[Zewrak]

Do not mount a Tak 300 on any of the plastic garbage that has been made post Takumar era. I did on one of them "oh so good 1.7x"-tamron or kiron, cant remember which of them. It broke the teleconverter in half. If your going to use a converter, get a m42 metal one. Or get a plastic 300 lens.

[pacerr]

[QUOTE=Gampa;560289]That would be great! I'd love to see the difference between your lenses with and/or without converters. Your time and input are much appreciated.

I'll put up a very quick an' dirty set with the SprTac 300/f4 tonight. Attached is about the best I've gotten recently with a Tam 1.4 TC. Shamelessly cropped and tweaked, but that's the whole point, right?

Regarding comments on other notes in this thread, use good judgment on mechanical connections (use the lens tripod mount to equalize balance/stress) and don't expect results out of proportion to the quality/cost ratio of the gear.

Having said that, I consider the low cost gear to have far greater value as a learning tool than as a photographic solution. Macro equipment, strobes and lighting, and long telephoto lenses all have a distinct learning curve with notable plateaus along the way. Rather than being one of those folks that invest in high end equipment only to learn later they didn't have the interest or the patience to match the cost of the gear, invest $100-150 in probationary gear. The worst lens/TC I ever used was just a challenge to make the next shot just a little better - and digital film makes that easy.

New owners also suffer the big loss in deprecation as older equipment has essentially reached its stable value point whether buying or selling - 's like having a beat up 15-year old pickup truck. It'll never be worth any more or any less, but it's always useful (unless ya got a hot date in town).

After 40 years, I'm finally in a position where I have the location, time, inclination, money and, perhaps, the skill to consider a *-quality tele lens. There's no point in buying a DA*/ FA* long-ranger if you can't max-out the performance of an SMC-M 200 with a 2x TC. Shutter speed, DOF and motion blur aren't lens-specific issues. My first shots with an unfamiliar long lens are ALWAYS disappointing!

My personal lesson was that I don't have the inclination or patience for studio lighting or portraits. Fortunately, that happened before I could afford to spend anything on fancy equipment. The counter-argument is if you never use the good stuff how do you know for sure.

Well, try Photo 101, -2, -3 or -4 at your local educational facility...or rent...or join a club...or...? I know one gent that bought an expensive tele-lens then discovered he had absolutely NO intention of putting himself in the situations necessary to make the shots he envisioned. I realized that before he did because I couldn't get him to accompany me to similar locations so he missed the cheap lesson.

H2

LBA can only go so far in solving world economic problems!

[Lowell Goudge]

Do not mount a Tak 300 on any of the plastic garbage that has been made post Takumar era. I did on one of them "oh so good 1.7x"-tamron or kiron, cant remember which of them. It broke the teleconverter in half. If your going to use a converter, get a m42 metal one. Or get a plastic 300 lens.

my pentax 1.7x AF TC with plastic body has no problem supporting my SMC 300 F4 but it only (?????) weighs 950 grams (2 pounds 1 ounce for the metrically impared)

[Zewrak]

my pentax 1.7x AF TC with plastic body has no problem supporting my SMC 300 F4 but it only (?????) weighs 950 grams (2 pounds 1 ounce for the metrically impared)

The problem I think was that the adapter was able to rotate past the locked position. When I focused the lens, the lens and the m42 adapter turned a bit in the converter. which let the adapter in turn tilt into the converter and thus breaking the adaptor in two.

[Lowell Goudge]

[QUOTE=pacerr;560512]

That would be great! I'd love to see the difference between your lenses with and/or without converters. Your time and input are much appreciated.

I'll put up a very quick an' dirty set with the SprTac 300/f4 tonight. Attached is about the best I've gotten recently with a Tam 1.4 TC. Shamelessly cropped and tweaked, but that's the whole point, right?

in terms of shameless crops, see the following from sigma 70-200 F2.8 with 2x TC. this crop is only 10% of the K10D full frame area.

