Teleconverter for Nikon

[birdbonkers84]

I have a Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 55-300 f4.5-5.6G VR lens, is it compatible with a teleconverter? I've been looking online and some to be going cross-eyed. Does anyone have this lens and use it with a teleconverter?

Thanks
Mark

 

[robbins.photo]

I have a Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 55-300 f4.5-5.6G VR lens, is it compatible with a teleconverter? I've been looking online and some to be going cross-eyed. Does anyone have this lens and use it with a teleconverter?

Thanks
Mark

I wouldn't recommend getting a teleconverter for this lens. A 1.4x TC will lose one stop of light. When your fully zoomed out at 300mm your at 5.6 before you add the TC. Adding in the TC makes your lens an F8.

On lower end Nikon bodies this means your lens loses the ability to autofocus. On higher end bodies you can still lose AF entirely, but even if you don't it will likely cause your AF to hunt unless the lighting is excellent.

TC's really aren't that good on slow lenses. You need a fast lens to really take advantage of them.

 

[Derrel]

f/4.5~5.6 does not bode well for ANY TC unit; the lens has too slow a maximum aperture to be of much real-world use with one, ot two stops' worth of light loss due to a TC. A second question: how far back is the rear element of the lens? If the rear element is within say a little bit less than within 1/2 inch of the mount, a Nikon TC unit will protriude too far into the lens to physically work. My guess is that the rear element placement makes this lens basically not-compatible with any Nikon-made TC units.

 

[astroNikon]

here is Nikon's chart for Teleconvertors ==> https://www.nikonusa.com/Assets/Common-Assets/Images/Teleconverter-Compatibility/EN_Comp_chart.html

note the "note" at the bottom ...

† Autofocus is available only with cameras that offer f/8 support. These include the D5, D500, D4/D4S, Df, D800/D800E, D810/D810A, D600/ D610, D750, D7100 and D7200. For cameras that do not support f/8, teleconverters can be used without autofocus.

FYI, a "fast lens" is normally defined as a lens with a fixed Large opening aperture.
Such as a 85/1.8, or a 70-200/2.8 or even a 70-200/4
The "1.8", "2.8" and "4" being the largest aperture that you can use across the entire range.

Adding a TeleConvertor to that, for example a TC 1.4x the 70-200/2.8 would be a f/4 aperture even at 200mm. Which allows enough light in for the AutoFocus system to work properly.

Camera bodies AutoFocus systems are limited to the maximum Aperture that it uses to focus on. If you use a 50/1.8 lens you may notice that the lens will jump to f/1.8 in order to AutoFocus then jump to the desired selected Aperture.

Here is Nikon's explanation of how to use a TeleConvertor ==> Using Teleconverters from Nikon

If you check on the "additional notes" you'll see this statement

The following lenses, although not a complete list, are not compatible with autofocus teleconverters: AF-S NIKKOR 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR, any 18-55mm lens, any 18-105mm lens, any 18-135mm lens, any 18-200mm lens, any 24-120mm lens, any 55-200mm lens, any 70-300mm lens, and any 80-400mm lens

You can add to that any 55-300 lens.

A "slow lens" is really any consumer level zoom lens that is variable minimum aperture (it varies dependent upon the focal length). Such as a 18-55/3.5-5.6 or 55-200/4-5.6. You'll notice though at the lowest focal length of 18mm and 55mm that is a good aperture for AF systems. But as you extend the range the aperture shrinks down and then AF system may have more issues.

This with a 55-200 @200mm using a 1.4 TC the f/5.6 used for AutoFocus would really be at f/8. If you aren't shooting in optimum lighting your AF system may have issues and won't get a AutoFocus.

As you can see in the chart, the consumer d3x00 and d5x00 and their kit lenses are not really compatible with TCs, thus they are not mentioned in the compatibility charts but are left out in the explicit lists of what is compatible.

 

[birdbonkers84]

I have a Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 55-300 f4.5-5.6G VR lens, is it compatible with a teleconverter? I've been looking online and some to be going cross-eyed. Does anyone have this lens and use it with a teleconverter?

Thanks
Mark

I wouldn't recommend getting a teleconverter for this lens. A 1.4x TC will lose one stop of light. When your fully zoomed out at 300mm your at 5.6 before you add the TC. Adding in the TC makes your lens an F8.

