taping the pins

Hi guys and gals, just what is meant by taping the pins. thanks zeke

Welcome to POTN. This has been covered quite a bit here. My advice would be to:

1. Search the forums.
2. Check out the "Similar Threads" at the bottom of the page.

zekeboy wrote in post #6991439
Hi guys and gals, just what is meant by taping the pins. thanks zeke

It refers to putting a small piece of Scotch tape over three pins on certain lenses that do not autofocus under certain conditions such as using them with a teleconverter. I will find a link a post it here.

Here is a link about pin taping on the FM site. I think that it can also be used with longer extension tubes where light loss is a problem.

Be aware that the AF will be ultra-erratic. After I taped the pins on my 100-400 it broke two weeks later.

I would not tape pins on my L lens . They say the cheap Tamron works a lot better .

http://www.bhphotovide​o.com …econverter_for_​Canon.html

The XXD and XXXD bodies need at least f5.6 to accurately autofocus. When a slow lens, such as the 100-400, is used with a 2X or 1.4X converter, the camera thinks it's seeing a higher aperture (because of the light loss throught the converter) and will not AF. By taping the pins on the converter, not the lens, the camera is fooled into thinking the converter is not there and it will AF. It can be spotty and will hunt in lower light situations, but it will focus if the light is bright enough.

Yea and if it hunts a lot it can burn the motor out right ?
I know people that use the cheap Tamron and can autofocus . To me that seems safer but to each's own.

After reading all of the links referenced at the bottom of this page concerning taping the pins, I don't think that I am inclined to try it because it seems to be of marginal usefulness in most situations.

Probably a better option is to manually focus if your camera model will accept a microprism focusing screen, but it would need to be a Canon focusing screen because I am not impressed by any of the aftermarket focusing screens that supposedly can be used in any camera because they all have performance issues and/or loss of camera functionality. The biggest problem with trying to manually focus modern lenses is that their design is strictly oriented towards AF and they do not provide the fine manual focusing control that the old manual lenses from film SLR cameras had.

http://www.fredmiranda​.com/forum/topic/72338​9

trenchmonkey's eagle shot is with the cheap Tamron 4OD and 400 5.6 .

a non aperture reporting TC
Not bad

defordphoto wrote in post #6991917
Be aware that the AF will be ultra-erratic. After I taped the pins on my 100-400 it broke two weeks later.

You never hear about the downsides to taping, thankyou for mentioning this.

defordphoto wrote in post #6991917
Be aware that the AF will be ultra-erratic. After I taped the pins on my 100-400 it broke two weeks later.

Did you tape the pins on the lens or on the converter? To make this work the pins on the converter are the ones that get taped. I've had tape on the pins of my 1.4X converter for several years now and I've had no trouble with either my 100-400 or my 70-200...

Given that my 100-400 goes all day at a motorsports event with my little pinky half pressing the shutter to make the IS stay, I'd say that a few extra milliseconds of AF hunting is hardly likely to burn out anything.

Regarding the taping: I followed instruction found in the stickies right here to tape over the three pins on the left* of my Kenko C-AF DG 1.4x Teleplus Pro 300 and its been perfect with the 100-400.

*Holding the converter "lens side" towards you, with the row of eleven pins across the top.

Its a bit fiddly, because the tape is small, I used a pair of tweezers and a loupe. Also, not all converters need taping, the cheaper Kenko does not require it.