Nikon 3x Tele Converter TC-E3ED

The Nikon 3x Tele Converter TC-E3ED package comes with the lens and front and rear caps.

Nikon 3x Tele Converter TC-E3ED

There are some important notes:

• After mounting this converter, the camera becomes very front heavy (see figure below). As a result, handle it with two hands if necessary. Otherwise, it is easy to break the camera's middle joint.

  Nikon 3x Tele Converter Mounted on Coolpix 950

• Since this bulky lens blocks the viewfinder, use the LCD monitor for composition.
• The area covered by the flash sensor (and the internal flash) is blocked partially by this lens. Hence, both the internal flash and external flashes may not work properly.
• Since this converter has a magnification of 3.0, any camera movement will be tripled in your image. Therefore, to prevent blurring, hold the camera firmly or use a tripod. The use of the swivel lock is perhaps needed.

The on-camera lens is equivalent to a 38mm - 152mm zoom (35mm equivalent). Since this converter has a magnification of 3.0, mounting it on the camera effectively changes the zoom to 114mm - 456mm (35mm equivalent). Since adding a converter on top of a lens always reduces some optical quality, normally only the combined focal length that is not available with the on-camera lens (i.e., 279mm-456mm) will be used. In this range we have most of the two popular moderate telephoto focal lengths: 300mm and 400mm. The relative positions on the zoom scale are shown in the table below:

If the combined focal length is less than 279mm (48% on the scale), vignetting occurs. Thus, if the focal length is less than 152mm, use the on-camera lens, and if the focal length is larger than 279mm, use TC-E3ED. If you also have a TC-E2, it can cover the range of 152mm and 304mm. There is a small overlap of the coverage of TC-E2 and TC-E3ED (i.e., 279mm-304mm). I use TC-E3ED only when the focal length is longer than 300mm. The following image illustrates the effect of using TC-E3ED when the combined focal length is less than 279mm.

Vignetting may occur if a shorter combined focal length is used

Shooting in Telephoto 2 mode or Regular Mode

You can use the Telephoto 2 mode. See General Operations for the way of selecting a converter mode. Once this mode is selected, the on-camera lens is zoomed all the way in so that the combined focal length is 456mm (35mm equivalent), and the zooming button can only be used to zoom in and out between the range of 19.6mm and 32mm (or 279mm and 456mm - 35mm equivalent) to prevent vignetting. Moreover, both internal and external flashes are disabled. Please keep in mind that this mode is only available in M-REC.

You do not have to enter a converter mode to use a lens converter even if you are in M-REC. This means you can use this tele converter in the Regular mode. See General Operations for the details.

Close-Up

The minimum camera-subject distance is 2.5m/8.2 ft. If the distance is shorter than this, the camera fails to focus. Should this happen, you can use the Close-Up mode.

Filter Issues

The filter thread size is 72mm.

Focus Distance

If you use Manual Focus in M-REC or use Infinity focus mode (i.e., the mountain icon) in either A-REC or M-REC, the focus distance is different from the actual distance. Consequently, you should ignore this distance and use the LCD monitor to make sure your subjects are in focus.

Examples

Here are a number of sample images. Most of them were taken using longer focal lengths near the 304mm end on a 990 or the 456mm end on a 995. The TC-E3ED is perhaps the best 3X telephoto converter. It is not only good for distant subject, but also very sharp for taking people photos. The last two images provide a focal length comparison of TC-E2 and TC-E3ED.

			995 with TC-E2	995 with TC-E3ED
Click on the image to see a larger one

Technical Data

The following technical information are taken from Nikon's manual. These information are for 950 and 990 only, and should be different for other Nikon cameras.