Retina Loc: Near Charleston,SC

With film, especially slides and color prints where a color darkroom was not always practical or when battling grain, teleconverters could very useful in some cases. With today's newer sensors and the fact that nearly everyone has a computer between the camera and the print, it seems that a teleconverter's degradation of the lens system would have a larger adverse impact when compared to cropping, espeically with 16+ MP cameras. I can see it as a composition or focusing aid (with a larger subject image in the viewfinder), and certainly it can be satisfying looking through an instant 1.4x or 1.5x extra focal length with little added weight and cost. Granted, it's a different approach. I can see where some find it preferable to finish a print with all 24 million pixels present even with a slightly softer image than to steal pixels and make the best use of the lens. My question is addressed mainly to folks who used teleconverters with film. Have you found that cropping with digital has largely replaced their use?

JohnKlingel

I still use them for wildlife photography and the degradation is slight enough for digital projection as to be unnoticeable. With big prints, I'm not sure. In wildlife photography I also crop as much as 96% and here again, only use them for digital projection. If a subject is extremely sharp, you can crop like crazy because the pixel density is so high. I print 13x19 and sometimes larger and some of them may have been with a tele-extender but I've never rejected a print for lack of focus.

I have a Nikon 300mm prime lens that weighs 1.5 lbs. On a C sensor that lens becomes a 450 and with a 1.4x becomes a light 675 that can be hand held.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

Although I do not have my Olympus 40-150 and 1.4X teleconverter yet, I know I will be using the teleconverter over trying to crop the image. Cropping a digital image or file is no different that using a digital zoom on a camera. Any digital zooming beyond 1.1X digital zooming to get the picture I personally feel is less efficient than putting on a teleconverter. The loss of digital image by digitally zooming to an equivalent 1.4X teleconverter image or cropping a digital file to an equivalent 1.4X image is much more detrimental than shooting the actual image with an actual 1.4X teleconverter in my opinion.

rmorrison1116 Loc: Near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania

I haven't shot film with a teleconverter in many years but I do use them fairly often with digital cameras. The camera and lens I use a 1.4 extender on most often is my Canon 5DSr with an EF 100-400L II zoom. There is little to no ill effect on the final images as a result of using the extender and cropping.

JohnKlingel

The pixel density is the same no matter how much you crop. It can't deteriorate when cropped as your just cutting off the edges. There is always some loss albeit small of quality with an extender.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

I'm not sure of what you are saying, but an optical zoom will not crop pixels while the digital zoom does crop pixels. If one has a 10X optical zoom camera but goes to 20X with digital zooming, you just changed a full frame sensor to a 4/3rds sensor. If the full frame sensor was 20 mp, then when one is done digital zooming they have a 5 mp 4/3rds sensor. How well will a 5 mp "4/3rds" sensor hold up to a 20 mp 4/3rds sensor image wise? Likewise, if one crops their digital file, it will quickly degrade past the image from a teleconverter.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

Yes, and, Yes. My Nikon 200-500 becomes a 300-750 with the D500. Now, there are folks who will tell you that the lens does not really become a 300-750 but I say, BLA, BLA, BLA. I still end up with more EFFECTIVE MEGS than I would if I did not have a cropped sensor camera with this lens attached. I no longer use teleconverters, never liked them in the first place, so, now I can sell um on ebay, get more money for my 600 f4.

Mike in Portland

Another problem with teleconverters is that the light loss may affect autofocus. When used with long lenses which may have relatively high F numbers the loss of light may prevent the camera from autofocusing. One way to determine if this will be a problem is to find out if the lens manufacturer offers teleconverters as accessories. If not, the use of a teleconverter with that lens may have a autofocusing problem.

treadwl Loc: South Florida

I shoot a Nikon D810, with a 200-400 f4 vr lens and regularly attach a tc 1.4. With that rig I have printed and sold many photos as large as 30x40 with no complaints from clients. I have even used my tc1.7 on the above rig and if the lens is stopped down to at least f8 I can still print 20x24 with resulting sales. Much of the credit goes to using good long lens technique and getting sharp (read that in focus) photos.

My just saying...