On lower end Nikon bodies this means your lens loses the ability to autofocus. On higher end bodies you can still lose AF entirely, but even if you don't it will likely cause your AF to hunt unless the lighting is excellent.

TC's really aren't that good on slow lenses. You need a fast lens to really take advantage of them.

Thanks for the info, it was something to work towards for the future, I guess I better get saving! lol

f/4.5~5.6 does not bode well for ANY TC unit; the lens has too slow a maximum aperture to be of much real-world use with one, ot two stops' worth of light loss due to a TC. A second question: how far back is the rear element of the lens? If the rear element is within say a little bit less than within 1/2 inch of the mount, a Nikon TC unit will protriude too far into the lens to physically work. My guess is that the rear element placement makes this lens basically not-compatible with any Nikon-made TC units.

Thanks for the comment, yeah it stick out quite a bit!

here is Nikon's chart for Teleconvertors ==> https://www.nikonusa.com/Assets/Common-Assets/Images/Teleconverter-Compatibility/EN_Comp_chart.html

note the "note" at the bottom ...

† Autofocus is available only with cameras that offer f/8 support. These include the D5, D500, D4/D4S, Df, D800/D800E, D810/D810A, D600/ D610, D750, D7100 and D7200. For cameras that do not support f/8, teleconverters can be used without autofocus.

FYI, a "fast lens" is normally defined as a lens with a fixed Large opening aperture.
Such as a 85/1.8, or a 70-200/2.8 or even a 70-200/4
The "1.8", "2.8" and "4" being the largest aperture that you can use across the entire range.

Adding a TeleConvertor to that, for example a TC 1.4x the 70-200/2.8 would be a f/4 aperture even at 200mm. Which allows enough light in for the AutoFocus system to work properly.

Camera bodies AutoFocus systems are limited to the maximum Aperture that it uses to focus on. If you use a 50/1.8 lens you may notice that the lens will jump to f/1.8 in order to AutoFocus then jump to the desired selected Aperture.

Here is Nikon's explanation of how to use a TeleConvertor ==> Using Teleconverters from Nikon

If you check on the "additional notes" you'll see this statement

The following lenses, although not a complete list, are not compatible with autofocus teleconverters: AF-S NIKKOR 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR, any 18-55mm lens, any 18-105mm lens, any 18-135mm lens, any 18-200mm lens, any 24-120mm lens, any 55-200mm lens, any 70-300mm lens, and any 80-400mm lens

You can add to that any 55-300 lens.

A "slow lens" is really any consumer level zoom lens that is variable minimum aperture (it varies dependent upon the focal length). Such as a 18-55/3.5-5.6 or 55-200/4-5.6. You'll notice though at the lowest focal length of 18mm and 55mm that is a good aperture for AF systems. But as you extend the range the aperture shrinks down and then AF system may have more issues.

This with a 55-200 @200mm using a 1.4 TC the f/5.6 used for AutoFocus would really be at f/8. If you aren't shooting in optimum lighting your AF system may have issues and won't get a AutoFocus.

As you can see in the chart, the consumer d3x00 and d5x00 and their kit lenses are not really compatible with TCs, thus they are not mentioned in the compatibility charts but are left out in the explicit lists of what is compatible.

Thanks for this detailed explanation

 

[fmw]

No question that TC's reduce the light reaching your camera and that can make the camera slower and fussier to use with slow lenses. Also important is that TC's soften the image - just a little with Nikon 1.4X on a Nikkor lens and more with mix and match setups and poor with 2X TC's in my opinion.

 

[shadowlands]

And your DX camera body already is a 1.5X converter! Boom!

 

[birdbonkers84]

And your DX camera body already is a 1.5X converter! Boom!

Yeah I realise that now

 

[Derrel]

Plus, now that we've moved from 2.7MP to 4.2 MP to 5.3MP to 6MP to 10Mp to 12MP to 16MP to 24MP to 36MP...in popular digital SLR camera models from Nikon, there's more and more built-in croppability from the camera files, making teleconverters less and less needed, and in some ways, less-useful. A converter is always somewhat of a compromise, but back when we had low-megapixel cameras of 6 MP and under, the optical route made more sense; today, with more and more megapixels in the caprture, it makes more sense to do the cropping using the computer.

In the case of lower-cost zoom lenses that are fairly slow, using a teleconverter on the lens makes very,very little sense.