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New Tamron X1.4 TC fused to Nikkor 300/4D IF-ED


david_r._edan

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So, hey...

This is the TC:

Tamron Teleconverter 1.4x for Nikon F TCX14N700 B&H Photo Video

And this is the lens:

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 300mm f/4D IF-ED Lens 1909 B&H Photo Video

 

First of all: I bought this TC a couple of days ago to be used with my relatively new Tamron 70-200. I just thought it would be a good idea to also try it with my old 300mm Nikkor. I pretty much just wanted to get an idea of what kind of quality I could get out of this lens teleconverted. It's actually a little more complicated than that and you can read up all about it in my previous thread, if you want.

 

So, to the problem.

 

The first time I ever attached the TC to this lens, I had a hard time removing it. It took about a minute and with some shimmying I was able to separate the two. I thought something along the lines of: "Probably Tamron just overdid it on the tolerance".. At that point I wasn't sure if I was even going to use the combo so I didn't really care.

After that I've attached and removed the TC a couple more times in total, one of which I had to struggle just a bit... However, as of now, those two do not want to separate... Yep...

 

The lens was attached correctly, and, right now I can actually take pictures with it (it and the TC)!. The AF works and I can control the aperture with the aperture ring. Also, the image quality is very good, so everything is properly aligned. I am anal about sharpness and if the pictures are good enough for me, you can bet your *ss that this lens+TC combo is pretty awesome. Maybe that's why they're putting up a fight.

 

So, the connector pin thingy on the TC does release the lens, which then rotates with no issue up to the point where it would normally separate from the camera mount / teleconverter... but it just won't come out of there.. There is also very little play. All the bayonet thingies are engaged pretty tight.. I tried applying some force, and also tried rotating the lens very slowly while pulling it away from the TC, looking for a slightly different "window of separation".. It must have been about 30 minutes before I gave up. It's no use... Unless someone has a trick up their sleeve, I'll have to send this inseparable duo for repair.. The only way this can be fixed is probably by completely disassembling the teleconverter, which I am not doing. If I could remove the mount from the lens, I would probably give it a try myself but I don't see how it can be done given that the TC is attached to its rear.

 

I must say, that after trying to mod/hack the 300mm (which is covered in my previous thread), everything went back to the original state: all the screws were tightened and currently there are no foreign objects in the lens or the TC. Why are they stuck together? The only reason I can come up with is the fact that the 300mm Nikkor has a mechanical lever for controlling the diaphragm, something that this particular, E-aperture teleconverter does not accommodate... I also tried playing with the aperture ring, pulling on the lens but it didn't feel like it was doing something.

 

I am really hoping there is a quick fix because by shipping out the TC AND the 300mm I'll be stuck with just my 'bare' 70-200 until I get my stuff back. *I have other lenses too but the 70-200, the TC and the 300mm is what I need for shooting my stitched panoramas, which I am currently engaged in.

Edited by david_r._edan
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Um. Sympathy? This is an awkward thing to happen (as with when a lens gets hooked on the camera mount): all the screws for taking things apart tend to be on the sides that are face to face. So getting them apart is probably going to involve quite a lot of dismantling. Not that I'm a camera engineer, so I may be overestimating the problem, but good luck.

 

With the theory that the aperture lever might be hooked on something (which seems unlikely, but I don't have a clear image of the lens side of the Tamron TC), is it worth moving the aperture ring on the lens to various positions as you try to disconnect the two? Without having a lens in front of me to check, it might push the aperture lever from the other side and move it to a position that lets you separate them? That could be nonsense (I'd have to have a look at me 300 f/4 to check), but it might be worth a try.

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is it worth moving the aperture ring on the lens to various positions as you try to disconnect the two?

Was thinking the same. Hopefully the aperture lever isn't bend (too much).

 

Since the OP seem to have loosened the screws holding the contacts in place (?) - if not tightened down flush those could pose an issue as well. Or the contact block may be slightly dislocated preventing lens separation.

