Teleconverters?

[Rhino95]

What are your guys (and gals) opinions on them? Seems to make sense to me :shrug:

Since I can't afford a 300mm lens right now, could I get a 2x teleconverter in the mean time?

[Jeffro600]

On a fast(wide aperture, like F2.8) lens they are Ok. They will essentially double the focal length while at the same time your aperture too making it into a F5.6ish or so lens. While its ok with the faster lens, using it on a F3.5-5.6 lens(typical kit lens), its going to bump your min apertures up to the 10+ range which at focal lengths 200+ is a bad combo unless youve got REALLY good light and can get fast shutter speeds. Teleconverters with slow lenses are not a good combo for much of anything except static, non moving objects where you can get in with a solid tripod. Forget about it with sports or other action shots for the most part.

The second issue is that they normally degrade image quality a bit. Anytime you put more glass in the equation, image quality will suffer. How much depends on the quality of lens you started with and the amount and quality of the converter.

They have their place, but youd be better off saving your pennies and just buying a halfway decent telephoto lens instead. A good 2X teleconverters gonna cost you probably at least 150 bucks or so if not more...would be worth it to save another hundred or two and buy a low cost telephoto.

[crackhead]

My wife used to run a 2x teleconverter on a 80's 500mm Reflex lens, with some startling results..