Thank you for another informative video Ray! And very timely; I think you you just saved me a big chunk of change by helping me make the right decision for my next lens. I had no idea the TCs basically just crop, with no impact on bokeh.

Thanks Ray, great video, answered something that has been confusing me for a long time. Ps great images also 👍

Thank you for sharing this video. It was very well explained, and I completely agree with the points presented. The reason I find TC useful in my photography is to overcome constraints that prevent me from getting as close as necessary to capture pleasant shots. I mount the TC as a last option when I've exhausted all other possibilities of getting closer without causing stress to the animal or putting myself in danger. BTW: I miss visiting NL. I hope to be able to return soon.

Totally agree there is just something fun and engaging about getting and seeing stuff in camera when possible. I like to adjust white balance in camera, even though in that case there is clearly no technical reason to not do in post.

Interesting and very honest video. I was planning the tc1.4 to add to my 300mmf2.8vr2 on my D850. Used they are around £300, so now I’m thinking not to bother and just crop instead. Thanks for the advice

Thanks for your video. I'm not surprised by your results especially when it comes to bokeh/rendering. For me a TC is also valuable to keep weight down. For example, the 400mm 4.5 + tc1.4 is a very good combination when I need reach and I dont want to carry my 800 PF.

Thoughts on accuracy/consistency of eye-AF acquisition with the bird being larger in frame with the TC? In my experience sometimes with more distant subjects in busy environments e.g. songbirds in forest, eye-AF can struggle more to pick up the eye the further the subject. Would be interesting to see some tests with that although very hard to properly simulate, lots of real-world testing probably needed. -Homer

Your comments Ray regarding IQ and social media posting echo my thoughts 100%, I also question the higher and higher megapixels and their place in the grand scheme of things for the majority of us that do not have prints done or provide photos for magazines/books, I have the Canon r5 which has 45 megapixels which is plenty IMO yet there’s talk of 60 on the next camera release? all seems a bit pointless for most of us mere mortals 🤷‍♂️ great video and the proof is in the pudding as they say 👍📷

I think you're right about this - but with a couple of exceptions. First, a TC is still very helpful if you have a lower resolution camera like a Canon R3 and you print your images. Once you start cropping those 24 megapixel files, you can quickly run into problems with printing anything relatively large, so a TC would buy you more pixels on your subject (ie. you need to crop less). I think the other situation where a TC is still nice to have would be working from a fixed position like a hide. Some of the hides I use for photographing Kingfishers are a bit too far away from some of the perches and even with a 600mm prime, I find I have to crop too much to get a small bird prominent in the frame. It's fine for when I want to show a bit of environment with the bird, but for those close-in frames which I want to offer as prints, I reach for a TC and crop less. Of course, moving closer would always be the best solution - but it's not always an option. Thanks for the video - very interesting.

Interesting thoughts…I suppose with the TC flipped to 1.4x you could do the equivalent post crop and end up with an even tighter image at 21mp…all in all if you can justify it I probably think the built in TC gives you valuable flexibility.

Thoughts on Z 400 f2.8 TC VR S + 2x TC or Z 600 f4 TC VR S (@ 840mm)?

Even for SM, what percentage of your 400mm images remain uncropped FF?

I agree with these arguments, but also have additional questions. Image quality: yes, it results in lower ISO and softer bokeh when using the 2.8 instead of the TC and 4.0. But if you crop in post, don't you also worsen the bokeh and add some noise? And if you have a scene where you have to crop even by using 560mm, isn't there an advantage over cropping substantially more using only 400mm? Next thing: AF. Could it be easier for the AF to focus and follow with a tighter image in the frame. Same could be true for exposure metering.

Excellent video. I think you are blowing minds a little with stuff like this, lol. Now imagine it when folks find out most print shops don’t print at 300dpi… Artbeats, known for quality, prints something like 180dpi on all photos. People just can’t let go of old, faulty, logic.

Very interesting, I knew there would be no difference between bokeh because both focal length and aperture are just as important as each other when it comes to subject separation and going to F2.8 with make up for that but... if you shot at 400mm F4 and 560mm F4 there would be more separation using the teleconverter which to me means there is more happening optically than just cropping in, it optically makes your lens perform like a 560mm F4 so the background compression and perspective can slightly change, well that's at least what I have been told, this would need to be tested on a much wider scene though.

I think it depends on the size of the subject. If You have a big mammal or bird and you have good distance than adding tc is useless but if your subject is very small or at longer distance tc combined with higher resulution can give You more possibilities.

What if you have a z6 with only 24 pixels and you want to crop?

TC or cropping doesn't normally make a difference. How is the focus accuracy exsample 20m moving subject with or without tc. I have noticed that atleast my photos have maybe 5% more accuracy while using TC

I would add that using the 1.4 TC (at least on Sony) makes me lose one stop of light for the distance and another for having to increase the shutter speed to maintain sharp, handheld images.

I can see your point, only what if you have a 20mp sensor? If the subject is small in the frame a 1.4 probably gets it close enough you still need to crop for composition in post. Also I am pretty sure you will notice a drop in IQ, especially with a 2x.

The AF works better with the TC activated. The birds eye is bigger on the sensor and thus the AF and eye detect works better and more determined. Also if you was to print even bigger and in 300ppi. Lets say you had to enlarge the 45mp files by 25%, you would then have to enlarge the 20mp cropped in file by ~125%. I guess you would see quite a different then.