 

Since AF-S lenses have this weird cut-out on one of the prongs of the bayonet (making it overall slightly longer than the other two), this could be another issue if the TC does not have a matching (shorter or with a similar cut-out (like NIkon's TCs have)). I own a Sigma TC that doesn't have the cut-out but does have one shorter bayonet prong. Not sure if the Tamron TC in question here properly accounts for mounting lenses that it was never intended to accommodate (the Tamron TC is similar to the Nikon TC-14EIII in that both are "incompatible" with lenses that have an aperture ring - they can be mounted but won't function properly due to the lacking Ai ridge and feedthrough and aperture coupling).

 

Since the OP has gotten the combo separated a few times already the cut-out may not be the issue and either something got bend and is now stuck permanently or it is "just" a matter of keeping on trying and hoping for the best. The fact that the TC's front lens protrudes into the rear of the 300 doesn't help matters much since it doesn't allow for much play and may get scratched if the combo does come apart unexpectedly at some point.

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So, yeah, my speculation is officially confirmed. It is the aperture actuator lever on the 300 Nikkor.

 

I went down to the store. And the dude over there, who's got over 20 years experience selling photo gear, gave this thing a couple go's and went: "Yep, it's stuck alright, must be the diaphragm actuator. " He did try to fumble with the aperture ring, as have I, at home, but obviously, it didn't help.

 

So I'm like: We'll have to send it out, I guess. Is it covered by the warranty? And he's like: And what do you think?

I'm on good terms with that dude but he did point out that the TC and that lens should never have touched each other.

 

And indeed, in the teleconverter's manual it clearly states:

 

"• The following lens can be attached to this product: SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2 (Model A022) (as of September 2016).

• Do not mount any lenses other than the compatible one, as doing such could lead to malfunction or accident."

 

The manual is a little dated. Tamron have produced a few more compatible lenses since this TC came out. Actually, I am really counting on the new 70-210mm F/4 to be a solid, sharp lens at around F/8, as I would like to replace my current, heavy and bulky 70-200/2.8. The new lens does have to be at least as sharp as the 70-200 because I would need to use it with the X1.4 TC too, which it is also compatible with... So, yeah, I knew what I was doing when I bought this teleconverter. Unfortunately, I wasn't cautious enough when it came to trying it with the 300mm Nikkor.

 

I'm not stupid, I knew what kind of lenses this TC is made for but you all know where I was coming from.

So, while the dude is on speaker phone with some guy at the service center, I can hear the other guy: "Oh, yeah?... Alrighty then, send it in and we'll take care of it", like this is something they have to deal with on a regular basis...

 

Anyway, I told the fella at the store that I wasn't authorizing any servicing until the guys at the center hit me with a quote... So the duo is sent out and I am a little nervous because it is not just the TC. The aperture actuator on the lens can really be screwed. The first couple of times I was able to somehow bend it enough to get it out of the way, but it looks like all that fidgeting eventually did it in. I am really hoping that the actuator is not in need of repair because that would probably just leave me with a manual-aperture 300mm, as I am not servicing this lens... And who knows, if it's in that bad a shape I might get rid of the actuator altogether and get to use the 300mm Nikkor with this very TC after all. We'll have to see.

 

And to conclude: Lesson learned, I guess, and let this be a cautionary tale..

Edited by david_r._edan
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Well, if you have to replace the lens, the good news is that the PF version is E aperture, and shouldn't have an aperture lever to get stuck. :-) (This is not a suggestion that you try it!)

 

Sorry you're going to get hit by this, but thank you for warning us.

 

Just checking: on your latest attempt, did you have your piece of plastic wedged over the electronic connectors, or was the lens bare when you coupled them?

 

like this is something they have to deal with on a regular basis...

 

Well, there's no accounting for folks. :-) It sounds as though there was a bit of a design fault if - even with the warning - it actually trashes things.

 

Just to be clear, presumably you do, at this point, have a working 420mm f/5.6, if you wedge the aperture ring on the body? Just checking you wouldn't rather have that than the component parts plus a potentially large repair bill.

