Teleconverters

[stephen_lilley]

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my recently purchased Nikon 500mm F4 P lens. I have up untill now been

shooting with my Nikon 300mm F4 and 1.4 Nikon TC. My question is would it be a worthwhile investment to

purchase a second TC to take advantage of the 500mm focal length, obviously the manual focus question is not an

issue. The 1.7 TC was the one I had in mind, although the TC 2.0 would be great, but from what I have read using

the TC 2.0 results in a substantial loss in image quality. I should have mentioned that I am shooting mainly birds.

Any views on this subject would be appreciated. Regards Stephen

[elliot1]

Your best image quality will be without a converter, Try out your 1.4 and see if you like it before you do anything. The 1.7 won't give you that much more reach and you will loose 1/2 stop more.

[alex_lofquist]

The P Nikkor 500 f/4 works very well with a TC. I used the TC14B originally and had fine results. In order to get matrix metering I bought the TC 14E and modified it to fit. (Easy to do.) I believe that the image quality was about equal. In fact, I more often shoot with the converter on, than off. I do have a TC 301 (2X) for the occasional extra reach, but it does fall down slightly in quality. I use the same TC 14E for both my 300 f/4 and 500 f/4 Nikkors. I cannot speak for the TC17, but expect that it would be acceptable if used with good long lens technique.

[ShunCheung]

For a newly acquired 500mm/f4, I would suggest that your first priority is to get a solid tripod with a good gimbal head. Hopefully you already have those set up. Make sure that you can get sharp images with the 500mm by itself.

 

Once you start adding TCs, camera shake will become a bigger problem. That is why a solid tripod is important. I usually use no more than a 1.4x on my 500mm/f4. Keep in mind that any one of those TC-xxE teleconverters must be modified before you can use them on the 500mm/f4 P. Those TCs are designed for AF-S and AF-I lenses only.