TC-16a autofocusing teleconverter

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salukfan111

Senior Member
I have a new toy to play with. It appears to front focus just a bit and I have not had a chance to calibrate the focus yet (the camera reads it is an auto focus lens). I shot with a 300mm f/4.5 (@f/4.5) set at infiinity with 1600 iso because it was kind of dark each evening I played with it - no cropping at all. I believe the pictures will be much better when I correct the front focusing and use f/8 or a little lower. I'm going on nights for a month and will be lending this combo to a birder friend to give it a good shakedown. There has been no post processing on these (apart from compressing in LR to post here) and maybe 5 had to be deleted because the camera focused on one thing (I'm using center focus). I'm hopeful this will work out so I can use with 300mm f/2.8 and 400mm f/3.5.
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Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
I have the 70-200 and also have the converter. I have only had it on a couple of time because of focus issues. What I do not know it it the camera will see it as a different lens for fine tuning purposes. Does anyone know?
 
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salukfan111

Senior Member
I believe it sees it as a 140 AF f/4 I think. I just put the 300mm on infinity and seems to work ok. I am using single point focus instead of multipoint.
 
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salukfan111

Senior Member
FredKingston said:
Ok... that would explain it...:)
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I believe it will read the cpu in the tc as a unique lens. For now, I'll just use my favorite lens (300mm f/4.5) and once I'm fine with that I'll figure out the settings for my other MF lens. I'm getting pretty excited as I've been saving for the 200-500mm and I think I won't need it now.
 
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salukfan111

Senior Member
Don Kuykendall said:
Don't forget that you can correct for color temp in Lightroom or Photoshop as long as you are shooting in RAW (Which you should be)
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I know. Those photos didn't mean anything to me and wanted to post something right off the camera. I've got to get a bird feeder up and take some "real" shots. I've got a birder buddy that I'm going to loan the combo to while I'm working nights for the next 3 weeks.
 
Whiskeyman

Whiskeyman

Senior Member
Don Kuykendall said:
I have the 70-200 and also have the converter. I have only had it on a couple of time because of focus issues. What I do not know it it the camera will see it as a different lens for fine tuning purposes. Does anyone know?
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Absolutely. For every lens and lens/teleconverter combination that you fine tune on the camera.

WM
 
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Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
Whiskeyman said:
Absolutely. For every lens and lens/teleconverter combination that you fine tune on the camera.

WM
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I just have not had a need for a long lens this summer but now that it is a little cooler I guess I will time to break it out and fine tune it. I did not do it before and it was always a little soft so I just put it away.


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mikew_RIP

Senior Member
Don Kuykendall said:
I just have not had a need for a long lens this summer but now that it is a little cooler I guess I will time to break it out and fine tune it. I did not do it before and it was always a little soft so I just put it away.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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If its going to be with your 70-300 we could do with a conclusion thread afterwards,it is probably the most ask combination from beginners.
 
Whiskeyman

Whiskeyman

Senior Member
Don Kuykendall said:
I just have not had a need for a long lens this summer but now that it is a little cooler I guess I will time to break it out and fine tune it. I did not do it before and it was always a little soft so I just put it away.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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I have a focus issue with my 70-200 on the D7100 that warrants a trip to Nikon for service. I've always have soft images at best, so I tested it with FoCal and the results show that it never really reaches an optimized focus during the test.
 
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pforsell

Senior Member
mikew said:
I take it this was another nikon useless warning then,"not designed to be used with AF bodies" it looks to work well for you.
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TC-16A is an AF teleconverter designed to be used with AF bodies. You must have some other piece of equipment in mind?
 
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salukfan111

Senior Member
mikew said:
I take it this was another nikon useless warning then,"not designed to be used with AF bodies" it looks to work well for you.
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Not really. A third party will relocate one pin and change a wire on the CPU and it is good on every camera with a screw drive (buy it off ebay for 200 bucks). Apparently NIKON did this because they were behind on AF and once they had AF they quickly changed the cameras to "orphan" these devices. I really surprised that given the fact their lens last a lifetime they aren't hoovering up these TC16As and the superior MF lens floating around out there AND eliminating the screw drives on their cameras to force people into their silent wave motors.

If it works as I hope, that 200 dollar gadget and a few several hundred dollar MF supertelephotos will allow me to avoid spending thousands on a big AF lens. I can carry and handhold that 300mm f/4.5 all day and still be able to carry a couple other lens.
 
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salukfan111

Senior Member
Don Kuykendall said:
I just have not had a need for a long lens this summer but now that it is a little cooler I guess I will time to break it out and fine tune it. I did not do it before and it was always a little soft so I just put it away.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Your camera will read the TC as a unique lens. You'll need to pick a MF and stick with it OR record the fine tuning for each MF so you can change it when you swap MF. I'm assuming you're shooting long (more than 40 yards) so keep the MF lens at infinity to let the TC do its job. I'm just doing single point focus and I'm guessing one of the modes will be best for this.
 
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salukfan111

Senior Member
mikew said:
If its going to be with your 70-300 we could do with a conclusion thread afterwards,it is probably the most ask combination from beginners.
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You're really not supposed to use TCs on zooms and should only put it on sharp long primes. This particular one should only go on MF Primes.

This TC has 5 elements so using a 5 to 8 element prime you are in the ballpark of a modern prime with 1.6 more length than your base MF. That 70-300 has 17 elements to start with.
 
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salukfan111

Senior Member
pforsell said:
TC-16A is an AF teleconverter designed to be used with AF bodies. You must have some other piece of equipment in mind?
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It is designed for a particular screw drive AF bodies and MF lens. Making it good for the rest requires installing a pin and swapping a wire on the CPU for the TC.
 
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pforsell

Senior Member
salukfan111 said:
It is designed for a particular screw drive AF bodies and MF lens. Making it good for the rest requires installing a pin and swapping a wire on the CPU for the TC.
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I know, I have two of those. One with the contact pin swap (for my D4S + D3S + D3X) and one without (D2X). I only use them for macro though, since the image quality leaves a lot to be desired unless stopped down two or three stops.



[offtopic]
An interesting hypothetical TC would be a TC-12A using similar tech as TC-16A but with only 1.25X magnification and thus only half a stop loss of light. But that would increase the sales of the old superteles to ballistic. Think for a moment: AI-S 400/2.8 + fictional TC-12A would produce a pseudo-autofocusing 500mm f/3.5.

If someone would produce such a gadget using modern coatings, aspeherics and ED glass, it would be capable of very high IQ. I'd pay $1000 for such a gizmo in a heartbeat.
[/offtopic]
 
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