Sigma APO Teleconverter 1.4x EX DG for Nikon Mount Lenses

Good utility lens Reading reviews is a crap shoot. You know nothing about the reviewer or the use of the product. That said, I am assuming you are not a struggling professional trying to shoot a high quality, tight-budget job. You are a user looking for one lens to ...

Publisher : SIGMA
Company : Sigma
List Price: ~~$340.00~~
Our Price: $239.95
You Save: $100.05 (30%)
Used Price : $227.99

Features

Teleconverter lens for Nikon SLR cameras
Increases the focal length by the power of 1.4
Multi-layer lens coating and lens design reduces flare and ghosting
Includes lens case

Product Description

*THE NEW DG MODEL*The new dedicated 1.4x APO Teleconverter features a high performance 5 element/3 group optical design, and it is optimized for use with long telephoto and telezoom lenses.The high performance optical characteristics of these teleconverters maintain the optical performance of the compatible lenses with which they can be used.Using 10-pin electrical interfaces, there is no loss of autofocusing speed when these teleconverters are used with compatible H.S.M. type lenses for Canon, Sigma, and now current Nikon AF cameras (except N60/F60 models). They are ideally suited for use with the 70-200mm F2.8 APO EX HSM zoom lens; providing normal exposure and autofocus function, while maintaining its high optical performance

Amazon.com Product Description

The Sigma APO Teleconverter 1.4x EX DG for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras is a dedicated APO teleconverter that can be mounted between select lenses and the camera body to increase the focal length by the power of 1.4. The multi-layer coating reduces flare and ghosting, which is a common problem with digital cameras. The lens also offers maximum magnification without any variation in the minimum focusing distance. Compact and lightweight, this teleconverter can convert your lenses into longer focal-length lenses, so you don't have to do a lot of unnecessary footwork. A case for the lens is included.

SimilarProduct

Customer reviews

Good utility lens by .. T. Norris (Cleveland, OH)
Reading reviews is a crap shoot. You know nothing about the reviewer or the use of the product. That said, I am assuming you are not a struggling professional trying to shoot a high quality, tight-budget job. You are a user looking for one lens to carry to cover a wide range of service.

I'm a pro. I have a many bodies and L lenses to use.

I carry an XSI with THIS Sigma 18-200mm non OS lens just about everywhere I go. It is a great vacation tool, where most pix are shown in a digital frame or are never going to be more than 4x6.

Yes, the MTF is not great (simply: contrast across the lens), there is some chromatic fringing and watch out! the lens hood will cause vignetting and shadows with a flash at wide angle. I've been using this lens since it was released in early '05.

It's a $300 lens. Does it compare to a $1500 L lens? Yeah - very badly. So what? The first rule of photography is get the picture. Missing the shot while changing lenses is not photography. Is this the preferred lens in my arsenal? No. But for general non-client, daylight, non-sports shooting, it's the one I'll probably be using. I prefer the non-optical stabilzed version - less complexity.

To help you weigh this review: I use five professional (5D, 1D) and several prosumer (40D, 50D, XTI, XSI) bodies and nine L lenses, plus a slew of others.

Photo tip: night shooting of foreground against backround (done a lot with this lens!): typical situation: girl on beach in front of sunset. Manually set exposure to flash shutter speed, aperature & ISO to get background. Turn flash on to expose and meter foreground. You'll get some great "how did you do that?" pix. All the MTF, abberetion and linearity issues will mean nothing, because you got a picture no one else could and th L doesn't really add anything, because you want depth of field here.

Thanks for reading my review.

My choice for traveling by .. ShutterFlash (Portsmouth, NH USA)
I got this lens a day before taking off for an eight day trip, and shot over 1800 photos with it. Though not the fastest lens out there, it did everything I wanted it to, both in the wide angle and the telephoto. I think I put it through a pretty thorough test over that week, and have these comments:
1. If I can only take one lens, this would be it.
2. I missed not having a macro feature, but I got close enough with the telephoto to make up for it in some cases.
3. The auto focus works fine in normal and bright lighting, but in dim lighting (like in a museum) it became confused and I used the manual focus option instead.
4. This is my third Sigma lens, and I haven't had any quality control problems with any of them.
5. I have no experience with high end Canon lenses for my Canon DSLR so I can't make a comparison, but I'm fully satisfied with the optics of this lens.

