OwlHarbor Loc: Pacific North West USA

I am going to get an extender for my Sigma Sport 150-600 mm lens. The price difference between the two is very small. I will use it for mostly for catching landscape, animals, mountains, and for taking pics of the moon, stars. I know that lighting and clarity are an issue yet want the advice of those who have used these lenses. I use a sturdy tripod for pictures and have took some pics in bright daylight bracing the lens on a bean bag. I know it will only work for my Sigma lens. I use a Canon Ti5 for my body. Like to hear your thoughts and ideas.

Nikonian72 Loc: Chico CA

This thread has been moved from Frequently Asked Questions and Answers section.

Capture48 Loc: Arizona

As long as you're happy manual focusing, good for you. As I recall that lens is a 5.6 to 6.3, so I doubt it will be able to focus with an extender.

Jim Bob

How about reading some actual reviews. As you can see the Hoggers don't know sh*t about it.

T_Span Loc: Northern MI

A 2x extender will get a really large moon, but with difficulties. I will post a link to a moon shooting calculator. On the right hand side, you will input 1200mm (which actually equates to 1800mm on a crop) and your camera sensor type. It will show you how much of the sensor is covered by a full moon. To get a vibration free capture at 1800mm, you will need to use mirror up and remote actuation. At 1200mm, the moon can move very quickly across a sensor which makes your timing and alignment critical.

A 1.4x extender will get you an equivalent FOV as about 1260mm lens. This is a nice large moon but allows a little more wiggle room for composition of the track across the sensor. Fiddle with the moon calculator a bit and see what ya think.

Extenders can be used for macro too, maybe get both. Kenko makes an acceptable product at a lesser cost than Sigma. I went with Sigma 1.4x and Kenko 2x.

Best of luck with your moon captures.

http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/astronomy/MoonExposureCalculator.html

jackpi Loc: Southwest Ohio

According to Sigma, their 1.4 teleconverter on the Sigma Sport 150-600mm lens will autofocus on most DSLRs. But I think the 1.4 teleconverter is the only teleconverter that will work. I would contact Sigma to confirm that the combo will work on your camera and what the AF limitations will be. I suspect you will only be able to use the center AF point to autofocus. You can manual focus most of what you want to image, but at the very narrow fields of view that correspond to the high focal lengths (equal to or greater than 600mm) subject acquisition and tracking will be extremely difficult.
http://www.sigmaphoto.com/lenses/telephoto-lenses/150-600mm-sports-tc-1401-teleconverter-kit

ptcanon3ti Loc: NJ

The Sigma Sport is a great lens on its own. Adding a 1.4 TC will take you to an F8 lens. It depends on whether or not your camera is capable of auto focusing with an F8 lens...your manual should tell you. If you don't plan to use auto focus, while using the TC, then you'll be fine. There is a certain amount of degradation of image quality when using any TC on any lens. But only you can decide if the degradation is acceptable.

Capture48 Loc: Arizona

Actually I had that lens and still have the TC. On my Nikon D7000 it didn't work (auto focus) at all. On my D800 it worked occasionally but never worked regularly. For shooting the moon a longer focal length is good, but for shooting stars, a wide angle is better.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

whatever you do, don't forget to budget for an amazing tripod to hold all of that steady - at least $800 for a tripod and head, but probably more if you are using a crop body and a 2x extender. I have tried the Sport with a 1.4x and was not happy with the results. I suspect that the 2x will be considerably worse. A 1.4x takes away about 5% of your sharpness, but a 2x will rob about 25%. I get better results cropping a bit more.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Be aware that your camera lens combination will not auto focus with either TC.