Santa Clause stopped by my house yesterday and delivered a package I had been waiting for: A Nikon 1.4 Teleconverter. I own and use a 1.7 teleconverter but I just don’t have any faith in it. I never know what I’m going to get with it. Sometimes the images are okay (never as good as without a TC) but then other times I am disappointed with the quality of the images. So when this showed up late yesterday I knew where I had to be this morning, doing research at Brick Pond.
Of course the day I wanted bright diffused light to fairly test the converter I ended up with a cloudy morning. Most of these images are shot at 1/500 of a second at f5. I’m using a 400mm f2.8 and with the converter attached the minimum aperture is f4. I tried to hedge my bets a little and stopped down to f5. Normally 1/500 second is plenty for stationary subjects especially with vibration reduction active. But action shots usually require a significantly faster shutter speed. So I really didn’t know what I would end up with quality wise but it seems so far the results are mostly acceptable. And don’t forget, I haven’t fine tuned the converter to the lens yet, so hopefully that will get me where I want to be sharpness wise.
So the following images are the start of a 2 week R&D exercise. Stay tuned……
He actually jumped off the log after a fish…..
Scrambling to get back on the log….
To the victor go the spoils….
Little bit closer…
He’s got a fish stuck in his throat….
I just wish this was sharper…. I love the composition!
Bath Time!