D70 and long lens.. Why no success with Teleconverters

[jemini_joseph]

While I'm surprised how much details D70+Sigma 500/4.5 HSM

can bring, I'm also surprised that the 1.4X (Kenko Pro 1.4x)

and 2X (TC-20E) teles are terrible with the combo.

<br><br>

I used to get excellent results with F5+500mm+Kenko 1.4X

and acceptable results with TC-20E.

Now D70+500mm+1.4X is acceptable and TC-20E sucks.

I'm using Gitzo 1548, so there shouldn't be problem there.

I'm getting acceptable result

with 1.4X, but the difference in image quality is huge

compared to lens alone. On film the difference is difficult

to notice.

<br><br>

These are the reasons I've in my mind. It can be either one of

it or a combination.

<br><br>

1) Teleconverter was always bad. But it was difficult to notice.

on film. Now it's easy to see since you can see 100% image on a

monitor<br><br>

2) D70 is very light weight. Cannot handle a 700/1000mm lens.<br><br>

3) D70's internal vibration caused by mirror slap is worse than

F5 or any film camera.<br><br>

4) With 1.5 Crop factor, the lens should be considered as 750mm

considering the vibration/stability issue. This means

500mm+1.4X tele is actually 1050mm, not 700mm. I always believed

and argued that the crop should not affect the stability.

I still believe if I can hand held the lens at 500mm @ 1/500s

with film, I should be able to hand held it with digital too..

 

 

Anybody has similar experience?<br><br>

 

I used to get real sharp images with lens+1.4X combo as slow as 1/30s.

So if I get same result with D70, then I should have the advantage of

200 ISO which can be translated into 2 stops when compared with

Velvia. <br><br>

But no luck at all. Instead, I feel if I compare D70 with Velvia in

low light, say velvia exposed at 1/30s and D70 at 1/125, still velvia

would be sharper..<br><br>

 

I'm adding one sample picture with D70 and Sigma 500mm alone just to

show that how much sharpness I'm getting. This picture was out of

camera basic JPG resized with Windows Paint. Still I'm happy with the

result.<br><br>

 

<img src=

"http://www.color-pictures.com/dsc_1354_desktop.jpg"><br><br>

 

 

All comments are appreciated. Thanks<br>

<a href="http://www.color-pictures.com">www.color-pictures.com</a>

[walterh]

Jemini - since with a digital camera testing lenses and lens related gear is both fun and cheap you might just add a few more test shots .-)

 

Whenever I test a new lens or any combination and I am not sure that vibration may play a role I add some pictures with a strong (or better said short illuminating ) flash. If you can arrange that somehow with your long lens (perhaps slave one additional flash near to the target?) you could shed some light on the issues #2 to #4. I am not sure in your case if #1 applies. I think in general this would be a good reason why so many people complain all the sudden about their lenses and why lens test issues became overly popular .-) However since you seem critical about it and gave it a number 1 - you might just be the exception :-)

 

My personal bet is each point gets a 25% rating, but I am just guessing. Nice 500mm lens and nice shot anyway.

[ilkka_nissila]

Since the D70 only uses 50% of the image area of the lens, it requires sqrt(2) times better resolution from the lens to be able to get decent results. Adding a TC reduces the sharpness of the optical system and the D70 with its almost noise-free pixels show up whatever problems the optics might have. But then again your corners of the 24x36 frame can be trashy without it ever coming up on the images. So you win some, and lose some.

 

What are you doing shooting in JPEG basic????? And talking about image quality in the same post?

[jimvanson]

Jemini -- You're probably are not going to like this much but I'm trying to help -- here goes:<P>I've visited your site several times in the past year or so.<P>I'm sorry to have to say that the reason I kept going back was because I wanted to see if your photo's were getting any sharper -- you see they are not critically sharp -- at least on my monitor.<P>Most of the bird shots taken with your 500 are soft, out of focus or have focused on the wrong area of the subject.<P>Now, if you are adding a tele to the combination, the problem is going to be much worse!<P>The prairie dog photo you sent is an exception to the rule -- it appears sharper then your bird shots. I'll speculate that this is due to the use of a faster shutterspeed or increased f-stop -- things that you could have taken advantage of as the scene is much brighter then your other shots.<P>And my advice? I think you have to concentrate more on refining your long lens technique before you add a teleconverter to the formula.

[jemini_joseph]

Thanks Walter for the comment and suggestions.

<br><br>

 

Ilkka,<br>

First of all thanks for the response..<br>

 

sorry for the confusion. I shoot RAW+JPG always because I can download and review the image anywhere if I have card reader. I said above picture posted from basic JPG. Even then the quality was very good. <br><br>

 

So what you are saying is that, I always have these problems with the optics? Then Why I'm getting excellent images lens alone? Is Kenko TC that bad? If so why it was ok n film and got very good reviews??

<br><br>

Thanks in advance again..

[douglas_greenberg]

First of all, I think the ground squirrel shot with the 500mm. Sigma is a good one, certainly adequately sharp.

 

I don't know whether this is good news or bad news, but I use teleconverters frequently with my D100 and various teles, including an old 400mm. f5.6 ED, a 400mm. f3.5 EDIF, and a 500mm. f4 P. The results, given adequate conditions and reasonable care by yours truly, are quite good, I think. I use a Kenko Teleplus Pro teleconverters of 1.4x, 2x, and yes, 3x (which is only usable, really, if the light is excellent and atmospheric interference negligible).