I use this as a standard of sorts. it is what I expect from a good tele zoom with a good TC

[Lowell Goudge]

Do not mount a Tak 300 on any of the plastic garbage that has been made post Takumar era. I did on one of them "oh so good 1.7x"-tamron or kiron, cant remember which of them. It broke the teleconverter in half. If your going to use a converter, get a m42 metal one. Or get a plastic 300 lens.

see my comment re cheap TC "a cheap TC is just that, cheap!" I couldn't agree more

[Zewrak]

see my comment re cheap TC "a cheap TC is just that, cheap!" I couldn't agree more

Yes. My advice is to use a m42 tc and let the adapter be in the camera. Always camera->adapter->stuff->lens. Is my advice. Same with bellows and such.

[pacerr]

Ran six TC's with the SprTak 300/4 at f4-16 this afternoon. Too much to juggle right now but here's the straight 300 and the two best and the worst of the 2x TC's at F8. Exif included. Cropped and set to 72 DPI. Lightly and equally sharpened to get a good screen image in FSIV.

Using a K100DS cause it has the Katseye at present. Cloudy WB, ISO 200 at 67 yds range. Tripod with 2 second delay. All four of these are at F8 and 1/125 sec. ID is in the file names. Focus was on the vertical rod behind the seat. Yellow rope and tag on seat, lamp lens and threads at bottom of rod are good comparison points. Grass shows DOF and bokeh.

I wasn't too surprised to see an old M42 2x Vivitar TC (Vvb) take top billing with this lens and it represents the best TC image of 42 taken. A modern, P K/A Tokina TC (Tk) placed close second. A cheap Katana TC (Kt)represents the worst of the bunch here. Pics in that order. [How do I get text to appear between pictures?]

Mid-pack results included a Tamron 1.4 AF, a 2x Makinon, and a Vivitar 2x Variable Macro.

Preliminary notes:
- the 2-second delay on a steady rest makes a BIG difference at > 300mm
- ANY glare/flare/high contrast tends to degrade all TC's
- worst case PF/CA was almost nil under these flat light conditions
- A GOOD screw-mount TC works exceptionally well with lenses of that era
- a split prism focus screen is a BIG help at >300mm
- Focus and DOF are much more critical than you think
- no real problem using the split prism to F8 with the TC's with good eye position
- there appears to be significant, relative differences in TC preferences for close, mid and long range focus situations. I'm inclined to think this lens would benefit from using task-specific TC's.
- initial results indicate that cropping from 300mm doesn't beat the quality obtained from a GOOD TC but definitely beats the worst TC on a case by case basis.
- best results are extremely dependent on accurate and consistent focus and NO camera motion. In my own experience (and failures) poor telephoto performance, especially with TC's, most often results from lack of attention to those two items.

I'll post additional TC comparison pics as time allows and hope to duplicate this with a Vivitar (Tokina) 400mm/F5.6 later. Hope these add fuel to the discussion of pros and cons of TCs.

H2

[reeftool]

Yes. My advice is to use a m42 tc and let the adapter be in the camera. Always camera->adapter->stuff->lens. Is my advice. Same with bellows and such.

There are always several M 42 converters on Ebay on any given day. I recently bought a Vivitar for 10 bucks. I think it was brand new and never used, just sitting around somewhere for a long time still in the box. I haven't had much of a chance to use it yet. The few shots I took didn't look too good but i'm not going to judge it based on a few hand held shots on one day. Dropping a couple of hundred bucks on an AF converter for a Tak doesn't make much sense because you could probably buy a longer lens for that price.

[pacerr]

I included two Vivitar M42 TC's in this comparison. One was the top gun of six. The other was an also ran with this lens. Not sure if it has universal meaning, but the older (metal build) TC was much favoried over the P-K and P-K/A's and the newer, plastic body, M42 TC.

They did a pretty good job of optically matching the older glass accessories. We too often try to mix 'em up.

H2