The Teleconverter Dilemma

[nerwin]

Now that I finally own the 70-200 f/4 VR, its time to decide on which teleconverter to buy.

Just a little disclaimer, I understand that teleconverters won't give me the same image quality like the 200-500 5.6 or the Sigma 150-600 lenses would. I don't shoot that range all that often, so I don't see the reason to spend that kind of money right now. A teleconverter is small enough to fit in my bag easily and it's there when I need it.

Okay now that we got that out of the way, here is my dilemma.

I have no interest in the 2x TC.

So I have narrowed it down between the 1.4 & 1.7 TCs and from my research, the 1.4x will have little to no effect on the awesome performance that the 70-200 f/4 has, besides losing the 1 stop of light. It will give me 280mm at the long end and since the lens has very high image quality and that my D610 is 24mp, I could easily crop to 300mm and still have very high IQ than my 70-300 VR could ever manage to produce. I also could easily crop to 340mm that the 1.7 TC would give me and probably get away with it, I could even crop to 1.5x (I don't try to crop beyond 1.5x) and that would give me 420mm equivalent and the image quality would probably still be pretty decent.

Now with the 1.7x TC, I'll get to 340mm with a lost of 1.3 stops of light (I think) and a slight dip in the image quality, I think someone said it was like 17% lost of sharpness but it will still produce better quality images at 300mm than the 70-300 VR can do. Now what I find a little intriguing is that if the full resolution image quality is very good at 340mm, I could could crop to 1.5x and get an equivalent of 510mm! That's a HUGE number, but the question is, could I get away with it in a pinch?

So the question remains, is it worth to get the 1.7x TC and sacrifice the image quality to have the flexibility to crop to 510mm when needed to? Or am I just better off to go with the 1.4x TC and still retain the high quality from the 70-200 f/4 and miss out on the ability to crop down that far?

I really cannot decide which one would be better for me. It's tough.

 

[jcdeboever]

A TC on a zoom? I know you can but I would think the quality would be sacrificed. Maybe OK if the subject is still. I can see it on a prime but what do I know.

 

[nerwin]

A TC on a zoom? I know you can but I would think the quality would be sacrificed. I can see it on a prime but what do I know.

Yeah the 70-200 f/4 handles them very well from my research, better than the 2.8s in some cases. I'm slightly leaning toward the 1.4x because it hardly sacrifices the image quality from the 70-200 f/4 but man that extra 60mm can really make a difference sometimes. But I suppose I can't have it all. Lol

 

[480sparky]

Get the 1.4x and that will give you a better reach relative to your light loss (1 stop). If you need more reach, you can crop and probably end up with better image than if you used a 1.7x (replete with its 1.5-stop loss).

 

[Gary A.]

I've used the Canon 1.4x on the 70-200 F/2.8 and it delivered a great image. Absolutely no complaints.

 

[Overread]

A TC on a zoom? I know you can but I would think the quality would be sacrificed. Maybe OK if the subject is still.

This view was very true in the earlier days of zoom lenses; and still is for many budget zoom lenses on the market today. However the top end of the market has advanced a lot to the point where high end options, like the afore mentioned 70-200mm f4, can easily take a 1.4TC with a negligible loss of image quality. The 1.7 is, from what I've read, a bigger hit on image quality, but still very useable. The 2*TC tends to be a bigger hit all around although some of the very newest 70-200mm f2.8 versions can take them and still produce useable results.
On an f4 I think the 1.4TC would be the most worthy to invest in. You can use it a lot of the time without a large loss of quality nor aperture. The 1.7 might be worth getting, but I can't really comment as Canon don't make one for me to give a comparable experience of.

 

[nerwin]

A TC on a zoom? I know you can but I would think the quality would be sacrificed. Maybe OK if the subject is still.

This view was very true in the earlier days of zoom lenses; and still is for many budget zoom lenses on the market today. However the top end of the market has advanced a lot to the point where high end options, like the afore mentioned 70-200mm f4, can easily take a 1.4TC with a negligible loss of image quality. The 1.7 is, from what I've read, a bigger hit on image quality, but still very useable. The 2*TC tends to be a bigger hit all around although some of the very newest 70-200mm f2.8 versions can take them and still produce useable results.
On an f4 I think the 1.4TC would be the most worthy to invest in. You can use it a lot of the time without a large loss of quality nor aperture. The 1.7 might be worth getting, but I can't really comment as Canon don't make one for me to give a comparable experience of.

It's not an easy decision as one would think! Haha.

The odd thing is that the 1.7x TC cost more new than a new 1.4x TC, but its cheaper used than a used 1.4x TC. I dunno...

 

[runnah]

Rent both and try them out. Although I see more converters in the bottoms of bags than on cameras if that means anything.

 

[MSnowy]

I use the 1.4 and the 1.7 on my 70-200 2.8 vrii with great results

 

[nerwin]

I use the 1.4 and the 1.7 on my 70-200 2.8 vrii with great results

It doesn't sit on the bottom of your bag like @runnah said?

 

[MSnowy]

I use the 1.4 and the 1.7 on my 70-200 2.8 vrii with great results

It doesn't sit on the bottom of your bag like @runnah said?

Nope I use the 1.4 with my 500mm also

 

[480sparky]

My 1.4 doesn't sit in the bottom of any bag. It's between my D7100 and 200-500.

 

[Derrel]

Buy my TC 14e! Consider the slight difference between 1.4 and 1.7x. By my math, that's a difference of 0.3x, which can likely be made up for by computer-cropping on a good original image. My feeling now, in 2017, is that we've hit the 24 to 36 million pixel erea so there's not much need for a 1.7x converter that was designed back in the 4.2 million pixel D2h era. Yeah--a whopping 4.2 million pixels on a pro d-slr; that is the era of the TC 17. The TC-20e I bought used, tried for one day, and took back....UGHHH!

THe 1.4e has been a good converter for me. I have two. at one time I used one on my 70-200 and the other on my 300/4 AF-S.