Teleconverters | MUST-HAVE or WASTE of MONEY? Are you better off cropping?

[Music] [Music] hi guys welcome to the channel in my last few videos you've seen me use extenders extensively in low light high hose old situations and even on zoom lenses but how does it go together with what i've said in the past about extenders and that they shouldn't be used on zoom lenses and that are mainly good for large fast prime lenses is that still true or has the game change and we can use extenders on all sorts of lenses now and the answer is a clear and sound it depends maybe not exactly what you were hoping to hear so let's look into situations where using an extender is far superior to using the bare lens and cropping and then other situations where cropping and not using extenders is superior i'm also going to show you a lot of examples taken with different lens and camera combinations from canon and sony to see where i think using extenders is definitely advantageous to just using the bear lens i'm also going to show you some examples of the 100 to 500 with the two times extender comparing that to the rf 800 f 11 millimeter lens because that's something a lot of you have been asking i think that's actually quite an interesting question extenders always sound like such a good and relatively inexpensive solution but sometimes if something sounds too good to be true it often is so we can't just go out buying extender slap it on a cheap lens and expect it to give us double the focal length without any sort of drawbacks generally speaking extenders always come with drawbacks and you will have to expect to make some sacrifices in return for getting that extra focal length the biggest mistake i see people making is that they're using extenders to photograph subjects that are already too far away they're like tiny tiny in your frame and then you slap on the two times extender and expect magical sharpness and the frame filling photo that's not really how it works extenders shine the most when you use them to get something bigger in your frame that's already kind of large in your frame then you can put on a two times extender and you will generally get some good results if the birds already too far away from you just emphasizing all the problems you already have in that frame because there's so much distance between you and the burden things like heat haze and just not as great sharpness are just becoming emphasized over that large distance and most of your results will generally be quite disappointing if you can you should try and avoid using extenders simply because there's no lens that works better than extenders than without extenders so let's look at some sample images that i've taken the first examples i want to show you are taken with the sony a1 the 200 to 600 millimeter lens and the 1.4 extender if we zoom in to 100 you can see that in my opinion at least the quality of the 200 to 600 millimeter lens with the 1.4 extender and 840 millimeters is really exceptional and this is an image i'm really happy with next image really low light situation end of the day to 600 1.4 extender and in the very last slide the 200 to 600 really performed outstanding with the 1.4 extender on the a1 another example of a singing honeyeater we zoom into that again i think with the 1.4 extender on the 200 to 600 especially in combination with the a1 i was getting fantastic results just one last image of a shell duck a little bit further away but even at a larger distance i was still getting really good sharpness and this is probably one of the main things that positively surprised me when i was using the a1 with the 200 to 600 millimeter lens because it handled the 1.4 extender so well it was definitely usable combo and probably the best zoom lens i've used when it comes to using it with extenders as well even better than the canon 100 to 500 millimeter lens i was very impressed when using it and i can well highly recommend at least the 1.4 extender if you're having a 200 to 600 millimeter lens and at least with the a1 the auto focus and everything else still worked really really well next i want to show you a few sample images from the 100 to 500 millimeter lens the first one is with no extender on you can see how incredibly sharp and detailed that lenses and now we have a cockatoo with the 100 to 500 and the two times extender you can see that sharpness and detail is suffering a little bit but overall i think this is still kind of a surprising result because the quality overall i think is still acceptable i don't get every shot this sharp with the two types extender so there's definitely more shots that are not critically sharp but you can still get some pretty good results but you have to be willing to keep up with less consistent results but overall i think this result would be better than shooting this at 500 millimeters and then cropping here's another interesting example of yellowtail black cockatoo that was just sitting on this branch i just couldn't get close enough or there was too much stuff in the front for me to get a full body shot so i tried to get closer try to get this shot this is at 700 millimeters with the 1.4 extender you can see it might not be the sharpest shot in the world but it's still pretty acceptable quality but i still kind of didn't know what to do with this image because it's too far away to really crop and i think the only thing i saw in this scene was like a cool kind of headshot especially