thought I'd try a Tamron x2 converter with an A 70-210. I've been less than impressed whenever I've tried this converter, I put the ISO up to 1600 to keep the shutter speed up as 420mm hand held is a bit of a task.

this one's without the converter


with the converter, I was trying to capture honey eaters but 420m hand held and the birds not co operating at all, I gave up and was trying some shots of gum leaves which was also proving a challange due to the wind when low & behold a honey eater came & perched on the branch I was attempting to shoot... go figure.



happy to catch a Red Whattle Bird


cheers & thanks for looking.

[Boker]

Good shots both and without the converter.I have never gotten this good of results with a converter

[8540tomg]

Nor have I. I gave up on my converter due to poor results.

These are very impressive.

Tom G

[Cee Cee]

Good shots both and without the converter.I have never gotten this good of results with a converter

Nor have I. I gave up on my converter due to poor results.

These are very impressive.

Tom G

thanks guys, I've never really had good results either until these, they have always been "soft" or just plain blurred, I think the important points about these are, I had pretty good light to begin with, high ISO made up for the loss of light using the converter and allowed me to keep shutter speed up at 1/250s or above. (1,2&4 are at 1/250 and 3 is at 1/350) and the A 70-210 lens is sharp & contrasty to begin with, and finally the bird was very co operative, allowed me to get about 10 shots (mostly soft or blurred) but very happy with these.
cheers.

[AussieTrev]

They are good. I want to look at a 70-200 Sigma with the teleconverter and these help see with good results.

[Cee Cee]

They are good. I want to look at a 70-200 Sigma with the teleconverter and these help see with good results.

hey thanks for the comments, I guess it only takes one clean sharp pic to prove that optically the setup must be ok, so all the soft & blurred shots (and there's lots of 'em) must have been my fault, If the sigma is fast and you can keep the shutter speed up then you should be able to get good results
cheers

[tessfully]

Cee Cee these are great! How wonderful that the little guy landed on the branch your were already focussing on! Gorgeous bird, great shooting! I have been practicing with the teleconverter (mine is a Pentax x1.7) and my results continue to get better as I better understand the lens combination... like you, looking for a fast shutter speed, not too narrow a DOF, good light and a sharp lens to begin with.

Lots of fun. Thanks for sharing

[WillH]

Very nice, as usual! ISO 1600! Amazing!

[Cee Cee]

Cee Cee these are great! How wonderful that the little guy landed on the branch your were already focussing on! Gorgeous bird, great shooting! I have been practicing with the teleconverter (mine is a Pentax x1.7) and my results continue to get better as I better understand the lens combination... like you, looking for a fast shutter speed, not too narrow a DOF, good light and a sharp lens to begin with.

Lots of fun. Thanks for sharing

thank you tess, yes that little bird saved the day really, I was about to put it down to another lost session with the teleconverter , now I'm looking forward to the next time, cheers

Very nice, as usual! ISO 1600! Amazing!

thanks for your comments Will, I quite often shoot at 800 when I'm looking for birds as I don't have a fast telephoto and prefer to trade high ISO for better F stop & shutter speed, to be honest with my K20 if the light is reasonable I don't see a lot of difference in the noise between 200, 400 & 800 in most circumstances, I find even at 1600 the noise is not too bad if the light is reasonable. I used "Neat Image" (free version) to reduce the noise in these, cheers.
(ps. its not that I think the K20 has good high ISO performance just that the noise doesn't seem to get better with lower ISO settings, I find all ISO settings a little noisy which would suggest to me the noise may be residule noise of the electronics rather than sensor noise, which becomes a factor at high ISO - if that makes sense)