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It sounds as though there was a bit of a design fault if - even with the warning - it actually trashes things.

Yep, Tamron is partially to blame for this - it's one thing to make a TC incompatible (as Nikon did with the TC-14EIII) but quite another to not take the extra step to make sure that there is clearance for the aperture lever of incompatible lenses should they "accidentally" be mounted onto the TC.

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Well, if you have to replace the lens, the good news is that the PF version is E aperture, and shouldn't have an aperture lever to get stuck. :) (This is not a suggestion that you try it!)

 

Sorry you're going to get hit by this, but thank you for warning us.

 

Just checking: on your latest attempt, did you have your piece of plastic wedged over the electronic connectors, or was the lens bare when you coupled them?

 

 

 

Well, there's no accounting for folks. :) It sounds as though there was a bit of a design fault if - even with the warning - it actually trashes things.

 

Just to be clear, presumably you do, at this point, have a working 420mm f/5.6, if you wedge the aperture ring on the body? Just checking you wouldn't rather have that than the component parts plus a potentially large repair bill.

 

I have already said it: The lens was restored to its original state prior to my coupling it the last time with the TC. And EVERYTHING works! (well, "workED" because I don't have it at the moment). I did not have to do ANYTHING to the aperture ring on the body, I merely altered a custom setting and that fixed the annoying error. The camera took pictures and auto-focused just fine! I had to set the aperture with the ring on the lens though, and the actual aperture was not recorded in the EXIF. That was the ONLY down side to this setup. Everything else worked great and the image quality was awesome! I was so HAPPY... until I tried to detach the teleconverter... Man,... what a downer..

 

 

"Just to be clear, presumably you do, at this point, have a working 420mm f/5.6, if you wedge the aperture ring on the body? Just checking you wouldn't rather have that than the component parts plus a potentially large repair bill."

 

 

Again, I would not have to "wedge" anything anywhere. No mods, no hacks, that was the appeal. And the permanent 420mm "lens" IS something I have actually considered... I would have to wait and see what they'll want to charge me BUT, the truth is, right now, I can hardly come up with half a dozen scenes that I would want to try and capture with that kind of magnification. I am all about hi-res but I do not take pictures of birds, foxes or Bambies. When I shoot with a 300mm lens it is usually a distant landscape, seascape or cityscape. More often than not there's literally MILES of air between the lens and the "subject". The atmospheric distortions are a huge limitation. I have a special shooting technique that I often use but it is quite limiting in itself. I always wait for the perfect weather or something that's very close to it. The visibility has to be spectacular: little to no dust particles and the humidity has to be very low too, which calls for low temperatures . Also there's the actual wind that blows on the camera itself. I really like low-light photography, especially when photographing cities. But in low light, I can't use my technique and even the slightest breeze, or just a single gust of wind can ruin the whole panoramic sequence. It's been limiting enough with the 300mm lens but with a 420mm I am looking at only very specific and rare scenarios. That is why I just wanted to have the option of slapping on a TC onto a 300mm lens. If I am stuck with a huge repair bill I might just call it off and try to disassemble the TC myself. Best case scenario: The 300mm is fine and the TC is put back together. Worst case scenario: I destroy the TC in the process but I get my 300mm lens back, which I would much rather prefer to a full-time 420mm/5.6, manual-aperture monstrosity. Sharpness or not, F4 or not, a 300mm lens is just so much more useful to me than a 420mm... And currently there is no better alternative to the 300/4D AF-S, at least not for me. By "alternative" I mean "equal or better image quality at F/8 with less bulk and/or weight".

 

Obviously, I must explain: I was seriously considering getting me the new 300mm PF when it just came out. Common sense told me to wait and, boy, am I glad... I guess the bottom line about it would be that, optically, it is not quite as good as my current 300mm 4D. And that's pretty much why I decided that I wasn't over-paying for the lesser quality, Chinese-made product, especially, given all the issues with the VR and what not. If you own this lens and everything works for you then you lucked out. Enjoy it. The pictures it gives are almost as good as the 300mm/4D and it weighs only half. If hand-held shooting is your style then it is likely THE 300mm lens for you.

