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00:00          On today's show, we're going to be talking about, for the L-Mount, S-Series cameras, the 2x and the 1.4x teleconverters that go along with your 70 to 200mm f/4.

00:10          [Music]

00:14          Now, I know what you're thinking. You got this fancy new 70 to 200mm lens, 200 is a great reach, but you just, sometimes you want more, you need more than 200! Like maybe you need 280mm or maybe even need 400mm, but there is no 400mm L-Mount lens available yet (at least I don't think there is). You can probably adapt some other Canon lens; in fact, I know you could, but oooh, those are expensive, but there's an alternative and the alternative would be the teleconverters. Now this is not a replacement for a longer lens because along with teleconverting the focal length, you are also converting the aperture. So at your longest focal length, 200mm f/4 on the L-Mount lens here it becomes with the 2x teleconverter, a 400mm f/8 so it is not the fastest lens as far as light gathering capability goes, but it will do in a pinch and if it's not the kind of thing that you need all the time,

01:05          if you don't want to spend the money on a 400mm f/4, f/5.6 lens or even on a 400mm f/8 to have all the time, having a teleconverter like this could definitely be the ticket. Lower cost than a whole replacement lens, but it gives you that focal length. And again, if you don't need that super shallow depth of field, it gives you that as well. And we're going to take a look at a couple of sample photos here in a moment. But before I do that, I want to just put them on the lens so you can see how this all fits together, how it all looks, and also what you see on the camera. Because on the S1, which what I'm using here today, what's kind of cool is you see the focal length of the lens as you're spinning the zoom ring and you will see it translated!

01:42          You'll see it say 400 instead of 200 likewise the aperture where it said f/4 it'll now say f/8 and so on. So that's kind of a neat thing to see. So I just wanted to show that to you. Let's take a closer look at the lens adapters themselves. When we take off their caps on here, top down they look pretty much the same. But you lay 'em on their side and you can see a pretty dramatic difference here. It's pretty clear, which is the 1.4 and which is the 2. And it's funny 'cause they got these big old protrusions on here, which I got to say the first time you mount this thing on your lens, you're like, really? I'm sticking this thing into the back end of my lenses? That's a good idea? But of course it's what it's designed for. This is for the 70 to 200 and, let's see, let's see if

02:18          we can get a close up and here to show how much depth there is. You've got a lot of space inside of that lens. So basically what you're doing here is you're simply taking (we'll start with the 1.4x), you're taking this, lining it up just like you would mount it onto the camera body. Find the red dots. There's the red dot on there. There's a red dot on there. Line those guys up turn and lock and that's it. It's all there is to it. Hardware is very simple. Just a lens release button on there just like you would have on the body and there's nothing else to the adapter itself. Now at this point you can obviously just attach this to your camera as you normally would. So let's get that on there. And it does make for… it does make our big combination. Now, I've got the battery grip on the S1 as well.

02:57          So I really am making this as big as it can possibly be. So this is the S1 (S1R would look the same) with the battery grip with the now 1.4x teleconverter and the 70 to 200. I'm going to feed you what the camera sees. You will see the focal length as I zoom it. You can see it says 98mm right now on all the way up to 280mm. And if you look at the aperture, it says 5.6 right now I can close it down, but as I try to open it up more, it is stuck at 5.6. So this is the 1.4 x teleconverter. It is just basic math. 70 x 1.4, 200 x 1.4, f/4 x 1.4… that's it. That's all there is to it. And so you see how that changes. Now if you are looking for just a little bit of extra reach, then the 200… 70 to 200 with the 1.4 x will give you up to 280mm.

03:45          So it's just a little bit extra. It's not a massive amount of extra reach but a little bit extra reach. But you're also only dropping the f/5.6 if you want the extra reach to go all the way to 400 then you do obviously have to use the 2x teleconverter but then your aperture goes to f/8 so there's really a balance in there. What do you need? Do you need that reach all the way to 400? Well then this is your choice. Is it more important to you to have shallower depth of field, better light gathering capability and have a little bit less reach, in which case going with the 1.4… is that the better option for you? It's really just a personal choice. What works for you, what works for your style of shooting. Now with that said, let me go ahead and put the other teleconverter on here.

