Teleconverters 1.4X - 6.0X (Are they providing more detail?) on a 600mm F4 IS mII

Go easy on me, I did this for fun. Getting into bird photography, I acquired a 600mm F4 IS II and a 1.4X and 2.0X vIII Converters. I really enjoy the set. Of course I saw the Fro Knows Photo YouTube video saying Teleconverters are bad (mostly). So I decided to run some tests. But I also came across the TellPlus 3.0X converter on ebay and figured hey why not try it.

Location: So at Great Falls National Park there You can view the Falls from The East or West river banks. It's humorous because you sort of look across at the people on the others side. They are approximately 550' away. And there was his blond guy who looked a little like me. And he was wearing Sunglasses with a RayBan Logo.

Shooting: Shooting with a Canon R5 and Canon EF to RF converter. Manual with Auto ISO, f4 (or widest Aperture) and 1/2000. All Focusing was AF. I shot about 10 photos of each combo and picked the sharpest.

Post Processing: I cropped the photo to just his head, and then uprezzed the photo so all were the same 2000 pixels wide.

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Map.jpg
 
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The 600mm (no converter) shot looks unusually soft for what would have been a basically stationary subject? Some issue with the AF?
The 600mm shot above is heavily cropped and then blown up 600% to match the 6X photo. Before being blown up its very sharp but the man is still 550 feet away. If I could have walked to 1/6 the distance, 92 feet away, and shot at 600mm that photo would be better than all of these, but that was not the test I was running.

I'll attach it here, but I can't attach it at full rez because it's 8000 pixels wide.

_MG_2961 2.JPG

Here is a cut out at original resolution.

_MG_2961.jpg
 
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becceric

Making clumsy photographic mistakes since 1980
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Oct 30, 2016
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Go easy on me, I did this for fun. Getting into bird photography, I acquired a 600mm F4 IS II and a 1.4X and 2.0X vIII Converters. I really enjoy the set. Of course I saw the Fro Knows Photo YouTube video saying Teleconverters are bad (mostly). So I decided to run some tests. But I also came across the TellPlus 3.0X converter on ebay and figured hey why not try it.

Location: So at Great Falls National Park there You can view the Falls from The East or West river banks. It's humorous because you sort of look across at the people on the others side. They are approximately 550' away. And there was his blond guy who looked a little like me. And he was wearing Sunglasses with a RayBan Logo.

Shooting: Shooting with a Canon R5 and Canon EF to RF converter. Manual with Auto ISO, f4 (or widest Aperture) and 1/2000. All Focusing was AF. I shot about 10 photos of each combo and picked the sharpest.

Post Processing: I cropped the photo to just his head, and then uprezzed the photo so all were the same 2000 pixels wide.

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It looks like the 1800mm shot has a touch of motion blur in it. It can be seen in several areas. I’m surprised the 3600mm combo didn’t cause the same issue.
 
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AlanF

Desperately seeking birds
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Aug 16, 2012
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The Kenko Teleplus 3 TC is pretty good. ePhotozine reviewed it here: https://www.ephotozine.com/article/kenko-teleplus-teleconverters-2x-and-3x--review-14047

There was a slight problem that the first version didn't report the 3x change in aperture so Kenco chipped it so it would. Then, the chipping causeda real problem, Canon changed the AF code and the newer Kenkos stopped working properly. The 3xTC was advertised as being for Manual AF but that was because most DSLRs then wouldn't AF at above f/5.6, but they do work well in liveview or now better still on the R-series. I do have one of the original, very rare, ones that works fine, aprt from not reporting the aperture. If anyone wants to buy it, then PM me. Here is a moonshot I posted years ago with the 7DII+300mm f/2.8 II + 2xTC + Kenko TelePlus 3 @ f/17, 1800mm, 1/80s hand held.


Moon_915A5322_DxO_CropBest.jpg
 
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I used the 200-400mm with both the internal 1.4x TC + 2x TC III + EF-RF adapter on the R3 this past Saturday (so 1120mm f/11 effectively), shooting at Red Bull Cliff Divers at a distance at roughly 400m (440 freedom units) and the pictures are all mushy crap at 100% - especially the ones where the diver jump in overcast condition (we had ~25% cloud cover).

But when down-rezzing to IG (~1K) and putting jump images together into a "timelapse" it looks pretty nice.

I need to do some static tests of various combos of lenses and TCs for future reference.
 
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I used the 200-400mm with both the internal 1.4x TC + 2x TC III + EF-RF adapter on the R3 this past Saturday (so 1120mm f/11 effectively), shooting at Red Bull Cliff Divers at a distance at roughly 400m (440 freedom units) and the pictures are all mushy crap at 100% - especially the ones where the diver jump in overcast condition (we had ~25% cloud cover).

But when down-rezzing to IG (~1K) and putting jump images together into a "timelapse" it looks pretty nice.

I need to do some static tests of various combos of lenses and TCs for future reference.
I have a 200-400 and it is a fantastic sports lens. But it performs poorly with add-on teleconverters in my experience. It seems to do well with the internal teleconverter, but I found it got really soft with the 1.4 or 2X external. You were better off cropping especially if you had a high MP FF or crop body camera.

One reason I bought the 600mm F4 IS II, is it has a reputation for working well with the 1.4X and 2X teleconverters as long as you have the VIII converters. Some blog posts say it was sharper than the 600mm IS VIII when using the teleconverters.

I'm trying to come up with a something like a Doctor's Eye chart to photograph in testing the teleconverters.
 
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I have a 200-400 and it is a fantastic sports lens. But it performs poorly with add-on teleconverters in my experience. It seems to do well with the internal teleconverter, but I found it got really soft with the 1.4 or 2X external. You were better off cropping especially if you had a high MP FF or crop body camera.

I'm trying to come up with a something like a Doctor's Eye chart to photograph in testing the teleconverters.

Yes, I agree it's a fantastic sports and wildlife lens. I hadn't paid enough attention to it not liking external extenders. However, I had poor results in the R3 tracking motorcycles going through the Geert TImmer chikane three weeks ago, with the 200-400 and the internal extender. I 'only' have FF cameras (1DX and now and R3). My most recent APS-C is the 50D which is absolutely crap when it comes to image quality (far too much color noise).

I have the measurement targets from FoCal, so I could take pictures of that with the various combos and get it to estimate an image quality number. Not sure if they will be comparable across the lens/extender combos though.
 
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