Hello...from finland

My camera is Canon EOS300 and lens is Canon EF 300/4 USM. (no IS) No i'am going to by a 2x-teleconverter. Is new Canon Ef 2x the best choice ? Are there some other good teleconverters (other manufacture) ?

Best Regards Mikko

-- Mikko Rantala (mikko.rantala@tut.fi), July 06, 2001

Answers

Stick with Canon. Either the old 2x or the new 2x II will be fine. I didn't see much difference between them on my 300/4L. Maybe the new 2x was a tiny bit better on some shots but it was very hard to tell any difference at all. The difference (if any) was so small that I kept my old 2x rather than buy the new 2x II.

-- Bob Atkins (bobatkins@hotmail.com), July 06, 2001.

Keep in mind that adding a 2X teleconverter will result in your lens being a 600mm f/8. It will not autofocus, and the viewfinder will be somewhat dim & hard to focus manually. You can use a 1.4X TC and the resulting f/5.6 lens will still autofocus.

Another thought is to use a third party 2X TC. They don't report the change in aperture to the camera so it will still try to AF. And if there is enough light/contrast it will probably work. It usually does. Tamron & Sigma both make high end teleconverters that other users report to work well & retain most of the sharpness that the Canon TC's do.

But if top quality/sharpness is the only criteria then the Canon TC is the way to go.

-- Jim Strutz (j.strutz@gci.net), July 10, 2001.