Hin's Photo Corner

I was about to sell my new Tokina/Kenko branded Pz-AF 2x Teleplus MC7 converter. I bought it new about $90.00 and I used it last with some reasonable moon shots with Pentax F* 300mm f/4.5. I don't have a reliable setup of tripod and ball-head and I test the same setup further in a birding tour with Don Edwards SF wildlife refuge. I brought along the setup and before I knew it, a Pelican fly by filling big part of my view finder and I take few shots hoping for a reasonable shot to convince myself to keep the TC.








Impressions & Notes

• Not the best in IQ but very much hand-holdable setup that I can shoot without a tripod
• If you expect AF to work reliably, don't buy this TC as you may get disappointed. Though it has the power zoom contacts that look like the SDM contacts, it is not found to work with Pentax DA* 50-135mm f/2.8 in auto-focus.
  
• Though the TC worked with F* 300mm with AF, the motor noise and AF seem to take a long time to travel to focal point, I ended up shooting all birds flying shots in manual focus mode along with TAv where I set the shutter speed to a fast shutter as in 1/1600 sec and set Av to f/6.3, probably the lowest that is allowed after the TC is mounted.
  
• Unlike the time that I shot the moon with this set up, the manual focusing seem to work better than AF as I can get more responsive to the birds movement in MF. With the moon, the AF pretty much stay about the same spot not changing. With the birds, things around the birds as well as panning their movement kept the focusing to re-focus and somehow make the shot more difficult to do in AF than MF. Shame, I don't know how to explain it well, it is an odd feeling why MF works better than AF in this difficult shooting scenes with the birds.
  
• I had similar bad experience with AF on the F* 300mm f/4.5 without the TC that I divide my shots to have a balance between AF and MF subject to the scene and shooting conditions. There are many times that the AF foul up on me especially with AF.C and panning birds with distracting backgrounds or background with low contrast. And I can hardly rely on the semi-working AF for panning the birds movement.
  
• I am going to keep the TC as I find it worth keeping for $90 to bring my 300mm into a workable 600mm lens. Of course, there are many cons that go with the TC approach in degradation of IQ. My approach in assessing the usefulness on the TC is making the shot with compromises and the TC does let me stay at a good distance in not disturbing the wildlife.
  

Related:

• Tokina/Kenko branded Pz-AF 2x Teleplus MC7
• Pentax F* 300mm f/4.5
• Pentax 400mm f/5.6 choices
• Tokina 400mm f/5.6 SD
• Hin's Camera Gear
  

My family visited Mountain View Shoreline Park and for the first time, I met this unfamiliar bird that hovers over the air like an helicopter. Others have told me that this bird is related to "Terns" and it may either be Common Terns or other variants in Bay Area as in Forster's Terns. It flies very fast and circle around area above a lake looking for food. Once it hovers a spot, it dive down to the water and quickly come back up and nowhere found in my viewfinder.

My skills, AF.C, auto select AF point, center focus all foul up on me with this bird. There are moments that I seriously worry about the AF motor from the nervously grinding noise from my Pentax F* 300mm f/4.5 and Pentax K20 D in obtaining focus. And there are moments after few shots, the AF motor won't AF at all. It goes as if the AF halts after 4 shots are taken. I have been shooting in single drive and it is probably my first time hitting the focus halt problem in daytime shooting. I have to point the lens down to ground and half press to reset things to normal.

There is a lot of "damn it", "good grief", "you silly bird", "bummer" that go with each shutter. The birds ability to fly and hover over water for feeding are very much breath taking. If you live in bay area from California, you have to come to Mountain View Shoreline to look for this bird. I have the most excitement with this bird, I need to re-shoot the series in another time with more study on taking smaller number of shots with better precision. I ended the shootout in shifting to manual focus as the tree and some neighboring background have confused the AF and the less noise from the AF motor keep me calm in picturing the birds

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Impressions & Notes

• AF.C with auto select AF points work reasonably better than center focal point when the background has no distracting objects as in trees and background mountain.
  
