D90 Lens Converter

[pblew]

I have a Nikon D90 with aAF-S Nikkor 70-300mm zoom lens. I want to buy a converter to increase my range to take long distance sports and animal pictures. Does the Vivitar 2X Af 7e Teleconverter work with the 70-300mm lens?

 

[SCraig]

In the photographs I looked at it has the contacts for the lens so it "Should" work properly.

Keep in mind a couple of things about teleconverters:

1. A 2x TC is going to cost you two full f-stops. If you are shooting at f11 you are going to have to open up to f5.6 for example. That gets very costly as the skies get darker.

2. A 2x TC is probably not going to autofocus very well at all. The image is really starting to get dark after it goes through two sets of optics.

3. Image quality is poor on most inexpensive TC's. You are adding several more elements in the optic chain and each one can cause a slight amount of image degradation. This is not always the case though. Well-made TC's have less image degradation than others.

Do these come from experience? Yes, they do. I have a 2x TC at home and I never use it simply because it does not work well. I give up too much light, I give up too much sharpness, and it just plain does not do what I want.

That said, I also have a 1.4x TC that I do use from time to time. It costs one f-stop and very little in sharpness. I personally would recommend that over a 2X. There are no free rides with optics, and although doubling your focal length may sound good it does not work out as well as it sounds.