 

I can't believe there's any significant difference between the D100 and D70 that would come into play here. My guess is that you probably are trying to use shutter speeds that are simply too slow, given the prone-ness of the rig to vibration.

 

I suggest that at least in order to do some testing, you take full advantage of those high ISO settings that make a DSLR so much more attractive than a small digicam. Try some photos using ISO 800 or even 1000. This will allow you to use ridiculously high shutter speeds, 1/1250 or even faster. And you can also try using a remote release plus the antishock custom setting; this will all but eliminate the mirror shake issue. Take some photos of something that doesn't move: a stuffed animal or a live Black-crowned night heron.

 

You might not end up with any award-winning photos as a result of these experiments, but you'll find out whether your lens/teleconverter/camera combo is CAPABLE of greater sharpness.

 

For bird and animal photos, ISO 200 is simply too difficult and it really isn't necessary. If you think the noise levels you get in photos shot at ISO 500 are too high, run the images through a noise reduction program or module.

[daniel_taylor]

"I always believed and argued that the crop should not affect the stability. I still believe if I can hand held the lens at 500mm @ 1/500s with film, I should be able to hand held it with digital too"

 

I don't know if this is the problem, but this is incorrect. The argument goes that you can still shoot at 1/500s because the DSLR is "cropping, not magnifying". But this completely overlooks the fact that to get from an APS sized sensor to X print size you must magnify more than you would with 35mm. Any motion blur will also be magnified more at the printing stage.

[jemini_joseph]

Doug,<br>

I did a test last night again on a white board with lots of reflection to get the high shutter speed.. See what I found <br><br>

<img src="http://www.color-pictures.com/dsc_1421_Kenko.jpg"><br>

I could not see any difference in quality. In fact Kenko brings more details because of higher magnification. Am I right? <br><br?

So the answer was shutter speed.

<br><br>

Daniel <br>

I agree with you. This is the question of presentation. So the problem was always there. I didn't notice it in film because the way I looked at the slides.<br><br>

If I could scan the images in the quality of digital camera and see them at 100% size I will see the same problem. Right? I know if you want to match apple to apple then you need a scanner that can scan the resolution of the sensor and get 3000X2000 after croping 33% from all sides. Right?

[greg s]

Hey Jemini, Welcome to the world of DSLR's !

 

Often I shoot at a higher ISO to increase shutter speed, then deal with xtra noise via NeatImage. They have a free demo program. If you haven't tried one of these types of apps you may want to take it out for a spin.

 

http://www.neatimage.com/

 

Cheers,

Greg

[jemini_joseph]

Greg <br>

Thanks for the idea. I've never tried higher ISO during day time. I'll try that today. I've tried neatimage demo on scanned images. My scanner was soft by itself. Neatimage softened it again. So I didn't like it. May be D70 would be better. I'll try that. That's a nice idea. <br>

How's your new 500 AF-I? Is it sharper than 600/5.6? How's the AF performance? How's the performance with 1.4X? <br>

Thanks

[greg s]

Hi Jemini,

 

I couldn't be happier with the 500 AF-I. After a couple years of manual focusing all my bird pics, it seems like a miracle. The 600 was always very sharp, but became problematic when I bought the DSLR with its reduced viewfinder. The AF has been very quick... I wasn't sure how a Fuji S2 (just with AA's) would do in driving the motor, but no problem. And it's been very accurate.

 

Bought a TC-14E II about a month ago and now it's on the camera 99% of the time. Basically it seems to have no effect on image quality, or at least its so minimal as to not be a factor.

 

For me the 500 AF-I and TC-14E II are the real deal. I've finally stopped shopping around and will stick with these. I keep the 600 as a 'backup', but sometimes ponder trading it in for a 2nd cam body to reduce the lens switching I sometimes do (300mm or 24-85mm).

 

Have a great 4th! -- Greg --

[jemini_joseph]

Thanks Greg. I know that's a great lens. Sigma may not that sharp, but that's at least couple of 1000's less. Biggest advantage of f/4 lens is that you can use 1.4X with perfect AF. My lens won't be able to do that. Even though it does AF, it's not reliable. MF is better.

Unless I start making money out of this, the current setup is my Nirvana..

Cheers..

Jemini

[joseph_wisniewski]

Jemini, you are everywhere, aren't you?

 

I posted a detailed response to you on the Sigma forum on dpReview.

 

Basically, your problem is a mix of three things.

 

1) the lack of ability of a D70 to focus a lens/teleconverter combination that comes out to f9.0.

 

2) the difficulty in keeping a 1400mm (effective) telephoto lens steady, which takes a big, solid tripod and head, and mirror lockup, which your D70 doesn't have.

 

3) the communication problem between Sigma HSM lenses and Kenko or Nikon teleconverters, which cause the camera to focus the lens at a speed appropriate for an f4.5 lens, when it really needs to slow down and focus the lens like something with the DOF of an f9.0

[jemini_joseph]

Joseph <br>

Yeah, I've posted this everywhere. I wanted to know all the aopinions. I guess we should utilize the wonderful world of internet in this matter.. <br>

Thanks for posting the reply again. <br>

About your second opinion. I have Gitzo 1548 tripod which I believe the best in the category. <br>

About the 3rd opinion..<br>

I was using MF all the time. I know MF is very difficult with D70. <br><br>

THanks again. Good luck with your works ...