Like anything else in photography, the real answer is "it depends". If you are hyper-fixated on exactly how the background looks, with regards to what extent it is out of focus, and also hyper-fixated on how much of the finest feather segments are resolved, then a tele-extender will make an appreciable difference, even with very high megapixel files. But if you are more of a casual observer who doesn't hyper-fixate on all of the aesthetic aspects of an image and study it for minutes on end, then no it will not matter much in most circumstances. When I shot a 400 f2.8 as my primary lens, I was constantly taking the 1.4x off and putting it on, dozens of times throughout the day, depending on what I was shooting and what my aesthetic priorities were with any given scenario.

Thanks for the great review Ray, this is always a tough topic. I like how you are resizing and not rescaling (i.e. PS image res), I think this is a more true representation. Are you also saying then, a camera (shit in crop) and TC are the ~same? I find this difficult to swallow as well becasue of the megapixel changes but trust your review.. uggh. You could go so deep here and never come out. Comparing 400+tc vs 600, too. I think people also need to note you are comparing 400/2.8 with ~560/f4.0 and not an f/6.3 vs f/9.0 lens. There might be a much larger difference on a zoom too and not a prime. You are comparing prime glass with prime glass. Lastly, the thing I think we need to keep in mind is % of crop. Your subject is still quite large. I wonder, where the trade off is (50% crop??). Maybe try a warbler. ?? jeez I just got wordy, sorry. So, are you ready to sell you 400+tc now? haha..

On a 400 mm I dont think the difference is big enough to use a tc. But, on a 600 mm f/4 prime lens, its a big enough difference in my opinion. Im using a 1.4x tc on my 600 mm f/4 and it gives me 840 mm reach at f/5.6z And since im also printing my own photos, I have a bigger image to work with as well using the tc. I would never use a 2x tc, it simply wont give the same image quality.

Man, i get what you say but with this logic there is no point to hqve longer lenses than 400mm 2.8 😅 I crop most of the frame even with my z800mm simply because I live in a place with not only small amount of birds but shy ones too. Not sure how could I crop 10x a photo with your 400mm while I hardy get them with 800mm. TC just gives you reach and it has all the sence. You just simply live in places where birds are not thqt hard to get 🤷🏻‍♂️

Xtra shirts is necessary though 😅

You almost certainly do not get the full resolution of the sensor by using a TC instead of cropping... that would require the bare lens to be resolving far more detail than the sensor can. And with high resolution/small pixel sensors, that is extremely unlikely... I'm unaware of any lens that can resolve down to 46MP FF/24MP APS (using DXO's measure). E.g. the Nikon 400/2.8 FL resolves to ~ 38MP equivalent on the 46MP D850 (Z7/Z9). Adding a 2x just magnifies and refocuses the bare lens' image circle, so you only record 1/4 of it; which would be ~ 9MP equivalent in terms of maximum detail... regardless of how many MP the file says it is. There is potentially a small benefit to increased oversampling, but there is also the disadvantage of added/magnified optical errors (which may or may not be perceivable in the resulting image). But as you have noted... if all you are going to do is use the image at ~ 2MP (online), then that's still far more than you actually need.

I have a few thoughts in response to this because I think there is some flawed logic here. (Not that you are inherently wrong but I think you aren't thinking about some key points) 1. Teleconverters don't make your lens into a longer lens. They enlarge the projection from the lens which causes it to be cropped more by your sensor area. This is why the "look" of the image is identical in your example. you are looking at a 400mm image cropped by a factor of 1.4. This essentially is the same thing as shooting in DX mode if you are thinking about it purely from a field of view perspective. The reason TCs make you lose light is because the light is being spread over a greater area. Think about it like how when you move a projector farther from the screen, the image gets bigger, but duller. Same thing is happening here. This is also why TC's are so much less effective on lower quality glass. If the image being projected on your sensor is already near or above the resolving power of the lens a TC just magnifies its flaws but conversely if your lens is outresolving your sensor then the image will degrade far less noticieably when magnified. In the case of the 400 2.8 the lens is outresolving a 48mp sensor for sure. 2. An 8k display is 35 megapixels. They are not mainstream yet, but 5 years from now I bet they will be pretty common. Imo shooting for "at least" that resolution keeps your work pretty futureproof for a while. 3. While most of your images will be for social media, it is pretty hard to predict when you will be in that moment where you capture a once in a life-time spectacular image that you may want to print on a massive canvas. In that case would you not want it at the highest possible quality you can get? The only way to ensure that you have that is to be always shooting with the highest quality in mind. 4. Denoise tools have made massive leaps in the past year or two. There was a time that I think a strong argument could be made that the increased ISO caused by putting on a TC actually completely offsets any benefit over just cropping in post and upsizing. I don't feel think that is the case anymore. 5. All that said, AI up-rez tools are getting absurdly good. Being able to boost your photo resolution in post is like magic these days. I'm shocked at what they can do and how fast they are progressing. That said, I still haven't seen one that truly beats being higher resolution from an elite lens to begin with. 6. I wish Nikon would make a normal TC that can be turned off/on like the one in the 400 or 600. (Perhaps there are some design restraints that prevent this from being possible on a TC that can be attached to any lens?) Imo the biggest struggle with most TCs is that you may miss that shot when trying to put the TC on to get more reach and would have been better off just shooting to crop rather than missing the shot entirely but with the 400 and 600 being able to just flip a switch is just too incredible to ignore.

How many amatures do you can afford to spend 13,000 . And you haven't once mentioned the price at all .. That lense has a built in TC hence the price point .

Tele converters is good only for video , photo compromise

13,000 for that lense and the 600 is 15,500 .. What you should be asking .. Is amature hobbyist being priced out the game

In another video, you said the hi rez sensor isn’t needed. Now, you’re saying a 1.4x isn’t needed because of the hi rez sensor. Er, are you telling me you live in a world where you always have your subjects at the same distance from the camera? Geez. All of you internet experts are really starting to drive me away from KZfaq.