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Using TeleconvertersTeleconverters, also sometimes referred as multipliers or tele-extenders, can provide much needed magnification, which is what nearly every photographer needs for wildlife photography or bird photography.Basically a teleconverter is a magnifying lens placed between the camera body and the lens. The teleconverter increases the focal length of a lens but at the cost of overall sharpness and lens focus speed.
Our advice is to buy the same brand teleconvertor as your camera body and lens. We have tried Kenko and other makes with our Nikon equipment but they leave much to be desired in terms of quality. If you are entering your photographs into competitions, want to publish them or print them out at A3 and bigger you need the best quality you can get. If, however, you shoot small file sizes and will print out post-card size or just view the photographs on your computer then a cheaper convertor should be fine. The 1.4X and 1.7X teleconvertors are our favorites. The 2X seems to work well only on the 300mm f2.8 and 400mm f2.8 top-of-the-range lenses, and the 3X teleconverter shouldn’t even be considered if you are serious about taking quality pictures. The 1.4X teleconverter increases magnification by 40% and it is a killer combination on the AFS 200-400 f4 zoom lens. The lens aperture is reduced by 1-stop so the f4 lens becomes a f5.6. Zoom lenses and teleconverters are generally not great combinations but in this case it works fine. This converter can obviously also be use on other telephoto lenses with apertures of f2.8 or f4 and in some cases even f5.6. The 1.7X teleconverter increases magnification by 70% and the lens aperture is reduced by 1.5-stops so the f4 lens becomes a f6.3. We have used it on the 200-400mm f4 but the sharpness was not good. It is best suited on prime lenses such as the 600mm f4 and any other prime telephoto lens that has an aperture of f2.8 or f4. The 2X teleconverter increases magnification by 100% and the lens aperture is reduced by 2-stops so the f4 lens becomes a f8. We have used this item on many lenses and we recommend it with the 300mm f2.8 and 400mm f2.8 only. If it is used on zoom lenses (we used it on the 80 – 200 f2.8 AFS) the quality is not good. If you must use it, try to stick to prime lenses and not zoom lenses. Nikon have, however, launched a new AF-S TC20E III teleconverter that is the world’s first teleconverter with an aspherical lens element. We found it to be sharper than the old version but it still works best on the Nikon Pro lenses with minimum apertures of f2.8. It works on the 200-400mm f4 and the 600mm f4 lenses but it takes a bit longer to find focus. Remember that a 1.4X TC will nearly always result in a better quality image than a 1.7X TC which in turn will nearly always result in better quality photos than a 2X TC. We would suggest that you stop down about 1-stop when using these TCs - if I use the 1.7X TC on my 600mm f4 lens the aperture automatically goes from f4 to f6.7 - which is still wide open - so I close it down to f8 or f9.5, which results in a sharper image corner to corner.
We do not recommend using teleconverters, especially the 2X, on zoom lenses no matter how expensive the lenses or teleconverters are. We took the photographs below from a hide in the Kruger Park and have not sharpened either photo. We took the first photograph using the 70-200 f2.8 VR with a Nikon 2X teleconverter @ 400mm...
Here is the photograph taken with the Nikon 70-200mm with Nikon 2X teleconverter @ 400mm, f5.6, 500/sec on beanbag, cropped so you can see the detail. Not sharp is it?...
Testing the new Nikon AF-S TC20E III teleconverterIn March 2010 we tested the new Nikon AF-S TC20E III teleconverter. It works on the 200-400 vr f4 and the 600mm f4 but the focus is much slower and the results are not that sharp. This converter, even though it's a great improvement over the old one, is still best suited to the 300 f2.8 and 400 f2.8 prime lenses. It is not ideal with zoom lenses such as the 200-400 or the 70-200 f2.8 due to the extra glass and moving parts.Here are some comparison pictures - the first taken with just a 600mm f4 lens...
and the second with the 2X TC added to provide a 1200mm magnification...
When cropped, however, the one is sharper than the other... 
The first photo is a crop of the lion shot with just the 600mm lens while the second crop is taken with the 2X TC giving 1200mm. The first is sharper than the second when cropped - if you are not cropping and don't mind the slower autofocus then the 2X TC will work on prime lenses of f4. Please note that some lenses are designed to work with teleconverters and others are not. The Nikon 80-400 VR lens is NOT designed to work with teleconverters and the Nikon teleconverters won't even fit on the lens but the Kenko make will - the resulting photographs, however, will not be good and you will also have erratic autofocus! If the Nikon 80-400mm lens doesn’t excite you because it lacks a motor or if you need more reach than 400mm, another option would be to get the 300mm AFS f4 and use either the 1.4X or 1.7X teleconverter, providing the reach of 420mm f5.6 or 510mm f6.3 respectively. The 300mm f4 with 1.4X teleconverter had the same sharpness as photographs I had taken with the 300mm f2.8 plus 1.4X teleconverter so this is an ideal combination for those of you who cannot afford the big expensive f2.8 lenses.
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