins.photo]

Ok, so a couple of things here.. in regards to the autofocus - the TC does cause you to lose one Fstop of light, so when you zoom out with the TC unless your shooting in really good lighting the camera's AF system apparently isn't getting enough light for the AF system to work. Your pretty much at the upper end limit of what the camera's AF can handle at F8, so that isn't too surprising.

My guess is you are hand holding and you have the OS system set to OS-1. Try setting it for OS-2 or even shutting it off and shooting with a tripod, and see if that makes a difference.

Ok, I'm not a Digital Nikonian, but it was my understanding that if the lens is an f8 or faster the AF will work. With the one stop of light loss it becomes an f8-f9. If it is the f9 you are concerned about then I would suggest to the op that he shot a couple of test shots at the short end of the range making it an f8 and see if the AF responds better then. If so then I think the problem is isolated. If not then it may be in that tc/lens compatibility.

The upper end is F8 with some of Nikon's better APS-C bodies - but once you hit that the AF system does become hit and miss, it struggles more to lock on - and if your not in good lighting it will sometimes not be able to lock on at all. I had similar experiences with my D7100.

My first recommendation is to try switching to OS-2 rather than OS-1. I used a Sigma 70-200mm F/2.8 with OS for a while, and I noticed that when using OS-1 I would often have blurrier, out of focus shots where as OS-2 or shutting the OS off entirely would alleviate the issue.

Check and see if by using OS-2 or when possible shutting the OS off (which will be a little tougher tat those focal lengths) produces different results.

As Jaca mentioned using a TC with faster lenses really is your best bet, they really don't work all that well with slower glass.

 

[table1349]

If you are shooting at the long end of the telephoto then it is f9. A full stop up from f6.3 is f9. That why I suggested you shoot at the 150mm range and see if the AF is better. As SCraig mentioned you may actually have a minimum aperture of f9. The general rule has been 1 f stop loss with a 1.4X and 2 f stop with a 2x. A 5.6 - 6.3 minimum f stop range is at the border if not over the limit of the AF mechanism.

 

[dannylightning]

Ok,
My guess is you are hand holding and you have the OS system set to OS-1. Try setting it for OS-2 or even shutting it off and shooting with a tripod, and see if that makes a difference.

As Jaca mentioned using a TC with faster lenses really is your best bet, they really don't work all that well with slower glass.

well i have been reading good reviews about this lens and TC combo and i have been wondering about it for a while now. finally decided to give it a try.. it started raining and got cloud covered so i cant do much with it right now. ill play with it a little more and see what happens.. ill probably send it back if i cant get any better results

 

[robbins.photo]

well i have been reading good reviews about this lens and TC combo and i have been wondering about it for a while now. finally decided to give it a try.. it started raining and got cloud covered so i cant do much with it right now. ill play with it a little more and see what happens.. ill probably send it back if i cant get any better results

Ok, well truth be told I'd probably recommend you return it anyway unless you wanted to keep it to use with a faster lens at some point, honestly it's just not going to give you good, consistent results with that particular lens. Your AF is going to struggle in anything other than ideal lighting conditions when your zoomed out, and if your not zoomed out all the way your not really getting much benefit from the TC anyway.

Like the others in this case I'd recommend you simply shoot without it and crop a little more when needed.