Nikon 100-400 + TC-2X

[John_DE]

I own the 100-400 and find it an excellent lens for telephoto landscapes and for wildlife. It’s my go to lens for butterflies etc. However, I do not care for this lens with either Z TC (1.4 or 2.0). I also own the 180-600. This zoom is quite sharp and is a bargain in its price, but I do not care for TCs on the 180-600 either.

If you need more reach than the 100-400 for some subjects, I’d advise getting the 180-600, or any of the Z prime lenses from 400mm and up. The primes will perform well with your TCs.

 

[apakett]

If you need more reach than the 100-400 for some subjects, I’d advise getting the 180-600, or any of the Z prime lenses from 400mm and up. The primes will perform well with your TCs.

I have the Z600 f/6.2 PF. It performs extremely well, better than the 100-400. I am considering a 1.4 TC for it. The 600 PF is mostly used for wildlife and bird photography with high ISO. Therefore, noise tends to be the limiting factor for how much I can crop. In that situation a TC may not help. The equivalent noise will be the same.

Anyone with experience using the Z600 PF with and without a TC for action shots ?

Thanks
Allan

 

[apakett]

Remember that changing to DX mode is cropping the photos.

For birds in flight I shoot full frame, which helps avoid clipped wings. For a bird in a tree or wading at a distance DX gets me a larger subject viewfinder image and the camera tends to focus faster and meter more accurately.

 

[BillW]

I have the Z 100-400 and both Z TCs. I’ve used it with the 1.4x TC a fair amount. I find it pretty good with the 1.4x TC getting you to 560 mm, at least if there is a reasonable amount of light since with the TC it is f8 at the long end. To be fair, now that I also have the Z 180-600, I’d likely pick it over the Z 100-400 with the 1.4x TC, unless I also needed to be able to get to 100 mm at the wide end (without a TC).

I have tried the Z 100-400 with the 2x TC. Not my favorite. But I’d use it in a pinch if I needed 800 mm and had no other option with me (and usually I do have other options with me). You lose 2 stops of light, leaving you at f11 at the long end, and I think get somewhat slower AF. Some loss of sharpness over the 1.4x TC. I expect the results with either TC can be improved by using the DxO optics modules (which I use, but have not tested here).

I usually have a long lens on one body (often a prime) and a shorter lens on a second body (usually a zoom and often the Z 100-400). And with a one lens zoom solution, I might more likely go with the Z 180-600. So I tend to use TCs less with the Z 100-400 now than I used to do.

 

[eaj101]

I don't have any qualms about using the TC14 on the 100-400 when I need the reach. I do have reservations about the TC20, so several reasons. a) you're now at f11, which can have consequences for shutter speed and ISO, b) you're into the diffraction range on the 46MP bodies, so even if the optics were exceptional there's going to be an impact, though you can clean a lot of that up in post. c) you're at 800mm.

I think people in general are far too casual about shooting such long focal lengths. I know people say 'I can hand hold it!', and while that may be true in a sense I can guarantee that your keeper rate will be higher with some kind of solid support. Not to mention the impossibility of holding that long rig to your eye for minutes on end waiting for some kind of action. When people claim that they're getting soft shots at long focal lengths I always want to ask if they tried a tripod Seriously, at 800mm the reciprocal shutter speed rule says you need at least 1/800th to handhold. I think that rule breaks down at extreme focal lengths, and even if you shoot at 1/3200th you only have a 2-stop margin of error.

I wish Steve would do an updated article on long-lens technique, I'd be interested in his thoughts.

So yes, if I'm not carrying a monster lens and I can't get closer and I don't want to crop that much I'll pull out the TC20. And be very careful.

 

[Judy Lapetino]

My two cents worth about it:

Sorry to say that, but IMHO - simply and straight forward - forget it !

@Steve has shown in his comparisons with the Z180-600 that this lens doesn't like TC's very much and if you take a look to the review at Photogrphylife , you'll see that the lens already shows a slight drop solo at 400mm (which isn't critical though), but with 2x you loose more than 40 % of the resolution and you are at f11 wide open. This is not what I would call a lens anymore, because you are not only hampered in terms of IQ but also in relation to lighting conditions (--> Shutter speed / ISO) and object isolation (DOF).

Honestly, for the Z Tele zooms I decided to forget about TC's completely, being it for the Z 100-400 or the Z 180-600. If I need to get more reach I simply need to use another lens or - as a compromise - I accept to crop, because with this kind of quality loss introduced by using a TC the result with cropping a FX image shot at 400mm without TC might be just as good if not better. And to put this in context, this is not a really bad news.

Just take a look at what stunning mouthwatering images have been taken with cameras like the D4s in the DSLR days - with 16,2 MPixel !
I don't know which camera you are using, but assuming it would be a Z7 (II) , Z8 or Z9, if you shot in DX mode or made a crop to DX format in post you still have about 19,4 MPixel resolution left and this is about 20% more than the D4s had and just 6% less than a D5 or D6, and nobody would seriously argue about the fact, that they were pro grade bodies and the flagships of thier time.

If you like using zooms and wish to have more reach, then take a look at the Z 180-600. Considering that it costs about € 800,- more (sorry for the Euro but you get the idea) than just the two Z TC's together and at the same time gives you zoom flexibility, handoldability and IQ on a decent level with 200mm more reach, I am pretyy sure that this will most likely make you happier straight away and keep you happy in the longer term also.

I have them both for exactly the reason I pointed out above. I love having the flexibility with zoom lenses, but it is more or less a given, that most of them do not like TC's. Thus, if I have them both with me, I use the Z100-400 up to about 350mm and then let the Z 180-600 take over.
But the overlap in focal length range often makes ist easy to decide which one to take for what I want to do, if I have to go small/light and accept some compromise in IQ at the short or long end - but in a much, much smalller scale than I would have to accept it with using a TC's.

And there is something else that tends to be forgotten. Theoretically you use the TC only when your lens gets "too short". But if you use the zoom for its flexibility, in most cases people tend to have it mounted more or less permantly in a particlar situation giving you e.g. a 140-560mm lens with the TC-1,4x. But this comes at a price: The drop in IQ quality then applies to the entire zoom range and you end up shooting with maybe half the IQ you'd get with the lens solo at the same focal length - forgetting about loosing one or even two stops of light by using a TC.

As in many discussions around IQ, SNR etc. it always comes down to the same thing: "You can tweak data and write clever software to do it, but you just can't cheat of bypasss physics".

Great information. I have used both the 2.0 and 1.4 T with the Z100-400 and the 2.0 is very slow to focus and there is no way to get birds in flight.