Hi all. My wife kindly bought me a new Kenko 2x Pro 300 DGX extender ( Canon fit ) for my birthday. It arrived yesterday and I took it to work today to try it out of the window as I knew I had a quiet day. Anyway it rained all day so there were no birds but that wasn't the point I was really just trying to see how it would work. Anyway I was really impressed. The weather was terrible both wet and dark but the autofocus was fantastic. I was using my 7d with my 300mm L IS and I would go as far as to say the AF was quite fast. On the 7D it will not AF via the central focus point.........if you move the point 2 steps to the left, right, up or down it will AF fine using that point as your main AF point. It will occasionally centre focus but it was unreliable. Considering the dark conditions I was genuinely surprised. It reported the correct exif data as f8. In AV mode at f8 the pictures were overly exposed so I used manual and it was much better. So far so good! Can't comment on the IQ as yet as there was nothing to really take a picture of and due to the light auto ISO was choosing 2500 or 3000 so its not gonna be sharp but I wanted to share my opinion of the AF. When the sun comes out and I'm off I am excited about getting out there and trying it out and seeing what kind of shots I can get! This was without taping the pins. I think it is the latest version ( blue dot ). Once I've been out i will post some images but the thought of being able to use this hand held with AF is really great! Bye
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My new Kenko 2x 300 pro Extender arrived yesterday! (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter arjacee
- Start date
Good stuff - looking forward to seeing some photos taken with it.
Keith Reeder
Watch the birdie...
It focuses a little but it is not reliable ( centre point ). However with a f2.8 I think it would autofocus. The inability to centre focus may be due to the fact my 300mm is f.4. I'm not certain of this but thats what I reckon. Come on Sunshine I really want to get out there and try my new toy. Yeahhhhhh!
Keith Reeder
Watch the birdie...
That shouldn't be problem - an f/2.8 lens and a 2x converter gets you to f/5.6, which is within spec for AF.
not that the speed is a big problem at the moment.
So I was able to take out my new Kenko 2x out today. Unfortunately the bad weather has continued and it rained for alot of the day. So I couldn't give it a real work out as any 2x extender is gonna be better in good light. I wasn't that pleased with some of the shots but that might be as much to do with the fact that my camera high iso performance isnt great and I was using iso 1000. Anyway here are 3 photos I took I have cropped them and added light. The autofocus was fine but light is difficult to judge so one needs to play around with the settings. However I think I have seen enough to make me optimistic about using it on a sunny day.
Keith Reeder
Watch the birdie...
Your 7D will be fine at well above 1000 ISO - but you need to process the files in something a bit more capable than Picasa!
I use my 7D at four figure ISOs without a second thought.
(Sorry to go off topic, but this stuff about the 7D and high ISO really bugs the hell out of me - it's simply not true to say that it doesn't do high ISOs well, but the photographer's choices play a big part in the end result).
(Sorry to go off topic, but this stuff about the 7D and high ISO really bugs the hell out of me - it's simply not true to say that it doesn't do high ISOs well, but the photographer's choices play a big part in the end result).[/QUOTE]
Im sorry it annoys you but my camera shows noise at 1000 plus straight out of the camera. My old 550d didn't. I find it a little disappointing.....I don't want to properly edit every picture I take! Please be gentle!
Im sorry it annoys you but my camera shows noise at 1000 plus straight out of the camera. My old 550d didn't. I find it a little disappointing.....I don't want to properly edit every picture I take! Please be gentle!
Keith Reeder
Watch the birdie...
The problem is that pics like this one http://www.birdforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=364847&d=1326552736 (which actually looks pretty promising) are under-exposed by 2.3 stops.
You'd be better off taking the EC back to 0 (or even a + value) and setting the ISO to as high as you need it to be to maintain the shutter speed.
You'll always get a better end result if you don't heavily under expose and then have to drag the pic back into the light in post processing.
Is the f/8 in the Exif a dialled-in f/8, or just the result of the camera "seeing" the TC? If it's the former, you might think about opening up the aperture too.
You'd be better off taking the EC back to 0 (or even a + value) and setting the ISO to as high as you need it to be to maintain the shutter speed.
You'll always get a better end result if you don't heavily under expose and then have to drag the pic back into the light in post processing.
Is the f/8 in the Exif a dialled-in f/8, or just the result of the camera "seeing" the TC? If it's the former, you might think about opening up the aperture too.
Keith
Thanks for the advice. Much appreciated. As today was the first time I had properly used the 2x I was just playing around without paying too much attention to the correct setting. I was switching between this extender and my Canon 1.4 mk1 and trying not to get them wet. I didn't use it much as conditions didnt suit. Getting the correct settings on this extendder will take some practice but I wasn't too bothered today. here is a pic of the same bird with ( I hope ) better lighting!
Thanks for the advice. Much appreciated. As today was the first time I had properly used the 2x I was just playing around without paying too much attention to the correct setting. I was switching between this extender and my Canon 1.4 mk1 and trying not to get them wet. I didn't use it much as conditions didnt suit. Getting the correct settings on this extendder will take some practice but I wasn't too bothered today. here is a pic of the same bird with ( I hope ) better lighting!