 

I'm all for E-apertures. In fact, I'm phasing out all my older lenses. The last one I bought was actually, the new Tamron 24-70, which also has an E-diaphragm. I'm not known for using vintage equipment, which was the major reason for my getting the newest, all-electronic, teleconverter. In fact, I will probably never buy another screwdriver-focus or mechanical-diaphragm lens, except, maybe a Medium-Format lens to be used in a tilt-shift setup for my studio work.... Man,... I really did want the 300mm PF to be a great lens. Hey, maybe Tamron will come up with one, they've been churning out new lenses like crazy lately, good ones too. I'm really excited about the new 70-210.

Edited by david_r._edan
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I have already said it: The lens was restored to its original state prior to my coupling it the last time with the TC. And EVERYTHING works! (well, "workED" because I don't have it at the moment). I did not have to do ANYTHING to the aperture ring on the body, I merely altered a custom setting and that fixed the annoying error.

 

Oh! In that case I'll stop feeling smug about my out-of-the-box suggestion. I thought you said you'd tried changing "aperture setting" to "aperture ring" under custom f9 and the camera refused to acknowledge it because (apparently) the teleconverter was "G" and not poking the aperture ring; I assume custom f9 is what you changed? If I'd not misunderstood, I'd just have pointed you at that! Much less effort than shoving the aperture ring around. :-) Good to know it works, though; I suspect the same might apply to the latest Nikon teleconverters.

 

And the permanent 420mm "lens" IS something I have actually considered... I would have to wait and see what they'll want to charge me BUT, the truth is, right now, I can hardly come up with half a dozen scenes that I would want to try and capture with that kind of magnification. I am all about hi-res but I do not take pictures of birds, foxes or Bambies.

 

Ah. Yes, I found the 300mm + TC14 to be a cheap and decent approximation to a 500mm lens (and, since it autofocusses and is light, much more convenient than the 500mm f/4 AI-P) - but I did use it for wildlife. The combination is still what I'd carry if I'm trying not to take the bulk of the 200-500mm, and I may yet find myself using it for astronomy - partly because the 300mm f/4 matches the size of my LPR filter.

 

The atmospheric distortions are a huge limitation. I have a special shooting technique that I often use but it is quite limiting in itself. I always wait for the perfect weather or something that's very close to it. The visibility has to be spectacular: little to no dust particles and the humidity has to be very low too, which calls for low temperatures.

 

Ah. For what it's worth, the astronomy solution is apparently to take a lot of tiny images with a webcam and use lucky imaging, which makes it easier to handle atmospheric wobble. You might get the same effect from a number of stacked DSLR stills, effectively by doing something like focus stacking (possibly cutting the images into bits and realigning them to fix the distortion). If you do that, it's also easier to remove atmospheric haze - I've just subtracted a very low-pass version of the image from the original in the past (though my problem is normally an orange sky from light pollution with star images), although software is pretty good at "de-hazing" anyway these days. Forgive me if stating the obvious - you have way more experience with your style of shooting than I do.

 

It's been limiting enough with the 300mm lens but with a 420mm I am looking at only very specific and rare scenarios.

 

Yes, fair enough. I recall people doing some gigapixel images with 400mm f/2.8 lenses, but they had quite a large crew set up to do it and the range wasn't huge. For what it's worth, while the VR and portability of the 300mm PF are appealing to me, the alleged effect of shooting into the light is such that I've decided it's not the best place to put my money. I'm a little tempted by the new 70-300, though (but probably after I upgrade my 70-200 to the mk3).

 

Good luck with the quote; maybe in designing the teleconverter such that it would hang on the aperture lever, Tamron designed it so they could get at the inside easily. If it would be your only use for the TC14 on a Nikkor, I can see why you weren't inclined just to buy the Nikkor teleconverter! I hope you find a solution, one way or the other.

