Stacking 1.4 TCs with a Canon 300 mm

dlplumer

Has anyone done this? What results and/or recommendations do you have for stacking?

Thanks,
Dan

rwells

dlplumer wrote:

Has anyone done this? What results and/or recommendations do you have for stacking?

Thanks,
Dan

I tried to stack two 1.4TC's together the other day & they won't mate-up. I've heard that a 1.4TC & 2X will due to the deeper recess in the 2X body.

That's to bad because you could have gotten 2.8X for only 2 stops loss.

dlplumer

rwells wrote:

I tried to stack two 1.4TC's together the other day & they won't mate-up. I've heard that a 1.4TC & 2X will due to the deeper recess in the 2X body.

That's to bad because you could have gotten 2.8X for only 2 stops loss.

Everything I've read says they do. What kind were you stacking?

"The 1.4X II teleconverter is a modest update to Canon's earlier 1.4X TC. The mark II allows this extender to be stacked with another of Canon's extenders (either another 1.4X II or the 2X II) without having to separate the two with an extension tube (although the loss of sharpness from stacking extenders may not be acceptable to you). Otherwise, the quality of the newer 1.4X II is supposed to be very similar to the older model, which I've never owned."

dlplumer

Ziggy
Can you tell me if stacking these EF TC II with my Canon 300 f/4 is a good idea. Will I lose auto-focus? can I tape the pins.....etc?

thanks

pathfinder

A Canon 300mmm f4 will mate with a single Canon 1.4 TC just fine, and should AF as an f5.6 lens with most of Canon's cameras with the center AF point.

It will AF much better in bright, contrastly light than dim, flat light though. If you try to stack two 1.4 TCs, I doubt your lens will AF any more, unless you are using a 1 Series camera which will AF at f8.

My Canon 40D will even AF at f6.3 with a Tamron 200-500, even though the manual says the limit is f5.6

ziggy53

dlplumer wrote:

Can you tell me if stacking these EF TC II with my Canon 300 f/4 is a good idea. Will I lose auto-focus? can I tape the pins.....etc?

thanks

I have only tried stacking a Tamron and a Canon TC and the results were not promising.

I have heard of others stacking 2 Canon TCs but performance was affected to a point that I would probably not recommend or accept. I think Randy is correct that 2 - 1.4x teleconverters will not stack but a 1.4x and a 2x should stack.

Then again some people get pretty good results:

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=115561

dlplumer

Thanks Ziggy et. al. The 1.4 TC IIs supposedly do stack, not the original TCs, but I am trying to find out what kind of results I will get as well as autofocus and max. aperture issues.

Anyone know?????

kdog

Dan, two TCs will probably work fine except for the AF as Pathfinder noted.
You could tape the pins on one of the TCs (no need to tape 'em both.)
Personally, I haven't had much success taping pins, even with just one TC.
The problem is the lens often hunts with the AF motor oscillating all over the place.
While I've never heard of anybody inducing a failure this way, I've decided not to do that to my lenses.

I've used two TCs on my Canon 400mm F5.6 lens quite a bit for moonshots using manual focus.
Here's one with that combination. Canon TC1.4x plus a Kenko Pro 1.4.

rwells

dlplumer wrote:

Everything I've read says they do. What kind were you stacking?

"The 1.4X II teleconverter is a modest update to Canon's earlier 1.4X TC. The mark II allows this extender to be stacked with another of Canon's extenders (either another 1.4X II or the 2X II) without having to separate the two with an extension tube (although the loss of sharpness from stacking extenders may not be acceptable to you). Otherwise, the quality of the newer 1.4X II is supposed to be very similar to the older model, which I've never owned."

Well, I don't know what else to tell you here. I tried to physically mate two Canon 1.4TC II units together and I could not get them to fit. If you look at a Canon 1.4TC, you'll see that there is a black round section that protrudes from the front of the unit. This is too long to fit into the back of another Canon 1.4TC unit.

I'm not saying what you read was wrong, but I am saying it would not work when I tried them.

YMMV

pathfinder

I just looked at my EF 1.4 TC II and I agree with Randy - I don't see how they would mate together without hitting optical surfaces.

Neither would a Canon 1.4 II and a Sigma 1.4 without an extension tube in between them.

Apparently Joel's Kenko 1.4 has more room to to allow the extension on the front of the Canon 1.4 to extend up inside it. The Canon 1.4 extends up almost a 1/2 inch inside the base of the tele photo lens. The 1.4 TCs I have do not have 1/2 inch of clearance just like Randy says.

Listen to Randy, guys, he will give it to you straight!

Photoskipper

Just for sake of trying, I stack up the Canon 2X TC (old), 1.4X TC II, a Kendo 2X (old) on my new 500 mm F4. It effectively 2800 mm on the 5D FF body. It works!!! but the IQ is not acceptable, it is worse than I crop the 500 mm with 2X alone.

