Best bang for your buck with Teleconverters

I'm going to be getting the Nikon 70-200 2.8G and Nikon the 300 2.8G eventually. I will be going to Africa next year and want to make sure I have all my bases covered. I'm trying to decide which is the best teleconverter on the market that won't destroy the image quality either. Do you guys have any suggestions?

For your 70-200, you have a choice between: TC-14EIII, TC-14EII, TC-17EII, TC-20EIII

For your 300: same as above.

Have fun!

Is there a way to see which is the better option though with quality?

There may be a few people around here who may have the 70-200 with a TC. Other then that, i would read reviews. I can't see any other TC being better then the ones Nikon makes for their own lenses. Of course, each model will magnify to a different degree as well.

TC-14 = 1.4x magnification
TC-17 = 1.7x magnification
TC-20 = 2x magnification

So it depends on how far out you want to go!

Rent, thats the best option so you can see the results yourself. I have the 70-200 2.8 and a 2.0 TC and have no issues with it.

Here's MY best bang for the buck..............600mm f/4 ED-IF AIS Nikkor with a Nikon TC-300

Image Degradation with Nikon Teleconverters

I also own the 70-200 F4/80-400 and decided to purchase the 1.7, I haven't formed a firm opinion yet but the slight loss in sharpness appears acceptable.

Cheers, Don

Don Kondra said:

Image Degradation with Nikon Teleconverters

I also own the 70-200 F4/80-400 and decided to purchase the 1.7, I haven't formed a firm opinion yet but the slight loss in sharpness appears acceptable.

Cheers, Don

Click to expand...

I cannot speak for any of the TC's mentioned in the article, but I see very little IQ degradation with my TC-300 and 300mm f/2.8 and 600mm f/4 AIS Nikkors.

I also think some loss of sharpness people see when using a TC can be attributed to CAMERA MOVEMENT, which will also be magnified by the same amount as the focal length

Here is one of the first shots I took with the 70-200 2.8 and a TC 2.0. If you pixel peep you can see some softness but at this point I would attribute this to me hand holding this heavy combo. As I get used to it they seem to get a little better. This is with a D600, 70-200 2.8 VRII and Nikon TC-20E III.

any post sharpening? Still looks very sharp to me with the TC

Yea, my normal 40 on sharpening, kind of a default for these team pictures and I dont spend a lot of time in post processing. This is just a hobby and the parents benefit as well I get more experience... Just clean them up and post for the families, If I find any that I really like then I will spend more time. Here is another from 2 weeks ago. This was shooting through the backstop net, so around 80 plus feet away.

Also, the first one I cropped off maybe 10 percent and it was from the first base side with 70 feet baselines. This one I cropped a little more that 10 percent because it was a little farther away. Now if these were on a tripod then I think they would be sharper out of the camera, but I have to stay mobile. I debated between the 1.7 and 2.0 and finally decided to give the 2.0 a try and so far have been pleased