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Oh! In that case I'll stop feeling smug about my out-of-the-box suggestion. I thought you said you'd tried changing "aperture setting" to "aperture ring" under custom f9 and the camera refused to acknowledge it because (apparently) the teleconverter was "G" and not poking the aperture ring; I assume custom f9 is what you changed? If I'd not misunderstood, I'd just have pointed you at that! Much less effort than shoving the aperture ring around. :) Good to know it works, though; I suspect the same might apply to the latest Nikon teleconverters.

 

 

 

Ah. Yes, I found the 300mm + TC14 to be a cheap and decent approximation to a 500mm lens (and, since it autofocusses and is light, much more convenient than the 500mm f/4 AI-P) - but I did use it for wildlife. The combination is still what I'd carry if I'm trying not to take the bulk of the 200-500mm, and I may yet find myself using it for astronomy - partly because the 300mm f/4 matches the size of my LPR filter.

 

 

 

Ah. For what it's worth, the astronomy solution is apparently to take a lot of tiny images with a webcam and use lucky imaging, which makes it easier to handle atmospheric wobble. You might get the same effect from a number of stacked DSLR stills, effectively by doing something like focus stacking (possibly cutting the images into bits and realigning them to fix the distortion). If you do that, it's also easier to remove atmospheric haze - I've just subtracted a very low-pass version of the image from the original in the past (though my problem is normally an orange sky from light pollution with star images), although software is pretty good at "de-hazing" anyway these days. Forgive me if stating the obvious - you have way more experience with your style of shooting than I do.

 

 

 

Yes, fair enough. I recall people doing some gigapixel images with 400mm f/2.8 lenses, but they had quite a large crew set up to do it and the range wasn't huge. For what it's worth, while the VR and portability of the 300mm PF are appealing to me, the alleged effect of shooting into the light is such that I've decided it's not the best place to put my money. I'm a little tempted by the new 70-300, though (but probably after I upgrade my 70-200 to the mk3).

 

Good luck with the quote; maybe in designing the teleconverter such that it would hang on the aperture lever, Tamron designed it so they could get at the inside easily. If it would be your only use for the TC14 on a Nikkor, I can see why you weren't inclined just to buy the Nikkor teleconverter! I hope you find a solution, one way or the other.

 

"My style of photography" has a thing in common with astrophotography in that it is fairly technical. For instance, I use custom-made Flat-fields to negate the vignetting.

 

And to remove/reduce the atmospheric wobble I pretty much use the identical approach to what you describe, which is, basically: Take a bunch of photos and "equalize" them. It is quite simple to apply this technique in Photoshop by stacking up all the frames while aligning them (automatically) on a sub-pixel level and then applying the Median algorithm to the whole stack. Though simple enough in concept, this technique is very time-consuming at capture, which is very limiting. With 4 or 5 HDR layers in a measly 8-slice panorama, going the Median route will take the frame count well into the hundreds (shooting 10 or 12 frames instead of just one)... But I guess, the most limiting thing about it is that this works well only with really fast shutter speeds, because if you slow it down, the "wobble" generates progressively more blur. At 300mm (on a tripod) my exposure times are generally in the thousands, in broad daylight, which means that I'm raising the ISO to 400, and often 800, also because I shoot mostly at f/11, sometimes at f/8 but occasionally even at f/16. With a little wind constantly, yet inconsistently pushing the lens around and literally tons of air moving non-stop between me and some distant buildings every passing second I often find myself pushing the camera's limits with the 1/8000th-second exposure times for the darkest frames in HDR sequences. It is what it is. Sometimes there's just no way around it. Luckily, the sensor noise goes away along with the wobble in post-processing. This fact is the reason that makes this technique usable to me.

Edited by david_r._edan
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Thanks for explaining your process, David (and reassuring me that I wasn't talking complete nonsense). I commend your dedication! Best of luck with it once you have working kit again.

 

You're welcome but mostly: thank YOU!

