Photography News Issue 64

Photography News | Issue 64 | photographynews.co.uk

First tests

Kenko Teleplus HD pro 1.4x DGX £220 and 2x DGX £269.99

Specs

KENKO TELEPLUS HD PRO 1.4X DGX Price £220 Availability Canon EF and Nikon F* Magnification 1.4x Exposure adjustment 1EV Depth-of-field 1/1.4 of prime lens Construction 5 elements in 4 groups Minimum focus distance Same as prime lens Diaphragm coupling Auto Coating Multi-coating Dimension (lxd) 19.4x67.5mm Weight 129g KENKO TELEPLUS HD PRO 2X DGX Price £269.99 Availability Canon EF and Nikon F* Magnification 2x Exposure adjustment 2EV Depth-of-field 1/1.4 of prime lens Construction 7 elements in 5 groups Minimum focus distance Same as prime lens Diaphragm coupling Auto Coating Multi-coating Dimension (lxd) 39.9x67.5mm Weight 178g Contact intro2020.co.uk * Compatible only with proprietary Canon/Nikon lenses and Tokina lenses (except Tokina AT-X 70-200mm f/4 PRO FX VCM-S and opera 50mm f/1.4 FF Nikon mount).

Teleconvertersaren’tasfashionableas they once were, but they are mightily handy accessories. Fitting between the camera and lens, teleconverters increase the lens’s focal length range, often by a factor of 1.4x or 2x as with these two new Kenko converters. Canon and Nikon both offer teleconverters in their systems but due to the lens/converter design, the lenses that are compatible with them are limited. Kenko offers a third party solution and with these converters there is no such restriction; so if you need more pulling power from your telephotos, these teleconverters offer a cost-effective solution. But nothing comes for free and the thing is, put anything optical between the lens and camera body and there is a negative impact on image quality. These new premium converters replace Kenko’s PRO300 converters and a refreshed optical design aims to minimise any quality loss and to make the most of the latest high resolution cameras. Both converters also have full electrical contacts so you get autofocusing, full exposure control and EXIF data recorded on your files. Something Kenko can’t do anything about is the light loss caused by moving the lens away from the camera body. Use a 1.4x converter and there is a one stop light loss and it is double that with a 2x model. In practice, you have a darker viewing image and also possibly less responsive autofocus. I tried this duo on a Nikon D850 with the 70-200mm f/2.8 G and 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G. The 1.4x converter is a lovely slim accessory, taking up little space in the bag. The 70-200mm f/2.8 becomes an effective 98-280mm f/4 yet the converter is so compact it is barely noticeable and has minimal impact on handling. Autofocusing remains responsive and accurate, just as if you were using the lens on its own. Optical quality is impacted, however. With the lens set to f/2.8, effectively f/4, the fine detail looks good and stopping down to f/5.6 or f/8 gives a decent level of quality. Apertures from f/11 don’t look so good. The 2x converter gave good

Above Shot at the long end of a 70-200mm and then on the right with the 1.4x (280mm) and 2x (400mm) converters. Images taken at IWMDuxford sharpness at f/2.8 – effective aperture f/5.6 – and fine detail looked good. Stopping down the lens to f/5.6, which gave the best results, and f/8 did conjure up a significant benefit to image quality before falling away at the smaller apertures. Autofocusingwith the 2x converter attached was less dependable than the lens on its own, but with the lens being 2EV slower that was no surprise. With contrasty scenes, AF did lock on fine but did less well with moving subjects in servo AF. Both teleconverters suffered from fringing (as least with the lenses we used), which needs to be edited out in post-processing. WC Teleconverters are handy accessories, well suited to action and nature photographers who need more pulling power from their lenses. These Kenko units are worth looking at and are cheaper and more versatile in terms of what lenses they can be used with than those from Canon and Nikon. They are decent performers and while there is image quality fall off, used with high-quality optics the results should be acceptable for most purposes. Pros Decent quality once stopped down Cons Wide aperture performance could be better, AF on the 2x model a bit twitchy Verdict

280mm

400mm

F/4

F/5.6

F/8

F/11

F/16

F/22

F/32

F/45