Created: 2019.10.17
I've been talking with a friend about how to get the best shots of birds and animals in the wild. The 'problem' being - it is too hard to get close enough, so they are very tiny images of the animal even with a 384mm 35mm equivalent lens (her lens is a 80-250mm on a APS-C sensor.) You know the ones "why did I take THAT picture, oh, look I see, in the tree, that little black blurry spot, it's a really interesting bird, it looked more impressive in real life."
So I was talking about the different 'solutions' to her problem. I have been shooting since about 1968 when my Uncle James gave me his 'old' 35mm camera and a hand held light sensor. I learned a lot shooting all the rolls of film I could afford with that camera. My most disappointing day was when got over 50 shots on one roll of film, and then it turned out it tore off the canister and when I opened it to fix it, I ruined the 1st 36 shots that were the real ones. They were all pictures of deer and elk and reindeer taken from the part of the Calgary Zoo that was North of Memorial drive (it is now a public park across from the zoo parking lot)- see how disappointed I was, I remember, even though that was over 40 years ago.
I've owned and operated a photographic company committed to doing many 'extreme' weddings such as in 'the littlest' church, on a glacier, on a river raft and more.
Going back a bit, when I was about 21, I upgraded to a Canon AE-1 - it took me a year to earn enough money to buy it, and oh that was a wonderful dream of a camera it was, I had no buyer's remorse - I still have one Canon AE-1, I think it is my original one but to be honest, I'm not quite sure!
I have shot 4x5 (think 'old fashioned' cameras with a huge 4"x5" piece of film. Most of my cameras have been Nikon and Fuji/Nikon (Fuji cameras built on a Nikon body) though I also own a Canon DSLR.
I have many lenses, but the ones I use the most:
18-55mm on a APS-C sensor so it is really a 'normal to portrait' lens the way I use it.
80-400mm VR (Vibration Reduction) on a sensor just a hair bigger than a APS-C sensor, so it is about a 130-640mm lens the way I use it.
70-300mm IS (Image Stabilization) on an APS-C sensor
And several others.
So my friend and I were thinking through what it would take to make the best improvement, and cost was one issue. Here are the options we considered and my thoughts on them:
Summary 1st
A 1.4x teleconverter between the lens and body will give you about the equivalent of a 1.2x improvement, all else equal. The image will be a bit muddy due to the extra 'glass' in the light path and you'll have to hold it 1.4x's more steady to get a non-blurry shot.
A 2.0x teleconverter is almost never going to give you any benefit. Yes, there are some very special exceptions. The image is going to be a bit muddy due to the extra 'glass' in the light path and you'll have to hold it about 2x's more steady to get a non-blurry shot.
Combining a 1.4 and a 2.0 is not going to give you a 2.8x teleconverter, it is going to give you a horrible blurry, muddy image.
A 2.0x teleconverter on the front (screw in) will help for video, but is useless for still shots. If you think otherwise - crop and compare.
A higher megapixel camera gives you all the benefits of any other solution with one downside, you have to spend time cropping. But really - you WERE going to do SOME cropping anyway, in which case, there is ZERO downside other than cost to getting a camera with more megapixels to 'solve' the problem.
Note: cell phone megapixels are worth only about 1/3rd of 'real' camera megapixels because of the quality of the glass, I talk about this in more detail https://madmanpierre.com/personal-comments/cell-phones-are-perfect-no-need-to-use-a-real-camera-ever-again/
so don't think you can switch from a 12 megapixel 'real' camera to a 20 megapixel iPhone or Samsung and get an improvement.
But going the other way you can.
But let's be realistic, also discussed in the link above, the best cell phone 'telephoto' as of today (November 2019) including the promised Google, Samsung and expected iPhone cameras of 2020 are just barely 'normal' or still wide angle, so 'zooming in' on birds and animals is not something that a cell phone 'this decade' is going to be able to help with.
If you are already in the highest megapixel range, this might be an impossible fix or an extremely expensive one, but if you are in the low megapixel range currently - it may be a cost effective solution.
A VERY expensive lens. Essentially up to about 300mm (before calculations for your sensor size) is available at reasonable price. Getting a good zoom that goes to 500 or 600mm is extremely expensive - more expensive than going to a better camera - unless you already own a camera in the (2019 here) 35megapixel or larger range. Look at the Canon 50Megapixel if you are already at 20Megapixel or you just want the best solution. The Nikon equivalent is much more expensive.)
If you want to look a pro without paying the price - pick up a 'for parts' monster sized Canon White colored zoom. Everyone will know you are a pro then. Note: but don't make the mistake of shooting a Nikon camera with a Canon Zoom - you will look foolish.
Now more details:
First, lets assume temporarily that you are starting with a 'full frame sensor' camera. If so, one option is to go with a camera that has a smaller sensor, most these days I have seen are a 1.6x multiplier or thereabouts with the SAME resolution (the 'MegaPixels' value) as you currently have. That takes all your lenses and multiplies their mm numbers by 1.6. This means of course that it messes up any expensive wide angle lenses you have, turning them into cheap 'normal' lenses. But most people other than pro's, in this day and age, you already have a small sensor in their digital camera, so this is already 'done.' And now let's be even more practical: If you have a full frame sensor digital camera, there is no way you are going to buy a newer camera with a APS-C "digital sized" small sensor. You would lose too much in other features. You bought a full sized sensor because you know what you are doing and you need it, you are more likely to buy a new lens or wait for the next full sized sensor in your budget range.