Larry

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

I used to shoot with a Canon 300 2.8 and 2XII - NO IQ complaints and no zoom ( feet only) . I did complain about the size and weight ! Then I bought a Sony with Clear Image Zoom ( same as cropping with pixel enlargement) . I put the Canon 300 2.8 on the Sony and used the CIZ. For me, IQ was just as good as with the Canon 2X ! - AND I gained 2 stops of ISO and DOF ! - and this is a BIG deal for a crop frame sensor ! ( you do not loose pixels with CIZ - they are manufactured intelligently) Sold the Canon 300 2.8 and 2x - now use the Sigma 100-300 f4 with 1.1-2X CIZ on Sony A77II. Smaller, lighter and zooms with 1 finger - 150-900mm Equiv. FF FOV @f4. Very happy

RRS Loc: Not sure

Short answer, no. Wildlife and BIF photographers even with a crop body camera never have enough reach. I now restrict my use of TC to the Canon 1.4 even though I have the 2x.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Not at all.

In fact, teleconverters from the film era were mostly much lower quality than TCs today. Over the years I tried a bunch of different ones back in the good/bad old days, but ended up only satisfied with and using one particular 1.5X with one or two specific prime lenses. Most other TC and lens combos were pretty disappointing.

Today I use TCs a lot more often. High quality 1.4X and 2X, mostly with 300mm and 500mm prime lenses. But also sometimes with 135mm and 70-200mm. Recently I got a 100-400mm zoom, too, but I haven't had a chance to try it with 1.4X yet, even though it's said to work pretty well and my current cameras are capable of auto focusing the combo.

Cropping is no substitute for teleconverters (BTW, it was nearly as easy to crop film during the enlarging process, as it is to crop digital images in post-processing). There's much more loss of image quality due to cropping.

Better solutions than cropping are to get closer, or use a teleconverter, or if using a full frame camera you might switch to a "crop sensor" camera, which has some "free teleconverter" effect. By that I mean that when used on a crop camera the lens "acts" longer, but there's no penalty of lost light and/or reduced resolution, the way there is with an actual teleconverter.

Let me give you an example. We did a careful comparison a while back, with a Canon full frame camera (22MP 5D Mark II) and a Canon 1.6X APS-C model (18MP 7D). We took the same shot from the same place with the same lens... then cropped the full frame image down to match the APS-C image. Essentially, that's the same thing as cropping an image to emulate a 1.6X teleconverter, right?

By the time that's done, only about 8MP remained of the the 22MP FF image... while the 7D's 18MP image was still 18MP. The uncropped image from the APS-C camera was clearly superior to the cropped image from the FF camera.

What's happening in this example is that the difference in sensor area is more greatly reduced than you might initially expect. Same thing will happen if you crop to emulate a teleconverter's effect.

A full frame sensor is 24x36mm or 864 square mm... while a Canon APS-C sensor is about 22x15mm or 330 square mm. So only about 38% of that original FF image remains after cropping to match the smaller format. 38% of 22MP is 8.36MP. Personally, I'd rather have an 18MP image!

Similar would be true cropping any image to emulate the effects of a teleconverter. It would mean a little less loss with a 1.4X TC, slightly more for a 1.7X TC or a lot more cropping to emulate a 2X TC. In fact, cropping to the same image rendered with a 2X would leave little more than 25% of the original image data! Rather than a 22MP image made with that 5D Mark II camera and lens fitted with a 2X TC, cropping the image to the same angle of view you'd end up with an image of less than 6MP! Image quality would be greatly reduced, as a result.

So, in other words, your digital images will probably be a lot better using a teleconverter instead of cropping images

Yes, there's some loss if image quality whenever a TC is used, too. That's just the nature of optics... when you add a bunch of elements, there's going to be something lost from the light that has to pass through them. However, exactly how is lost much varies greatly depending upon the quality of the lens, as well as the strength and quality of the TC, plus how well the two complement each other. There are lots of variables. But in general 1.4X "cost" less image quality than 1.7X or 2X and teleconverters work best on prime lenses, as opposed to zooms. And, almost always, teleconverters work best on telephoto lenses.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

YES, especially if you are using a high pixel density sensor with a decent lens AND, using proper long focal length techniques ! .....and shutter speeds.

wizbird Loc: Burnt Store Marina, Punta Gorda, Fl

Don't waste your time and money on a Tele Convertor. They just do not allow the quality you can get without them. Put your money into a better lens and then do a 2X crop.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

And, using well applied pixel enlargement techniques/software if needed especially for larger prints.