Excellent value and versatility.

Great all around lense by .. Joe (Boston, MA)
I bought this lense a year ago to go with my Nikon D50. I have been very happy with this lense. I researched quite a bit before I purchased this lense and had read many user reviews both good and bad. The negative reviews were mainly from Canon users related to an autofocus problem. I have not had any focus issues at all on my D50. Focus is fast and accurate providing incredibly sharp photos. I have my D50 set to focus on the center of the frame which is the way I typically use a camera.

There is some audible auto focus noise since the Nikon version of this lense does not have an internal focus motor. The lense relies on the auto focus screw driven by an internal motor in the D50 body (or any Nikon DSLR body except the D40 which doesn't have one). The noise heard is not the lense but the stepper motor in the D50 body. The identical noise is heard when I use my Nikon 50mm f1.8 lense which also relies on the autofocus screw/motor in the D50 body. Other Nikon AFS lenses are super quiet since Nikon includes a very quiet Silent Wave focus motor inside the lense which disables the DSLR body stepper motor.

[...]

[...]

You will notice the barrel distortion at the 18mm setting with photos of linear objects (eg. buildings or anything with straight lines). Keep in mind that even the Nikon 18-200mm lense at more than twice the price also exhibits the same percentage of barrel distortion as the Sigma. When covering this wide of a zoom range a compromise is made by the design engineers.

Another complaint I've read about, and is also an issue with the Nikon and Tamron, is that some people claim the 200mm zoom setting isn't true 200mm. Well this is correct when you're focusing on an object that the camera has not focused to infinity. In other words the closer the subject the less magnification is achieved. This is normal for any lense covering this zoom range. As an example I performed a test and focused on an object bout 50 feet away at full telephoto and achieved about a 9x magnification over the wide angle setting. When I performed the same test on an object that was a couple of hundred feet away I did achieve the full 11x magnification range. [...]

The bottom line: This is a great lense for the money. Certainly the Nikon 18-200 VR is a better lense but costs more than twice as much [...]. If you're a Nikon DSLR owner (except the D40 which does not include a focus motor and screw) and if you don't want to spend [...] on the Nikon 18-200mm VR than this is your lense. It is compact and light and has a great quality look and feel. It provides super sharp photos and I'm very happy with it. [...] Also with such a zoom range you'll almost never take this lense off your Nikon which also will minimize dust getting into the camera body.

My only other suggestion is to wait for the Sigma 18-200mm OS version of this lense which is not yet available. It will include an optical stabilization feature not included in the base Sigma 18-200mm [...] and most likely there will be a waiting line once it's released sometime in 2007. Assuming the OS version has equivalent optics the OS feature will be an added bonus making it similar in performance to the VR feature of the Nikon 18-200mm.

Surprisingly good! by .. Paul A. Mosher ()
I just did a side by side comparison of landscape images between this lens and a canon 24-105L with a Digital Rebel XT. To my surprise there isn't much difference in image quality when you match the aperture and focal lengths. The Canon L series lens is faster at all focal lengths and has image stabilization, is sealed and comes with a lens hood, but costs about three times as much. The Sigma lens is slower to focus and noisier, but weighs quite a bit less and has almost twice the maximum focal length and is wider as well. So, if you are using a cropped image camera and have plenty of light, this lens ought to give good performance. If I had to choose between the two, I'd definitely take the Sigma for walking around or daylight landscape.

awesome "every day" lens! by .. Tamara A. Lakeman (Canada)
I recieved this lens as a gift for my birthday to go with the Canon SLR that I recieved for Christmas. I am extremely happy with the lens. Recently I went on a trip to italy, and this was the lens I brought along. All of my pictures turned out beautifully. I was travelling with several friends, and whenever it was time to take portraits ("take a picture of me infront of the colloseum!") my camera was the one that was requested. This lens does beautifully with portrait shots--- SO much better than the stock lens that came with the camera. Gets that nice blurred backround effect with complete ease. I also used the camera for lots of close flower shots (did you know that callalillies grow wild in north-coastal italy?), and of course countless panoramic landscape shots. All were fantastic. No complaints at all.

If you are looking for an easy to use, general purpose lens that you can pop onto your camera and not need to worry about? This is the one. GREAT bang for your buck and definitely gets the job done.