it was like raising up the crest or something so i said why not put the two times extender on it was kind of low light high as old but autofocus worked well and if we zoom into that we can see that i think the image quality is still pretty nice and acceptable with a lot of details and with a little bit of extra sharpening i think i can actually transform this into really nice headshot here's an example now we can see that the bird actually just before it took off raced it's crest a little bit so i got this nice shot this is the raw file and then here you see the final version that i envisioned in the field just a nice headshot with the crest up i got rid of some of those annoying sticks and actually that bit of branch that was sticking out from the side as well and if you want to know how to remove these things and how to edit your bird images to perfection make sure to check out my master class down there in the description so let's talk about the age old question is it better to use the bare lens and crop or use an extender you may have already gotten the feeling that i'm personally a fan of using an extender where it makes sense and i think this example can show that as well this is the 100 to 500 millimeter lens at 500 millimeters and this is the 100 to 500 millimeter lens at a thousand millimeters and you can see that nothing really changed the background still looks the same but the bird is significantly larger in the frame with the two types extender now giving me much much more pixels on the bird so if we zoom into this we can see the 100 to 500 millimeter shot without extender has pretty good image quality and then if we zoom in to the two types extender shot that we see it's still decent but we lost a little bit more detail but when we now crop the hundred to five hundred millimeter shot to the same size in the frame as the two times extender shot at the thousand millimeters and if we actually compare this now to the file with the two times extender we have a 16 megapixel image that has maybe slightly better overall quality but the file is a lot smaller and now what i could do i could grab my two times extender file and downsize it to the 16 megapixels of the crop file the downsize two times extender file has actually slightly more detail so in the end i think this is a good example where using the extenders might make you sacrifice a little bit of image quality but it gives you a lot more flexibility afterwards because you have a lot more pixels on the bird that means you can maybe even still go for headshot or crop tighter printed larger i've mainly showed you examples of extenders on zoom lenses simply because this is really where it has changed recently with the a1 and the 200 to 600 and the r5 and 100 to 500 there's actually a few zoom lenses now where you can use extenders quite successfully but to just show you that obviously they really shine on prime lenses is this example of that kate baron goose where we zoom in 840 millimeters and we still get some really really good image quality what i want to show you next is a very interesting questions a lot of you have been asking me would you buy a hundred to 500 and the extenders or would you buy 100 to 500 and buy an f11 800 millimeter lens instead of using extenders and i find this question really hard to answer and i think it comes down to what you want if you have to extend this with 100 to 500 millimeter lens gives you a lot of flexibility and it's not much to carry with you if you have 100 to 500 and an 800 millimeter lens it's a lot more to carry and it's actually harder to change things quickly in the field because if i'm out in the field i have 100 to 500 millimeter lens i usually have both of the extenders somewhere in my pockets and my pants i couldn't do that with an 800 millimeter lens i would have to have it in a backpack or somewhere else so let's look at a couple of examples but my gut feeling is that the 800 is probably slightly better slightly sharper slightly more consistent than 100 to 500 with the two times extender but you're paying for it in a lot less flexibility and as you may have guessed in this video now already i do value flexibility and options a lot so personally i think i'm more drawn to the 100 to 500 with the extenders but if you're not bothered by having an extra lens with you in your backpack for instance i think the 800 millimeter lens can be a very good option for you so here's the first example 100 to 500 two times extender stop down to f16 and you can see some quite nice quality and here we have a hooded plava r5 f11 800 millimeter lens and i think pretty much similar image quality we can look at these side by side now and i think there's really not much between those two shots is there so if both perform at their best you can get some very comparable images and the 100 to 500 actually has a clear advantage there then however i must say that on average you get more sharp images with the 800 than the 100 to 500 with the two times extender and it's very recommendable that you stop down when using extenders especially on zoom lenses however with 100 to 500 that's kind of a problem because it's with the 1.4 extender it's wide open at f10 with the two times extended it's wide open at f14 so stopping down from f14 really becomes a bit problematic because you end up using like 6400 eyes or f16 or f18 on a sunny day which is really not that great and it does perform well wide open as well but