D500+200-500 w/1.4tc have you tried it?

[Dennis Rashé]

So as you can see in the title, I am just trying to get a bit more reach. I know Steve doesn’t recommended it but for the price($125) I could get it for I thought I would give it a try. I borrowed a friends 14 tc it is a series 1 and had disastrous results. Everything was out of focus. Do I have to change Settings in the camera Or on the lens? Do I have to fine tune it? I am Not sure if the auto focus worked. It appeared as I Looked like it my view finder it worked, but images were not good at all. Any experience with this set up? I would appreciate any suggestions before I throw the idea into the trash can. Thanks in advance.

 

[DRwyoming]

So as you can see in the title, I am just trying to get a bit more reach. I know Steve doesn’t recommended it but for the price($125) I could get it for I thought I would give it a try. I borrowed a friends 14 tc it is a series 1 and had disastrous results. Everything was out of focus. Do I have to change Settings in the camera Or on the lens? Do I have to fine tune it? I am Not sure if the auto focus worked. It appeared as I Looked like it my view finder it worked, but images were not good at all. Any experience with this set up? I would appreciate any suggestions before I throw the idea into the trash can. Thanks in advance.

I've tried it and though I got pretty good image quality the AF was all but inoperable. In bright light if you restrict yourself to the center AF point it would generally grab focus on high contrast subjects but forget about any of the outer focus point sensors or falling light levels or less contrasty subjects where the AF would hunt back and forth without reliably attaining focus.

If you can't get sharp results even when using the center focus point on good subjects in bright light then sure it could make sense to do a test to see if the lens is back focusing or front focusing as those are common problems that AF Fine Tune can usually remedy. It's also possible your copy of the 200-500mm and your copy of the TC-14 (ideally ii or iii) doesn't play well together from an image quality standpoint but IME the IQ was fine as long as AF actually achieved focus.

Remember there are only a handful of more modern Nikon DSLRs that will reliably achieve AF at f/8 and then using only the most central AF sensors and unfortunately the 200-500mm f/5.6 plus a TC-14 is an f/8 lens.

 

[Dennis Rashé]

I've tried it and though I got pretty good image quality the AF was all but inoperable. In bright light if you restrict yourself to the center AF point it would generally grab focus on high contrast subjects but forget about any of the outer focus point sensors or falling light levels or less contrasty subjects where the AF would hunt back and forth without reliably attaining focus.

If you can't get sharp results even when using the center focus point on good subjects in bright light then sure it could make sense to do a test to see if the lens is back focusing or front focusing as those are common problems that AF Fine Tune can usually remedy. It's also possible your copy of the 200-500mm and your copy of the TC-14 (ideally ii or iii) doesn't play well together from an image quality standpoint but IME the IQ was fine as long as AF actually achieved focus.

Remember there are only a handful of more modern Nikon DSLRs that will reliably achieve AF at f/8 and then using only the most central AF sensors and unfortunately the 200-500mm f/5.6 plus a TC-14 is an f/8 lens.

Thanks so much for the insight on this issue. And the time You took and length of your answer.

 

[Yezdi]

I have used the 200-500 with a TC14iii, and as Dave above has said, it is quite difficult to achieve tack sharp focus at f8 unless the lighting is very good and you have static or slow moving subjects. For BIF shots you can just forget using this combo. You might also want to AF Fine Tune your 200-500 lens before using it. Since these lenses are cheap and Made In China not all copies are tack sharp out of the factory. Even Steve changed 3 lenses before he got a sharp copy which he has discussed in the video below.

 

[Dennis Rashé]

Thanks for the update and info. It is starting to sound like adding a TC with my lens is going to be a big hassle. My lens works well and I get good clear images without the TC.

 

[RichardN]

works well, as others have said, in bright light - otherwise a bit hit and miss as you go.

 

[gbodave]

I used the Nikkor 1.4 TC with the camera and lens set up you mention . Generally most agree that V3 of the 1.4 TC gives the best results. I found that in bright weather IQ and speed of focusing was excellent. In gloomy olde England the combination of 500mm, F8 and a SS of at least 1250 easily pushes ISO up to around 4000 and that's unacceptable to me.

For wildlife I use single point AF with spot metering and F8 all the time so I don't know how other settings would impact results.

Interestingly I tested the 1.7 version and I was surprised that IQ held up in bright weather. What let it down was that it took maybe 4 or 5 attempts to achieve focus on slow moving subjects and that's a no no because it would be a complete waste of time for fast action.

 

[Strodav]

A 1.4x teleconverter changes your 200-500mm f/5.6 to a 280-700mm f/8 lens. My D500 does AF at f/8, but only in the center of the frame and focus can be a bit iffy. I would not use it for BIF, but for a more still subject it works fine especially using BBF. Center the frame on a high contrast area and AF, release the BBF button, re-frame then shoot. Of course, you can always go to manual focus. As far as sharpness goes you are in a typical photographers trade off. With the teleconverter you can put more sensor pixels on your subject for better detail but at the expense of a bit of accutance (lp/mm). For me, the slight loss in accutance is minor as other factors are more critical like the shutter speed, holding the camera steady, avoiding mashing the shutter button, DOF, lighting / contrast, ...

 

[MartyD]

If I could pickup a recent edition of the Nikon TC1.4 for $125 I would do so in a heart beat. Not that it is going to be practical in all situations but I would certainly think that there would be times when it would be of practical use. It would be great if you could try it out but even if you can't I would think that you could sell it for $125 if it doesn't work out for you.