• AF motor tend to grind more in Auto Select focal points. AF actually grind down to a halt in a series of shots, I don't really know what happens. Half-pressing has no movement from AF and I end up pointing my lens to ground floor and half-press to reset focal point.
• The noise from the AF motor bother me quite a bit in the shooting
• AF has a difficult time to get focus on first shot.
  
• I find manual focus does a quicker job in obtaining the first shot in focus. But when I am shooting, I can't mix the mode together quickly as I have to toggle Auto Focus ring to MF and switch on body from AF to MF. I am in either mode but not mix in between the two.
• In MF, I lose the trap focus capability. I only manage to hear the beep for focus confirmation. I mostly hit the shutter after the beep and there is undoubtedly some delay in the reaction to the shot
• I turned off SR in all shooting and make sure shutter is close and faster than 1/1000 sec. I shot mostly in f/6.3 to f/9.0 in iso 400 to iso 640.
  
• It is easier to picture the bird in a horizontal flying path. If the bird is approaching me heads on, I have more problems in both AF and MF mode as the bird are moving at a rapid pace. The bird is just way too fast and when the bird is really close, I mostly cut the bird by the wings. I need to practice on the timing.
  
• In MF, I can hardly rely on pre-focus on neighboring objects as the bird move in a large area. The best time to pre-focus is perhaps the time when it hovers over water for few seconds. I should attempt MF for the diving sequence when the tern is going straight down for the feeding.
  

Related:

• Pentax F* 300mm f/4.5 Initial Test Shots
• Pentax F* 300mm f/4.5 On BIF Practice
  
• Photosniper Tair-3 PhS 300mm f/4.5
• Photosniper Tair-3 PhS 300mm f/4.5 (m42) on Humming Birds
• Pentax-F 1.7x AF TC
• Tamron Pz-AF 1.4x AF TC
  
• Pentax 300mm f/4.0
  
• Search of 400mm prime in Pentax
  
• Hin's Camera Gear

I bought my most expensive used lens with Pentax F* 300mm f/4.5 with the desired intention for the capturing humming birds in a photo. I love shooting humming birds and it demands the best from my concentration, patience, and luck. They are so small and tiny and they disappear in a split of a second in my viewfinder and reappear when I am about to give up.

It is much easier to wait for them in a bird feeder with exact location when they will show up frequently. With flowers, they can dance between spots and it is next to impossible to guess where they are heading. The best moment is catch them when they are about to stay still for a moment in getting their food from the flower. Unlike a humming bird feeder, they seldom stay still with the flowers.


Impressions & Notes

• The series of photos with humming bird makes the lens purchase all worthwhile for the money spent.
• Color and sharpness is amazing from this old prime of Pentax
• I still need to crop the photo a bit to see the bird in detail
• Again, I used AF.C with center focus. I have not used auto select focal point due to a few failed attempts before, I am not sure if neighboring branches will be interpreted wrong by the AF system when I pan the little bird on its movement. I should give that a try.
  
• With 1/1000 sec, I turned off SR almost completely and it seems to do well for me
• The AF from this lens make the shooting much easier than my previous attempt with Photosniper Tair-3 PhS 300mm f/4.5 (m42) on Humming Birds
• The first AF confirmation around the head of the humming bird is critical to the AF.C. In order to freeze the wing movement, shutter need higher and closer to 1/1000 sec.
  

Related:

• Pentax F* 300mm f/4.5 Initial Test Shots
• Pentax F* 300mm f/4.5 On BIF Practice
• Pentax F* 300mm f/4.5 On Terns
  
• Photosniper Tair-3 PhS 300mm f/4.5
• Photosniper Tair-3 PhS 300mm f/4.5 (m42) on Humming Birds
• Pentax-F 1.7x AF TC
• Tamron Pz-AF 1.4x AF TC
  
• Pentax 300mm f/4.0
  
• Search of 400mm prime in Pentax
  
• Hin's Camera Gear