Telephoto converter

[Tennessee Landscape]

I bought my new D80 yesterday, and during my conversation with the manager I asked him about buying a telephoto converter. He pretty much just steered me away from them and told me how much it would ruin the quality of my photos. One of the lenses I bought was a Nikor 70mm to 200mm with VR, and wanted to buy a telephoto converter, pretty much as a cheap way to get more zoom.

My question, I'm not a pro, just a young noobie really looking to break into photography, maybe sell a few photos of high school football games who knows. How much quality do you lose with a converter as opposed to the real deal.

 

[Big Mike]

A good quality teleconverter shouldn't hurt the image quality too much...and if you start with a top quality lens...your results should still be pretty good.

They aren't cheap though
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/228165-USA/Nikon_2129_TC_14EII_1_4x_Teleconverter_for.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/228166-USA/Nikon_2130_TC_20EII_2x_Teleconverter_for.html

Just to be sure, I'm talking about the ones that go between the lens and the camera...not the cheap ones that go onto the front end of the lens....those are crap.

 

[Happy Hour]

I am lucky enough to have a cool guy at the camera shop by me, And he lets me try anything I want B4 i buy. So I took my sigma 70-300 DG APO lens & took a picture with it in the parking lot@ 300 w/macro on then a quantarry 2x teleconverter @300mm or 600 w/2x then a Sigma 2x teleconverter Then I went home and compared the 3 between the sigma and quantarry 2x absolutely no difference what so ever! between the 300 & 600 You do loose image quality but nothing major Enough not to notice on say a 8x10 print maybe a poster you would see the extra noise in the picture, But for the price of the quantarry It was a well spent investment! I have gotten a few great pics I otherwise could not without it. I also tried a front mount screw in 2x It was GOD AWFUL!!! like comparing a 1 megapixel camera phone to a 8 megapixel P&S.

 

[Big Mike]

I know a photographer who uses two teleconverters stacked. I would have thought that the quality would have been terrible...but it was actually pretty good. Of course it didn't hurt that there was an L lens on the front of the stack.

 

[Tennessee Landscape]

Thanks for the feedback folks, much help.......

Oh yeah, those are pretty expensive. WOW....

 

[RyanLilly]

Wow, the Nikon variety is much more expensive than Canons. But I will agree that you can get some good shots with them.

 

[sabbath999]

I bought my new D80 yesterday, and during my conversation with the manager I asked him about buying a telephoto converter. He pretty much just steered me away from them and told me how much it would ruin the quality of my photos. One of the lenses I bought was a Nikor 70mm to 200mm with VR, and wanted to buy a telephoto converter, pretty much as a cheap way to get more zoom.

My question, I'm not a pro, just a young noobie really looking to break into photography, maybe sell a few photos of high school football games who knows. How much quality do you lose with a converter as opposed to the real deal.

Tennessee, I am not bringing this up to be a jerk or anything, there is an actual reason for my wanting to correct you on this one.

The picture you posted of your new camera & extra lens shows a 55-200 VR, and not a 70-200 VR.

There are many differences between the two lenses (the 70-200 VR is a four pound HUGE professional lens that costs $1700).

The reason I am talking to you specifically, however, is one of those differences.

Nikon makes 3 teleconverters, all of which work on the 70-200 VR (the VR only works with one of these three, but all other functions work just fine).

These teleconverters are made to work on only certain specific pro lenses, most of which are big, and all of which are hideously expensive. The Nikon brand teleconvers will NOT work on your 55-200 VR.

Other brands of teleconverters, however, will... if you really want to do that.

Personally, I wouldn't, because they degrade quality a bit and your lens is not the fastest lens in the world... meaning the teleconverter would make it even slower (and the VR won't work with one of them either).

I own both the 55-200 VR (which is a great little lens for the money) and the 70-200 VR (which is an amazing lens but is a total beast to haul around all day), and the one that you were showing in your picture is not a 70-200.

Here is a picture of the 70-200 VR mounted on my D300, you can see how big it really is (shown with the lens hood on backwards for storage. The lens is about a foot long (more or less) and has a totally different lens hood (a pedal shaped one) than the one in your picture. My 55-200 is directly to the bottom of the camera on the bottom right hand side, you can see how much smaller it is.

Also, FYI, the lens with the grey cap on it (just to the left of the 55-200 VR) is one of the teleconverters from Nikon. It is the TC-17, which gives a 1.7 magnification boost, and it costs arount $350. It is the only one that allows VR to work with it, and it only works on a few pro-level lenses.