Giving the TC a second chance

[pressld2]

I think I may have been a bit foolish in writing of my teleconvereter as a lost cause. I bought it last May and have stuck it on the camera with my 80-400 zoom two or three times but didn't get anything I was even remotely happy with. So it's been languishing unused in my camera bag for months.

But today I decided to give it another chance and a proper workout instead of just a few trial shots. I'm very glad I did! These are way better than anything I've got with it before...









All except the lapwing are un-cropped images.

I still got fewer keepers than I would expect when not using the TC and it did miss focus more than the lens on its own does but that's to be expected as it's turning my normal f5.6 into f8.

I can't remember what the light was like when I tried using it previously but it was great today which must have helped enormously. I think I'll be using the TC a bit more often from now on.

Dave P.

[ron1863]

Lovely shots Dave. It sometimes pays to persevere

[pressld2]

It certainly does Ron!

I've been thinking a lot today about what made the difference and have decided it's two things. Firstly, as already said, it was good light. Bright sunshine reflecting off snow - it rarely gets much brighter in the UK. Secondly I was pretty close to the birds to start with. I think when I used the TC before I was trying to get shots of birds that I wouldn't have bothered with using the 80-400 on its own as they were just too far away. Well if the subject is a dot on the horizon then turning my 400mm into a 560mm really isn't going to help much! Yesterday I would have got reasonable shot of those birds with the lens alone so I think it's a case of giving the converter something to work on. At least, that's my theory.

Dave P.

[Ollie]

Some very nice shots with the teleconverter Dave. In a very similar position myself I tried a 1.4 teleconverter with my 400mm prime and although I got a few decent shots I wasn't that happy with it and the success rate was pretty low.

Maybe I need to take a lesson out of your book and give it another go. Certainly seems worthwhile in good light after seeing these from you.
Roger

[Jon]

I suspect the AF worked better because there are areas of high contrast in the images and therefore the AF selection point has less difficulty in determining focus

Jon

[DavyG]

Nice set of pics Dave.

I must give my 1.4 TC another go with the Bigma!

Dave

[tameblackbirds]

I know nothing about photography other than point and shoot but I do really like you images look very good to me

[Hobjob]

Good light and decent shutter speed I'm sure helped +++

Nice photos

Did you see you wren is ringed

[ellen h]

Lovely set of photos there Dave
ellen

[pressld2]

Thanks for the comments everyone! I missed a great stonechat opportunity too. I'd switched the focus limit on for the lapwing in flight shot and then had a male stonechat sit on a teasel less than 10 feet from the lens. If I sat in that hide every day for a week I don't think I'd get one that close again!

Originally Posted by Jon

I suspect the AF worked better because there are areas of high contrast in the images and therefore the AF selection point has less difficulty in determining focus

A good point Jon, I'll have to give it another good workout when the snow has gone and see if I'm still happy or back to square one.

Originally Posted by Hobjob

Did you see you wren is ringed

Yes, I spotted that. Quite a lot of birds at Crossness are ringed as it's a "Constant Effort" site for the Dartford ringing group. They're there every Sunday pretty much without fail so most of the residents end up ringed and quite a few of the migrants too.

Dave P.