it does benefit from stopping down and overall it's a little less consistent and that's what we can see in this example now if we zoom into 100 you can see that you get shots that are a little bit soft when using the 100 to 500 with the two times extender and on average i felt like you're getting more crisp shots with the 800 millimeter lens but funnily enough it really depends on the circumstances while obviously how good the light is and how good your technique is and how good the autofocus works on a given day so with the 100 to 500 into two times extender sometimes i get exceptional results and then sometimes i get results i'm not too happy about especially if the bird's a bit too far away and i'm just trying to force it with the two times extended the results are usually not that good since we're talking about extenders i also wanted you to see a very extreme example this is the f11 800 millimeter lens with the rf two times extender wide open at f 22 completely crazy so let's have a look obviously the image quality is not amazing anymore but considering that you are holding a little lens and have 1600 millimeters of focal length in your hand that you can hand hold is pretty amazing so would i recommend using extenders on the 800 f11 lens probably not but if you're more after just idea shots you don't care about the last bit of sharpness this might actually still be an option for you especially if you're a birder that just wants to photograph distant birds you have a 1600 millimeter walk around combo crazy when it only comes to image quality and not using extenders the 100 to 500 is the clear winner but with extenders the results are a lot more mixed and i would say it actually comes down to your personal preference do you prefer to have too little extenders that actually cost more than the 800 millimeter lens or you're happy to carry another extra lens with you so personally i'm definitely a fan of extenders especially when i can still get good image quality simply because i get more pixels on the bird that gives me more flexibility when i'm editing my images however extenders definitely come with a lot of drawbacks and one drawback is that you're losing a lot of depth of field when using extenders so let's have a look at this rose robin image that's actually quite interesting because this is the image without the extender and then this is the image with the 1.4 extender on on my 600 millimeter prime line as we can see one advantage of the prime lens is actually that it dissolves the background much better when i put the extender on 100 to 500 for instance if i put the extender on the background more or less stays the same but on this 600 millimeter f4 lens the background definitely becomes a lot smoother when using the extenders however if we zoom in to 100 we can see that the sharpness is still decent in both scenarios but we're losing a lot of depth of field when using extenders up close and shooting them relatively wide open so all the feet of the bird the tail the wing at the back of the head is all not fully sharp anymore so personally in this scenario i would actually prefer to shoot with just 600 millimeters in crop because i simply get a lot more depth of field on the bird and personally think get the slightly better overall image what do you think does it bother you when the bird's feet or the tail is not really sharp it's definitely something that i don't really like so with a big prime lens if the bird's relatively close i often prefer to have it smaller in the frame and crop rather than having it too large in the frame with the extender and then losing too much depth of field so this is interesting because it's kind of the opposite to what i said before where i want to get as many pixel as possible on the bird but this was in a scenario where i was walking around with a zoom lens but in this scenario with the rose robin i'm only maybe six seven meters from the bird with a big prime lens and in that scenario it's definitely better to not use the extender because you get a lot more sharpness and depth of field on the bird and i think it gives you slightly better result so ultimately when using extenders you have to be aware that you're going to lose some light you'll have to use higher iso the autofocus will struggle a little bit more give less depth of field and overall your results will be slightly less consistent so that sounds like a lot of drawbacks but i think as i've shown you in this video the extenders also have a lot of advantages and so i think it's important that you think about when to use extenders and why you're using extenders so why is it suddenly possible to use extenders with a lot more lenses than in the past the main thing to me is the advances in the mirrorless technology and the much better autofocusing system that is now capable of autofocusing and like f22 in very dark conditions this is simply something that dslr cameras could not do most dslr cameras could only focus with the lens being wide open like f8 some at f11 but most dslr cameras already struggle at the lens that's wide open at f 8 with the 1.4 extender for instance so this is something that has truly changed the game for extender use because i'm able to use the 100 to 500 the two times extender on my r5 at f14 in dark conditions and shoot an l in the middle of the forest and i still get good and accurate autofocus and this is simply something that you didn't have before for instance if you