The 3rd Gen Phone Telephoto Lens Original 2x Teleconverter Lens Review
If the longest telephoto lens y'all ain never seems to get yous in tight enough to your subject, you take 3 choices. The commencement is to get up and get physically closer to your subject. If yous can't, for whatever reason, practice this, y'all can either take the picture equally is and crop it to your liking postal service-capture, or yous can utilise a teleconverter.
Photographs © Allan Weitz 2021
Either method will work, admitting at a toll. As for the price of cropping versus the toll of using a teleconverter? That depends.
What Are Teleconverters?
Teleconverters are lens accessories that magnify the primal portion of the image field of your lens, enabling you lot to fill the frame at up to twice the magnification of a compatible telephoto lens. Too known equally extenders, or in the example of 2x teleconverters, "doublers," teleconverters mountain between your photographic camera and lens and are available from OEM or third-party manufacturers. Depending on the make and model, teleconverters increase the magnification of your lens by a factor of ane.4x, 1.7x, or 2x.
In the case of a seventy-200mm lens, a i.4x teleconverter converts the lens to a 98-280mm equivalent zoom, while a 2x teleconverter converts the aforementioned lens to a 140-400mm equivalent zoom. Most teleconverters are about the same size and weight equally a 50mm normal lens, which makes them far more practical to tote most than your average 500, 600, or 800mm long-range lens.
And the Cost for Such a Convenient Lens Accessory?
At that place is, unfortunately, a price to be paid for such a handy device and, in the case of teleconverters, the costs include a loss of light transmission and resolving power.
Any time you integrate boosted lens elements―including filters―into the light path of an existing photographic camera and lens arrangement, it has an impact on image quality. It'southward non that the paradigm files are no longer sharp; they are, merely any time you lot add boosted lens elements into an otherwise optimized light path, you invariably lose image particular.
In the case of zoom lenses, the levels of image-quality loss often vary every bit you zoom through the lens's focal range.
How Much Light Do You Lose When Using Teleconverters?
Calculating the degree of light loss is the easy part of the equation; you lose 1 finish of light with a 1.4x teleconverter, 1.five stops with a i.7x teleconverter, and two stops of light when using a 2x converter.
When shooting in low light, this can be an issue, especially when using lenses with small maximum apertures. As an case, a seventy-200mm f/2.8 lens with a 2x teleconverter effectively becomes the equivalent of a 140-400mm f/5.six lens, and that's before you lot cease the lens downward. In the case of a 3x teleconverter, your maximum discontinuity of v.6 at present effectively becomes f/16.
The problem is many autofocus systems begin losing speed and accuracy once the maximum aperture of the lens becomes less than f/5.6 - f/8, and this is before you terminate the lens down for meliorate image quality and additional depth of field. On bright, sunny days, this is pushing the limits of many AF systems, just once the clouds roll in or y'all motility indoors, you're skunked.
Your camera's in-photographic camera exposure system compensates for any exposure loss. If you are setting your exposures manually, you must factor in this light loss when computing your final exposure.
Can Teleconverters Be Used with Whatever Lens?
Unfortunately, the answer is no. Teleconverters are designed for a limited number of telephoto and telephoto zoom lenses and are totally incompatible with wide-bending lenses.
Are Some Cameras Better than Others When It Comes to Teleconverters?
In effect, yeah. Teleconverters date back to the days of 35mm and select medium format film cameras. The advantage of using teleconverters with film cameras is that, with the exception of some of the slower, finer-grain film emulsions (ISO 25 – ISO 125), the grain that was inherent to well-nigh picture show stocks typically masked any perceptual loss of resolution due to the employ of a teleconverter. The loss was there, only it was camouflaged by the grain of the emulsion. So aye, when used with picture show cameras, a teleconverter can exist preferable or, at the very least, equal to cropping in terms of the degree of image deposition ane would discover.
In the case of digital cameras, if you apply a teleconverter with a low-resolution (12MP-18MP) mirrorless photographic camera or DSLR, you may non find the loss of epitome detail compared to using the same lens and teleconverter on a loftier-resolution (36MP-60MP) mirrorless camera or DSLR.
Similarly, if you plan on cranking the ISO sensitivity of your photographic camera anywhere due north of 25,000, the loss will be in that location, but but as film grain masks any loss of image quality, yous're near likely non going to exist able to come across it.
