Wide angle lenses and extenders ...

Do any of you use your wider lenses with extenders? I always though extenders are for longer focal lengths but I recently saw in a video a photographer was using a 24TSE with an extender. Thought it was a great idea. Certainly much cheaper to go that route than to get a bunch closely FL spaced primes.

Doesn't using extenders mean you lose light?.. i.e. you cant use your primes @ their widest aperture?.. that to me would be one of the reasons why people don't use it on primes.

Kenko 2x + 35L. The result?.... not great.

^ I mean the tele extenders, like the 1.4X and 2X

That's what Cesium did there. Extenders are meant for tele lenses where you need a fairly large jump in FL to make a big difference. At wider angles a relatively small change in FL is more noticeable. Going from, say, 35mm to 50mm (1.4x) or to 70mm (2x) is a decent jump. I think you're better served to have a pair (or set) of primes and keep the IQ, or just get a zoom.

Besides, Canon's extenders won't work on anything shorter than the 135L (with the exception of the 70-200 zooms), so you're left with third party extenders which are, well, generally not that great.

I can see this working in a niche use (eg with a TS lens as you mentioned) where it would be prohibitively expensive to get multiple FLs. Also, videographers sometimes do strange things.

Folks have long used telextenders to alter the effective FL of optics that are ordinarily 'normal' optical designs, in addition to using them with long FL lenses known as 'telephoto'. In more recent years folks have resorted to using them with wide angle shift lenses, to make them 'less wide angle'. I don't know optically how unwise that last usage is, since I haven't seen objective measurements of what happens to MTF resolution at the center and at the edge of the frame, in doing so.

The thing to keep in mind is that telextenders are

• primarily designed to work with optical designs known as 'telephoto', where the rear nodal distance < FL.
  
• 'Normal' lenses have the nodal distance ≈ FL;
  
• wide angle lenses for SLRs are typically 'retrofocus' designs which have nodal distance > FL in order to clear the reflex mirror.
  

I've tried my Kenko 2x extender on my Roki 35mm and got results similar to Cesium's. Sort of foggy. Almost like some moisture got in the way, even though none did.

a good rule I go by.. if the lens is white, it will accept a TC. If the lens is black, it won't. (canon only obviously)

They work beautifully on my TS-E 17L and TS-E 24L. Essentially, they give me a whole stack of extra primes that otherwise wouldn't exist.

ewheeler20 wrote in post #14546784
a good rule I go by.. if the lens is white, it will accept a TC. If the lens is black, it won't. (canon only obviously)

All whites and of current (black) lenses the 135L, 180mm macro, 200mm f2.8 L - I think. Is this correct?

jimewall wrote in post #14556047
All whites and of current (black) lenses the 135L, 180mm macro, 200mm f2.8 L - I think. Is this correct?

I don't believe the 70-300L will work with a Canon TC and it's white.

crap.. ok my white vs black rule doesn't work, lol. How about this: All MY white lenses work with the TC. All MY black lenses dont.

ewheeler20 wrote in post #14556193
crap.. ok my white vs black rule doesn't work, lol. How about this: All MY white lenses work with the TC. All MY black lenses dont.

And again.. this is only with Canon TCs. I use my Sigma 1.4x TC all the time on my 100/2.8 USM macro(black and under 135mm), with excellent results.

pixel_junkie wrote in post #14534027
Do any of you use your wider lenses with extenders? I always though extenders are for longer focal lengths but I recently saw in a video a photographer was using a 24TSE with an extender. Thought it was a great idea. Certainly much cheaper to go that route than to get a bunch closely FL spaced primes.

Back to the point that I made earlier, about teleconvertors being designed for use with 'telephoto' optical design lenses...
On Kenko's own website, they specifically point out that their teleconvertors,
"The PRO 300 family are designed specifically to be used with prime telephoto lenses of 100mm or above, such as 300 mm f/2.8 lenses, and work best with telephoto lenses of 200mm to 500mm. The PRO 300 can be used with telephoto zoom lenses as well as prime lenses. However, Kenko does not recommend them for zoom lenses that have a range starting under 50 mm."

My Kenko pro 300 lets me use my Sigma 10-20 on my 5D2... work really quite well.

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