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AF confirmation chip and EC-14 (1 Viewer)

pshute

Well-known member
Australia
Can anyone tell me what will happen if I connect an EC-14 teleconverter between my E-520 and a manual focus lens with an AF confirmation that reports a focal length of 300mm? Will the camera think it has a 420mm lens on, and will the IS work correctly?

And is it likely that a modern TC will work ok with what's probably a 30 or 40 year old, not so special lens? It's an Asanuma (Tokina?) 300mm prime lens, M42 mount.

I'd look around for an M42 TC instead, but only 2x seem to be available, and I'm concerned that the image quality will suffer too much, and that it'll end up too difficult to find the subject in that narrow field of view. I think I can cope with 840mm equivalent, but maybe not 1200. I'd also rather not lose two stops of light, one is bad enough.
 
DOn't you have to tell the confirmation chip what focal length you are using? I think you do, so if you add a teleconverter, I think you would have to change its settings to get it to know. However, I don't think that that setting is all that important to the chip. From what I've read, it is mainly so the EXIF data will be correct, which is a useful function to help you remember what lens you used. It may also help with the camera's image stabilization functioning. I'll bet it will still work OK without bothering to change the chip settings.

IMHO, don't even think about using a 2X teleconverter on the lens, unless you want to lose a lot of IQ. Even with an EC-20, unless you have a high-quality lens, you will lose quality.
 
There are often "Solitel" M42 1.85x converters on ebay (UK) and I'm VERY impressed with the one I have that cost £5 ish and came with metal caps and a leather case. There are also some 1.4x (vivitar) ones I have seen but I always get outbid on them as they go for £30+.
As I understand it, if you intend to make use of the IS system the focal length info needs to be correct for IS to work correctly.

Pete
 
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DOn't you have to tell the confirmation chip what focal length you are using? I think you do, so if you add a teleconverter, I think you would have to change its settings to get it to know.
Because the EC-14 is an electronic lens intended for Olympus cameras, I was thinking it should contain circuitry to get the focal length of the main lens from its chip, then multiply it by 1.4 and report that to the camera. In theory that should happen, but who knows whether the reverse engineering process resulted in a chip that will work in that situation.
 
There are often "Solitel" M42 1.85x converters on ebay (UK) and I'm VERY impressed with the one I have that cost £5 ish and came with metal caps and a leather case. There are also some 1.4x (vivitar) ones I have seen but I always get outbid on them as they go for £30+.
There seem to be none on there at the moment, but it's good to know that they exist. I'm not sure I want to lose nearly two stops with a 1.85, and if 1.4x's are that expensive then it might work out better for me to just buy an old 400mm f6.3 lens instead, then I only lose half a stop (but end up with a lens that won't fit in my camera bag).

£30 is too expensive? The people who stick to buying new AF equipment must find that bewildering.
 
£30 is too expensive? The people who stick to buying new AF equipment must find that bewildering.

Unless, like me, they lost their job in February (redundancy) and have been out of work for 7 Months :( and compared to the price of the Solitel it is expensive. I also think that it's a good compromise between the brighter (but less reach) 1.4x and the "longer" (but slower) 2x converters. I still would like more reach than the 1100mm EFL I have now, It makes you realise how difficult things must have been with film 35mm.

I started a new job last week so maybe I can now afford the 50-500 Sigma! ;)

Pete
 
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"I started a new job last week so maybe I can now afford the 50-500 Sigma!"

Great. I didn't lose my job, but I can not afford the Bigma...for the next few months.
 
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There seem to be none on there at the moment, but it's good to know that they exist. I'm not sure I want to lose nearly two stops with a 1.85, and if 1.4x's are that expensive then it might work out better for me to just buy an old 400mm f6.3 lens instead, then I only lose half a stop (but end up with a lens that won't fit in my camera bag).

£30 is too expensive? The people who stick to buying new AF equipment must find that bewildering.

There are a couple for sale at the moment on ebay, here is a link to one of them.........

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Vintage-Solit...s_JN?hash=item588392c0b6&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

Pete
 
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