04:24          And no, you cannot stack them on top of each other. It doesn't work that way. Let's just go ahead and release this. Put this one on… again, it's just, like, inserting that in there, it just always makes me a little bit on the nervous side, but obviously it's what it's designed for. In that goes. Now we've really got a beast on here and let's, just because we can, that's on there. Let's put the lens shade on and that is the, now the full fighting glory of this combination. For those who've been watching the show for awhile and seeing me showing micro four thirds gear, even the G9 with it's biggest lens doesn't look anything near this big. So this is clearly a hefty hefty, hefty bag here. Uh, one thing, I don't know if I've ever shown this before, the lens collar, the tripod collar mount that is on the 70 to 200 as you would expect,

05:09          you loosen it and you can rotate it. So if you want to, if you're going to go vertical on there, you'd mount that under the tripod. Um, I often tend to flip it upside down if I'm shooting handheld and that gives me something to hold onto and I wouldn't, you know, carry this all over the Serengeti like this, but it does give me something to grab onto up there and I prefer to have on my hands the lens and not this mount. Personal choice in there. The tripod collar here is actually an Arca Swiss mount head. So that means that you don't have to…` if you could use an Arca Swiss tripod, you don't have to put a plate on here. These grooves here slide right into the Arca Swiss mount, which is frankly a really, really nice touch. Okay, let's take a quick look through the lens. Again, if you look at the aperture now you can see, I can close it down, but open it up, and

05:50          f/8 is the maximum. But of course as I zoom this, we are now seeing a focal length all the way up to 400mm. So you're going now from 140 to 400mm. If you're going to be shooting at 140, needless to say, it's better to take the adapter off so that you have that better, shallower depth of field. But obviously you're not going to be swapping the adapter on and off a hundred times a day when you're out shooting. It just depends on what you're doing. So again, it's just, it's a balance. What works for you. Now… performance with these on here. I will say that I haven't done a huge amount of shooting with these things. I've had them for a couple of weeks, just you, you know, life. I just haven't gotten out and done as much as I should've with them. And then the smoke rolled in.

06:28          We've got horrible fires now, so anything nature related, forget about it. But fortunately I do have a constant stream of deer running through my backyard. And so I was able to get some shots of the deer coming through over the weekend and low behold a little baby, a little fawn decided to show up this weekend. And just a quick little focus tracking. So this is at the highest motor-drive mode and this is just a sequence of shots there. One, two, three, four, five. And they are all perfectly tack sharp in focus. And I will say that when I first went, ooh there's a deer quick, put the lens on, go outside. I had it in face tracking mode but not animal tracking and it wasn't quite sure what to grab. And I got some out-of-focus shots and then I thought, “oh right animal tracking”, turned on animal tracking. Boom.

07:10          Nailed it every time. Which is kind of cool. The animal tracking, it recognized the deer, said that's the thing we want to shoot in away we went. So just a quick little pan there. High speed, obviously continuous auto focus, the highest shutter rate possible on the camera. Aperture priority wide open at f/8 and just Bam, Bam, Bam shooting along. And you saw the sequence in focus there and this one is another sequence in here and it was not moving quite as fast so it's maybe not as impressive, but series of him (her) in focus as well. And the, Oh, there's another running away. So kind of at an angle running away. Excuse the shoddy camera work. I don't know what I was pointing at, but it did keep that little fawn in focus the entire time. That's kind of all there is to say about it.

07:48          It continues to work with the auto focus, continues to work with the image stabilization. Auto focus tracking works fantastically on this camera. It works just as well when you've got the teleconverter on there. Yes, you don't have quite as shallow depth of field, but you are getting that extra reach. So for someone who needs that extra reach, sometimes, not all the time, not worth investing in a dedicated lens, then this is a great way to go. That's it everybody! Thanks a bunch for tuning in. If you are watching live, we're going to do a live Q&A right now. So stick around for that. If you're not watching live, then that live Q&A will be popping up right about here. See you in a moment.

08:18          [Music]