Camera and Lens Mount Alignment
One concluding thing about teleconverters: Regardless of how sharp a lens might be, if the parallel alignment of the photographic camera mount and lens mount isn't 100%, the image isn't going to be 100% sharp. When using a teleconverter, you are adding a second alignment indicate into the mix—this fourth dimension between the camera, the teleconverter, and the lens. If any of these contact points aren't aligned perfectly, so, depending on the variance, yous are going to lose a measure of sharpness somewhere inside if not beyond the epitome field. If the surfaces of the camera and lens mounts aren't perfectly parallel to 1 another, all bets are off in one case you start eyeballing the epitome files at 100% magnification on your figurer screen.
Alignment bug are less likely when using OEM teleconverters compared to converters from 3rd-party manufacturers, which, depending on the manufacturer'due south tooling, may not be machined every bit critically as OEM products.
The Pluses and Minuses of Post-Capture Cropping
Cropping a photo mail-capture is a surefire fashion to frame the paradigm the way you saw it in your mind's middle on occasions where it wasn't possible to step up closer to make full the frame to your liking. As with teleconverters, cropping comes at a toll.
There's No Free Dejeuner
In the case of cropping, the price is a slight decrease in resolution as the image is magnified, forth with an equal increase in any noise—or in the case of film, increased grain.
But as eyeballing your image files at 100% on a large monitor reveals minute particles of grit and lens aberrations you'd never notice on the photographic camera's LCD or on a small impress, when you crop an image, you correspondingly magnify any dust and/or defects in the file or negative. In the case of film negatives, you correspondingly increase the size of the grain, which, depending on the final print size and intended viewing distance, may or may non be an issue.
Cropping Is Not Express past Lens Choice
Teleconverters are only available in fixed magnifications (1.4x, 1.7x, and 2x) and are merely compatible with a express number of telephoto and long focal length zoom lenses. Conversely, any photograph can be cropped in an infinite magnification range regardless of the focal length of the lens used to capture the photograph. That's a plus in favor of cropping.
Is Cropping a Photograph Ethical?
Ingather is non a Four-Alphabetic character Word. If cropping photographs results in photographs with greater graphic and/or emotional impact, why is cropping considered an act of blasphemy by so many otherwise open-minded photographers? When you lot aim your camera a piffling to the left or right before pressing the shutter button, are you not in a sense cropping the prototype in-camera?
So there'due south the question of sensor size and equivalent focal length. When you mount a 100mm lens on an APS-C camera to capture the angle of view equivalent to a 150mm lens, or equivalent to a 200mm lens when mounted on a Micro 4 Thirds camera, are you not in fact cropping the final image? The act itself occurs passively and out of public view, merely for all intents and purposes, it'due south cropping.
The post-obit sample images were captured using a Sony a7R IIIA, a Sony Atomic number 26 200-600mm f/5.half dozen-6.three G OSS zoom lens, and Sony FE 1.4x and FE 2x teleconverters. It should exist noted there are comparable camera/lens/teleconverter systems available from all of the major OEM camera and lens companies, as well as third-party manufacturers.
It should too be noted there can be noticeable variances in operation between products from OEM and third-party manufacturers alike, including the ones we all know and love. However, the following sample images illustrate the differences betwixt photographs taken using teleconverters and photographs cropped to the same prototype size as those captured using a teleconverter. Equally always, your test results might vary from my examination results simply because every lens and teleconverter has its own set of characteristics and degrees of variance.
In the photos higher up, the cropped 200mm epitome (left) retains meliorate particular than the same composition captured at 200mm with a 2x teleconverter (right).
Both of the above images emulate the field of view of a 400mm lens. The cropped version (left)has an edge in terms of clarity compared to the photograph taken at 200mm with a 2x teleconverter (right).
I Final Thought
As explained higher up, at that place'southward no such matter as a complimentary dejeuner, but cropping photographs doesn't cost a dime, and there aren't besides many things in life that are truly gratuitous these days. Teleconverters cost a few hundred dollars. Counterbalance the benefits and see what works all-time for your detail needs.
Do yous have thoughts on this topic, or have you compared teleconverters with comparably cropped images? If so, let us know about your experiences in the Comments section, below.
Source: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/tips-and-solutions/teleconverters-vs-cropping-everything-has-a-price
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