have a hundred to four hundred with a two times extender on a 5d mark iv it probably won't even autofocus or if it does it will be very slow very inaccurate and you're probably not going to get any good results so this is where the mirrorless technology has really changed the game also because you can use much higher eyes old now and because you're losing some light when using the extenders you have to stop down as well to get more sharpness so you're often shooting at f8 f11 or like with this lens at f14 so what you have to do to compensate to have enough shutter speed for sharp images bump up your iso on a lot of dslr cameras you couldn't really bump up your eyes or high enough to actually get good enough shutter speed with extenders but now you can because on an r5 on a1 you can shoot it like alice or 12 800 and still get some pretty usable results so the combination of being able to use high iso and have much better much more accurate and just overall better auto focusing in cameras has really made it possible to use extenders on a much larger variety of lenses does that mean we should use extenders on all lenses now no matter what no generally speaking the better the lens the more expensive as well except for the sony 200 to 600 the better the lens will also be capable of taking extenders like big expensive 600 millimeter prime lenses like you see behind me there can take the 1.4 or two times extended and give you fantastic results extenders are really made for lenses that are already fantastic without extenders so they can handle the loss and the drawbacks in image quality in auto focusing speed etc when it comes to using extenders and then still give you a decent output in the end so my recommendation is still what it was in the past try to avoid extenders if you're considering extenders ask yourself do i have a good enough lens that can handle extenders for most zooms i would say no with the exception of the 100 to 400 version 2 that can handle the 1.4 extender or right if you stop down i wasn't happy with the two times extender on that lens at all the hundred to five and i can handle both extenders within reason and the sony 200 to 600 did very well and i think it's only 100 to 400 handles the 1.4 extend out pretty well as well of course i haven't tried every single lens that's out there but generally speaking i would try to only use extenders on great quality zoom lenses or higher end prime lenses where they can really shine because what you don't really want to do is use an extender but then get worse image quality than you would have gotten if you simply cropped your images some of you might also ask what about using the internal crop factor some of these newer cameras have like an a1 you can have a 1.5 crop factor or an r5 we can have a 1.6 crop factor isn't that like using an extender it's actually not like using an extender because all it does is basically the camera crops the image for you there's some advantages like you see your subject larger in your viewfinder you have more pixels on the bird in the viewfinder so it's easier for the autofocus to focus but you're not actually gaining anything you have the same result if you shot in 45 megapixels and cropped it yourself or use the 1.6 crop factor and let the camera crop for you so while it helps you to have the bird bigger in the frame it doesn't give you any advantage over cropping later on the computer so personally i'm always a bit hesitant to use it and i haven't really used it at all because i always fear that i would be shooting at a 1.6 crop mode bird raises its wings and i clip them if i had not shot in the crop mod i would have had them and i would have been able to crop afterwards whereas with the 1.6 crop activated i might miss a shot that i wouldn't have missed if i was shooting in full frame so that's the main reason i'm not using it i hope this video could give you a good idea about extenders and when to use them and when it might be better not to use them and use the bare lens and crop instead as you've seen over the last few weeks i've got some fantastic results with the extenders but i would always say use extenders with caution and if you can you should always try to not use extenders simply because there's a lot of drawbacks however in other situations they can definitely be live savers and allow you to take images that you can't take otherwise so hope you enjoyed this video let me know in the comments are you fan of extenders are you using them a lot or do you think their waste of money and cropping is better let me know in the comments also make sure to check out my master class when you want to learn all about editing techniques that make your images look amazing give me thumbs up for this video share it with your friends make sure to subscribe to the channel and i will see my next video very soon bye guys

Channel: Jan Wegener

Views: 93,569

Keywords: bird photography, jan wegener, birds, wildlife photography, Canon 600mm, bird photography equipment, bird photography gear, birding gear, eos R5, Canon EOS R5, animal eye AF, animal eye autofocus, R5, EOS R6, canon mirrorless, RF lens, Canon RF 100-500, 100-500, zoom lens, RF 100-500, low light, high iso, handheld, 100-500 in low light, low light photography, teleconverter, extender, cropping vs teleconverter, crop vs extender, Sony 200-600, Sony A1

Id: CDyEM5dpaPw

Length: 23min 8sec (1388 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 31 2021