I'm going to assume, for everything below, that you have an APS-C or similar sized sensor, so all the lenses have to be multiplied by 1.6 to get the 35mm equivalent value. If you have a full frame - you're a pro, so you probably aren't reading this - you already know everything in this article! If not ... well, you can do the math. I'll do the math on the 1st one, but then I will skip it for all the rest.
Go with a 1.4x teleconverter between the zoom lens and the body of the camera.
Conclusion: A 1.4x teleconverter may in some cases give you a net benefit. But I gave up in the 1990's on teleconverters as not worth the hassle for the minor, though real, benefits they gave. I acknowledge there are SOME specific circumstances, and heck - OK quality ones are cheap so you might as well try and see if for how you work they are a benefit, but I don't personally carry them anymore.
Go with a 2.0x teleconverter - perhaps gives a 'real' benefit of 1.5x in many cases. Same as 1.4 except everything is more extreme and there are even fewer cases where this makes sense. But again, because everyone who buys a 2.0x teleconverter turns around and sells it a week later because they are useless, if you really want to find out for yourself, they are indeed a lot cheaper on ebay than a 1.4x teleconverter; the cost of finding out for yourself is the price of one or two rolls of film I had to buy in the old days!
Go with a lens on the front - a 'screw in', that increases the magnification by 2 or 2.2x's. These sound like the most wonderful solution in the world, unlike a 1.4 or 2.0 teleconverter between the lens and the body, you don't lose any f stops. So they sound perfect, right? Wrong. Well ... wrong unless you are shooting video. These lenses are notorious for giving blurry images. But wait! Video is extremely low resolution - even 8k video, so the blur is non-existent! So, if you are shooting video, give one of these a try, you may be happy with the results. Just take it off when taking still shots, because you are going to take your nice little 20megapixel camera and, because of blur, turn it into a 9Megapixel camera. Or your 9Megapixel into a 1Megapixel camera.
Go with a camera that has a bigger sensor. Price wise, this seems to be the best option at least in 2019 and assuming you aren't already using a monster-megapixel camera. For example, you can get a Canon 5D with 50 Megapixels for about $1800 Canadian (mid 2019) on ebay. Now put your lens from your 12Megapixel camera (even if your lens is NOT a full sensor compatible lens - trust me and read below) and you have, depending on what you started with, something like a 2x teleconverter. (Note though that images are rectangular, so going from a 25MP to a 50MP does NOT double the lens mm/zoom. It only goes up by about 1.4x's. But if you go from a 12 or 9 or 6 MP, then you are doubling or more the 'length' of the zoom, you are doubling the magnification.
NOW here is the trick with the last one ... you are going to CROP the image before you use it. So it is extra work if you weren't going to crop, but you will have just as many pixels after cropping as you were going to have, without having to change the fstop, to print your images as you currently have, so you have a much better zoom.
If you decide you like and want to use the FULL image, well, you didn't gain anything from a zoom perspective, but then it turned out you didn't want to zoom more for that picture.
And If you used a lens that is not compatible with a full sized sensor and you got the extra pixels by going to a full size sensor, you are going to have vignetting - meaning, no, or less, light is going to get to the edges and especially the corners of the image. Some people think that when a lens is listed as a 'digital' lens or 'digital' zoom that that means it is 'better'. But it isn't - what it means is, it only works on a smaller 'circle' so it only works on cameras that have a smaller-sensor than the full sized sensors. When digital cameras first became popular at the turn of the millennium, that was how all or almost all the cameras did it. So a 'digital' lens is usually lower weight (less glass) but can't give a good picture to the edges of a full sensor. But it will give a good image in a circle that is at least as big as an APS-C (Small film made by Kodak just before they went bankrupt), so you will have a circle (or more realistically a square) that is really good, or you can still think of it as a standard rectangle. Or ... you can get a lens designed for 'full sensor'.
Final option: You can go with a new lens. For example, years ago I stopped using my 70-200 lens and started using an 80-400. I went from a $200 lens to a $2500 - or was it $3800? I don't remember lens. This is a much more expensive option - but it is the 'classic' solution to the problem.
Note VERY important: Don't cheap out on lenses that do NOT have vibration reduction/image stabilization when looking at so called 'long' lenses. Your 200 lens is going to become a 320 or a 640mm 35mm equivalent lens depending on which options you follow above. If you follow them all - totally ridiculous, it might be a 4000mm 35mm equivalent. Unless you are using a tripod in a wind free environment, you are going to need the image stabilization feature.
Note: Canon owns the phrase Image Stabilization, Nikon owns Vibration reduction. That is why each manufacturer uses their own terminology, but they all mean essentially the same. Among the major vendors, the quality varies more by year of design than by manufacturer. (Canon and Nikon would strongly disagree with me of course.)
Now, what about the 'pro' monster lenses with an f stop of 2.0 or 2.8 , vrs the much cheaper consumer grade with 4.0-5.6 or something similar f stops?