But I prefer the IQ of 1.4X then Canon 2X. Once it stacks up, the image become very loose and low contrast.

20DNoob

rwells wrote:

Well, I don't know what else to tell you here. I tried to physically mate two Canon 1.4TC II units together and I could not get them to fit. If you look at a Canon 1.4TC, you'll see that there is a black round section that protrudes from the front of the unit. This is too long to fit into the back of another Canon 1.4TC unit.

I'm not saying what you read was wrong, but I am saying it would not work when I tried them.

YMMV

pathfinder wrote:

I just looked at my EF 1.4 TC II and I agree with Randy - I don't see how they would mate together without hitting optical surfaces.

Neither would a Canon 1.4 II and a Sigma 1.4 without an extension tube in between them.

Apparently Joel's Kenko 1.4 has more room to to allow the extension on the front of the Canon 1.4 to extend up inside it. The Canon 1.4 extends up almost a 1/2 inch inside the base of the tele photo lens. The 1.4 TCs I have do not have 1/2 inch of clearance just like Randy says.

Listen to Randy, guys, he will give it to you straight!

Exactly, no matter how many times you read it it simply can't be done due to the design.

You could stack a Canon 1.4 with an off brand one or even the Canon 2xTC, and yes you will lose AF at 5.6 on a XXD body(unless you use a non reporting TC, no idea, I use MkII Canons). It'll try to focus with stacked Canons but all it does is hunt.

Here's a few when I was messing around one day giving stacked TCs' a go.

300mm(for reference)



300mm w/1.4 and 2X(MF via LV with shutter release cable on a crappy tripod with crappy eyes and crazy amounts of wind)


Don't pay attention to mm in exif, it reports what's directly connected to the lens.

It can be done and with excellent results providing you know what your doing, just go check out liquidstone(Romy Ocon) over at pbase for his super crazy insane results. He just caught the ISS passing overhead with the 500L with stacked 2xTC and also stacks on Sigmonster.

I'd love to have 1 1/10 of his talent.

dlplumer

20DNoob wrote:

Exactly, no matter how many times you read it it simply can't be done due to the design.

You could stack a Canon 1.4 with an off brand one or even the Canon 2xTC, and yes you will lose AF at 5.6 on a XXD body(unless you use a non reporting TC, no idea, I use MkII Canons). It'll try to focus with stacked Canons but all it does is hunt.

Here's a few when I was messing around one day giving stacked TCs' a go.

300mm(for reference)


Don't pay attention to mm in exif, it reports what's directly connected to the lens.

It can be done and with excellent results providing you know what your doing, just go check out liquidstone(Romy Ocon) over at pbase for his super crazy insane results. He just caught the ISS passing overhead with the 500L with stacked 2xTC and also stacks on Sigmonster.

I'd love to have 1 1/10 of his talent.

Alrighty then. It looks like I cannot stack 1.4s. I guess I'll just have to buy the Canon 500 f/4 someday. Thanks for all your help.

kdog

pathfinder wrote:

I just looked at my EF 1.4 TC II and I agree with Randy - I don't see how they would mate together without hitting optical surfaces.

Neither would a Canon 1.4 II and a Sigma 1.4 without an extension tube in between them.

Apparently Joel's Kenko 1.4 has more room to to allow the extension on the front of the Canon 1.4 to extend up inside it. The Canon 1.4 extends up almost a 1/2 inch inside the base of the tele photo lens. The 1.4 TCs I have do not have 1/2 inch of clearance just like Randy says.

Listen to Randy, guys, he will give it to you straight!

Interesting. Now that you mention it, I do seem to recall that the Canon and Kenko TCs only went together one way. I'm on vacation this week and left my TCs at home, otherwise I'd try it. I also have a cheapy non-reporting Tamron 1.4 TC as well I can play around with.

The reason I ended up with all of these TCs is that I was trying to reproduce the reported successes in various forums (including this one) of using taped TCs with the Canon 100-400 and 400mm 5.6 lenses on crop-body cameras. After three TCs, on two camera bodies, across two lenses, suffice to say I'm come to the conclusion that those claims were grossly exagerated. Yes, you will occassionally lock focus that way much in the way that a stopped clock is right twice a day. But by the time you finally achieve focus, after an eternity of AF motor jack-hammering, your bird will be in the next county. You're far better off by simply manually focusing.

Cheers,
-joel

20DNoob

dlplumer wrote:

Alrighty then. It looks like I cannot stack 1.4s. I guess I'll just have to buy the Canon 500 f/4 someday. Thanks for all your help.

You can, just not two Canon 1.4TCs. Some people claim great results when stacking the Canon 1.4x II with the Kenko 1.4x Pro 300, I've not really looked into it as stacking two 1.4s is essentially a 2xTC with possibly worse IQ due to more elements between the body and lens. I've read stopping down the aperture helps out a lot.

Best of luck sorting it out.