No I don't have a ball head. I have a three-way Bogen 3047 head. If I leave the handles medium tight it allows almost as much freedom of movement as a ball head. It's very smooth and works well for just about everything I do. I don't think the bad bokeh is a function of the converter. Out of focus branches against a bright sky seem to always produce color banding with any long lens. I'll have to try a bokeh experiment using this combination with something that has the potential for good bokeh. Perhaps a flower against a green background. I'll get back to you on that.
Paul
On Apr 18, 2005, at 12:52 AM, Boris Liberman wrote:
Hi!
I took another walk in Michigan's Bloomfield Hills Nature Center this afternnon. This time I put the A2X-S converter on the back of the A 400/5.6, and mounted both on the tripod along witth the DG500Super flash. The light was kind of nasty as it was the middle of the day but the flash fill helped. All are at ISO 400. All are f5.6 @ 1/350th. The birds are Cowbirds, the turtles are turtles <g>.
http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3288896 http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3288900 http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3288907
Bird images are impressive, while naturally turtles made me chuckle...
My general impression from common purpose teleconverters was that they destroy bokeh. That's why I am selling my Vivitar 2x Macro Focusing TC. The second picture (3288900) seems to support this idea. The bokeh really hurts, at least my eyes.
Since Jostein brought here FA 400/5.6 and I saw some shots he made with it, I should say that unless converter was specifically *designed* for the lens, it is best left unattached :).
Naturally, that would be my own opinion.
Paul, you have ball head on your tripod, don't you?
Boris
