Teleconverters

[Brooklynodog]

Many years ago I was into photography, long before digital, a cheap way of increasing focal length was to use a teleconverter. Are these still viable and available for modern digital cameras? I have a 45 200 zoom for my Panasonic lumix G2, would like to get closer to object but cant afford a 100 300 lens.

 

[andyred]

Hi Paul

In general, yes TC are still available - I've a 1.4xTC for my Canon which works a treat and I'm very pleased with the results, Canon also do a 2xTC.

Sorry, can't help you specifically with your Panasonic model...

 

[andyred]

According to this http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/four-new-teleconverters-for-lumix-g-series-cameras they do do teleconverters for the G series, not sure it'll do what you're after though ?

 

[HarveyM]

Have a look at this site -

http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCam/User-Guide/lens/5700-Other-tele.html

I have the Olympus TCON14, but these were available several different versions. These appear on Ebay every now and again and should be about £25-30 ish. Some are very heavy and contain high quality glass and the light transmission is excellent. They also did wide angle adapters (WCON) and macro adapters (MCON), the latter were really more close focus devices and not true macro. My WCON is seriously heavy but works well.
Lumix do make a converter set which includes a TC adapter, or it could be bought separately, I've yet to actually see one. As far as I can recall, the Lumix adapters are specifically designed to work on the 14mm lens and one of the kit lenses only, use on other lenses may result in poor image quality.