Nikon TC-20E III AF-S Tele Converter for Camera

Product Information

Some makers, such as Nikon, produce intermediate 1.7x teleconverters. 2) Teleconverters affect the maximum aperture TC-14E III: 70-200mm f/2.8G or f/2.8E, 70-200mm f/4G, 200mm f/2G, 300mm f/2.8G, 300mm f/4E, 400mm f/2.8G or f/2.8E, 500mm f/4G or f/4E, 600mm f/4G or f/4E

My dilemma has been finding a long lens for wildlife. My local dealer was able to get me a Nikon 500 f5.6 PF much faster than any of the big dealers. It worked well, even with 1.4x teleconverter, but I found I wanted a zoom. The lens is sharpest at 70mm, so I wanted to test it as a best-case scenario with both TCs. I should mention, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to use a teleconverter when your zoom lens is at the widest setting – you’ll get better image quality by removing the teleconverter and just zooming in. But for testing purposes, it’s pretty revealing how the TCs interact with such a high-performing lens. If you're splitting pixels, the TC-17E gives sharper results at the largest apertures. If you need 2x, the TC-20E is your converter. This teleconverter will not work with the FTZ or FTZII and will not work with any F-mount lenses or cameras. The Nikon Z 70-200mm f/2.8 lens started out incredibly strong, so this is a good example of what you lose with each of the teleconverters. The 2.0x TC is worse than the 1.4x TC, but the results are usable with both TCs. In fact, the 1.4x TC results are actually quite sharp – better than plenty of lenses we’ve tested before.Size: The diameter of both TCs is 72mm (2.8 in.). The length is 19mm (0.7in.) resp. 33mm for the TC-1.4x and TC-2.0x – not counting the protrusion at the front which extends into the mounted lens. The F TCs are 64mm in diameter and 25mm resp. 46mm in length. [0] My Nikon system works as well with or without this converter, which means this converter is doing what it should. The teleconverters do not add any appreciable vignetting to your lenses. In fact, they often improve it. Here’s an example from my tests of the Nikon Z 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR S:

The answer to that depends upon which Nikon DSLR body you’re shooting with. Up until the introduction of the D4, if you used a teleconverter with a NIKKOR lens, you’d lose autofocus capabilities at apertures smaller than f/5.6, be required to use a slow shutter speed or increase the ISO since a fast aperture wasn't possible. Due to these limitations, wildlife and sports photographers wouldn't be able to utilize teleconverters in many instances that required fast shutter speeds. Not bad! The biggest sharpness robber here are atmospheric conditions and the fact that these palms are not lying in the same plane, so most of them are simply out of focus. For instance,VR works great with my stabilized Z 400mm f/4.5 VR. With a stabilized camera like my Z7II I can hand-hold at 1/30 of a second, with this or the Z TC 1.4× teleconverter. The distinction of II in the name of Nikon teleconverters means that the newer versions use lighter metals in their construction. There is no difference betwen the the original versions and the newer ones in terms of functionality or optical performance.Nikon Z 600mm f/4 TC VR (becomes an 800mm f/5.6 with the lens' own internal 1.4× converter, or a 1,200mm f/8 with this converter alone, or a 1,680mm f/11 with both this and the lens' on internal converter.) It works only with the more exotic of Nikon's AF-I and AF-S lenses. One cannot mount any other lenses on it unless one grinds Too good to be true? As in life, there are some trade-offs, which is why teleconverters have faced criticism in the past when compared to a ‘real’ 600mm, for example.

Note that for each test of focusing speed, I focused on my subject (which was at medium distance) five times from the close focusing distance and five times from the far focusing distance, while timing with a stopwatch. The “focusing speed” value is the average of those ten results, rounded to the nearest 1/10 second. Teleconverter NIKON Z 9 + NIKKOR Z 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR S + Z TC-2x @ 800mm, ISO 3600, 1/4000, f/11.0 Crop of the image above Sharpness

Summary

This means that teleconverters work best with lenses that have a wide maximum aperture to start with. You may need to accept either slower shutter speeds or higher ISO settings, and you won’t be able to reproduce the shallow depth of field effects you normally get with that lens. If you don't have this card, if the card doesn't say "VALID IN THE CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES" or the serial number on the card doesn't match the one on the bottom of your teleconverter exactly, you got ripped off with a gray market version from another country. All legitimate cameras and lenses come with printed warranty cards, even if you prefer to register online. (The serial number on the outside of the box doesn't have to match, but if it doesn't it means you bought from a shady dealer who took cameras lenses out of boxes and then resold these used lenses cameras as new.) Likewise, the minimum aperture is two stops smaller. If the lens stops down to f/22, it will stop down to f/45 with this converter. I wouldn't use this with the Nikon Z 70-200mm f/2.8 VR, which becomes a 140-400mm f/5.6. Instead I use the Nikon Z 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR all the time. This way I can get to 400mm simply by twisting the zoom ring, no converter needed, and if I need longer than 400mm, then and only then will I use this converter and get to 800mm. I haven't used 70-200mm f/2.8 lenses for a couple of decades now for this practical reason. This reduction in maximum aperture could affect your camera’s autofocus system, since some older systems won’t work with apertures lower than f/8; you may have to resort to manual focus.Many modern autofocus systems, however, especially on the latest mirrorless cameras, now go way beyond that, so it may no longer be an issue.

One benefit that people don't realize about teleconverters is that the minimum focus distance stays the same. If you do a lot of very close telephoto work (e.g. hummingbirds in blind shots), there may be an advantage to using something like the 300mm f/2.8 with a TC. First, the 300mm is quite tolerant of converters, but to the point: focus distance stays at 2.3m, meaning you could have a 600mm equivalent that focuses down to less than eight feet. You’re working with less light when you use a teleconverter, and the focus performance of your camera system may suffer as a result. It gets worse in low-light environments, especially when your maximum aperture drops to narrow values like f/8, f/11, or even smaller.In summary - and to be brutally honest - I found the best use of the "old" TC-20EII was as a paperweight. In stark contrast, the new TC-20EIII is a useful photographic tool that has earned a permanent space in my gear bag. In fact, teleconverters today are used solely to extend the range of telephoto lenses, so they can't be used as a generic 'magnifier' for all your lenses. What's more, you will find that they can't be used with all telephotos, even those from the same maker. Indeed, some teleconverters are designed for a single lens. The purpose of teleconverters is to increase the focal length of lenses, in other words to get closer to subjects, and the TC-20E III is the biggest and the longest teleconverter manufactured by Nikon – it doubles the focal length of a lens. While this teleconverter works with any professional Nikon lens that can take teleconverters, it is specifically designed to work with fast prime lenses with an aperture of f/2.8 and larger. The Nikon TC-20E III is targeted at sports, wildlife and other types of telephoto photography where the photographer cannot physically approach subjects. This Z 2× Teleconverter doubles a lens' focal length, but also doubles its maximum aperture, making it two stops slower and requiring a shutter speed four times as long, a four times higher ISO, or a combination of the two. Of course at smaller apertures it;s all the same, but with long lenses we're usually shooting at maximum aperture to stop action and/or camera shake.