Author Topic: teleconverters/extenders -- would it be a good investment?  (Read 4064 times)

marilyn

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So we're headed to Alaska in less than 2 weeks and trying to separate out the necessary photo equipment from the stuff that would be fun to have.  Expense is also a major issue - and the fact that when I really think about what is most important about this trip, it is seeing the sights, being with friends, and capturing the best photos I can without obsessing about it.  With that in mind, here's my basic camera and lenses: Canon Rebel XS with an EFS 18-55 (0.25m/0.8 ft) kit lens and a EFS 55-250 (1.1 mm/3.6ft)  telephoto lens.  

In lieu of buying a longer "big-boy" lens would a teleconverter/extender 1.4x be worth the investment for this trip and the future - to capture things that I might not be able to get otherwise or do you recommend just chilling and capture what I can.  Looks like these are around $300 so it's not an inexpensive investment either.  I do have the recommended "raincoat" and am taking a tripod.  I still need to get more SD cards and I think an external hard drive (250 or 500 gb?).  I forgot to mention that Clay has a few different lenses (like the wide angle I used for extended perspective assignment).  Any advice and stories of others experiences would be greatly appreciated!

keithsnell

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Re: teleconverters/extenders -- would it be a good investment?
« Reply #1 on: May 07, 2011, 04:29:53 PM »
Hi Marilyn,

I'm not sure the teleconverter would be a great match for the 55-250mm lens (I don't even think it will physically fit on that lens) so, I like your option of "just chilling and capture what I can."

I would definitely shop online for SD cards.  Camera (and other brick and mortar) stores make lots of profit on SD cards, so you can typically get much better prices online.  I'd tend to look for an 8GB or 16GB capacity.  Those sizes seem to be in the price/performance sweet spot.  There seem to be a lot of sales on Kingston SD cards now, and I almost bought some for the trip, until I read the reviews.  It seems like the Kingston cards are having a lot of failures lately.  Historically I've had the best experiences with Lexar, but they're also some of the more expensive cards.  

Sandisk seems to be one of the brands that is currently getting good reviews, with decent prices.  Personally, I haven't had the best luck historically with Sandisk CF cards (I seem to get more write errors than with other cards) but I decided to give them another try.  I just ordered a pair of these for the trip:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003D5MY5I  The seemed to be a good balance between cost, performance/speed, size and (reported) reliability.  We'll see...

Here's a 8GB card with a little slower write speed that might be a more palatable price: http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Class-Flash-Memory-SDSDB-8192-A11/dp/B000UZL0YU/ref=sr_1_2?m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1304807121&sr=1-2

The Transcend cards also seem to have good prices, but I felt more comfortable with the Sandisk cards because they have been "tested" in Nikon cameras.  Here's a list to some of the best selling Transcend cards on Amazon:  Transcend cards

I hope this helps!

Keith


« Last Edit: May 08, 2011, 10:38:43 AM by keithsnell »

Chris

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Re: teleconverters/extenders -- would it be a good investment?
« Reply #2 on: May 07, 2011, 11:01:14 PM »
My favorite place to shop is newegg.com. I haven't really looked at memory cards lately but i haven't had a problem with anything from kingston myself. Walmart.com had a good buy on sandisk 2 for 1 last week but looks like they're gone now. I shoulda ordered. Keith have you tried the eye-fi wireless cards?

keithsnell

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Re: teleconverters/extenders -- would it be a good investment?
« Reply #3 on: May 08, 2011, 06:58:27 AM »
Keith have you tried the eye-fi wireless cards?

Too heavy/bulky. :)  (Well, you have to have something on the other end of the wireless connection to make it work. :) )   I just haven't seen the need for something like that.  Maybe if I had my own studio,,,

Keith

wildshutter

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Re: teleconverters/extenders -- would it be a good investment?
« Reply #4 on: May 08, 2011, 10:16:25 AM »
I understand your concern! When we went to Yellowstone last year with Keith we rented most of our lens to see what we liked and to try different brands. I fell in love with Tamron, espically the 200-500 (http://www.lensrentals.com/rent/canon/lenses/supertelephoto/tamron-200-500mm-f5-6.3-sp-di-ld-for-canon). For 10 days you can rent it for $90 with insurance (get the insurance). We had it shipped to our house a coupe of days prior to the trip so we could "play" with it and then found a UPS store just outside of Yellowstone to ship it home (less dead time). Several of the pics I have posted on this site from the Yellowstone trip were from this lense.
I have a Tamron 70-200 f2.8 and bought a Takina 2x for it. I am not happy with the images I am getting and am going ot sell the 2x and try a Tamron 2x. When I bought the Takina, the Tamron was not avaliable anywhere.

anyway thats my 2 cents, enjoy Alaska! I still owe my wife a trip up there and we plan on going soon.
Lorin
Lorin

marilyn

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Re: teleconverters/extenders -- would it be a good investment?
« Reply #5 on: May 10, 2011, 11:46:57 PM »
Thanks for all the great feedback on these issues, everyone!