And actually, I have a working kit right now. My panorama go-to lenses have always been something along the lines of 70-300 and primes in that range. More recently I've switched to carrying with me just a 70-200mm. So, I still have my perfectly working, new Tamron 70-200. I can't go above the 200mm with no TC, obviously, but like I've been saying all along, to me, those kinda focal lengths would be the exception, not the rule. I capture most my scenics not from miles away and I am not into unnecessarily-high pixel counts either. The amount of detail in my stitched panoramas seldom goes beyond the healthy level of curiosity.

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Glad to help (or possibly encourage you to trash your kit...) David! Now I'm intrigued - do you share your results? I'd quite like to see what all this was about, now!

 

LOL! I knew this was coming... Sorry, man.. There's no proper platform for displaying this kind of work online. You'd have to see the huge prints in person. Different, but also very good would be: A large, 8K, HDR panel, something that even I don't have yet.

 

I appreciate you taking interest.

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:-) Worth a try, David. (Although for what it's worth, I'm a believer in browsers as a way of zooming and panning around an image rather than just having an enormous print - it's my argument for having a D810, since I certainly don't print 40" prints every day.) In the meantime, I'm sure my employers (Samsung) would love to sell you an 8K HDR TV, but I can't say I have one myself...

 

Best of luck creating more images, anyway!

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:) Worth a try, David. (Although for what it's worth, I'm a believer in browsers as a way of zooming and panning around an image rather than just having an enormous print - it's my argument for having a D810, since I certainly don't print 40" prints every day.) In the meantime, I'm sure my employers (Samsung) would love to sell you an 8K HDR TV, but I can't say I have one myself...

 

Best of luck creating more images, anyway!

 

 

The key-word there being "sell" ;)

 

Anyways, LDR monitor quality aside, I wouldn't make my panoramas viewable online for the sole purpose of mildly entertaining a very niche spectrum of photo-enthusiasts. Regular people just don't care about any of this and with so many photos floating around it's just: Who cares?, you know?

My scenics are not about the high pixel count or the dynamic range but it is a big part of it and getting some d-bag hipster to tap on a thumbnail on his iPhone doesn't do it for me. Unless I can directly benefit from the fact, I won't just throw my work out there for the sake of getting some feedback (maybe). I used to post an occasional photo back when I was still learning the craft, but eventually I have reached a point where I didn't feel that I needed any "likes" or "thumbs up" or even "constructive criticism", I just don't care about any of that anymore. I am not very social, I don't have a facebook account or even a smart phone. Not stuck in the eighties, just don't like all the clutter. But even the closest members of my family have not seen 10% of what I consider to be my best work. It is more or less on a need-to-see basis. I won't display random scenics to any kind of people unless it concerns them in a way that I think may be of interest beyond the actual image. Having said that, people who I think might give me money do get to see what I try to sell to them, and only what I try to sell to them. Hope I'm not coming off as one cold prick, it's just the world of photography and visual arts in general is not what it used to be. There's so much stuff that everyone can see these days, and for free too, that people just don't care and neither do I.

 

"Going public" with some of my work is something that I will probably do in the future but it would have to be done in a way that benefits me financially in a tangible way, to make it worth my while, and it is not something that I plan to do in the foreseeable future. I have so much on my plate as is.

 

So, best of luck to you too with whichever kinda work that you do.

Edited by david_r._edan
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Understood, David, and certainly no offence taken. I spent a long time not sharing images anywhere on the basis that I'm fully aware of many of the things wrong with my shots, I just need time and practice to correct them. In the end I started sharing on Nikon Wednesdays partly to thank people for helping me to arrange a photographic holiday, and partly to encourage myself to go out and shoot - but I still don't feel the need for critique, and it's mostly that I've stopped caring about people realising that I'm not very artistic (and I'm not going to start charging for the dross I produce). Still, it's a shame for those of us who are interested that we can't see what you're been doing, but you're well within your rights to keep it to yourself - or sell on.

 

Best wishes, and happy shooting!

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