I use the Olympus T-CON17 1.7x 55mm converter on the 602. It is worth it, the ability to get really close to your subject at full resolution is very useful. On the 602 it is a conversion from 210mm to 357mm and it is the difference between an animals facial portrait or its whole body. I used it for all of these photo's. I'll be using it at the Assen World Superbike race in September -paddock access, yippee- as well. My aim is to get up close and personal where I don't have the ability to get closer in person. The narrower DOF is great as well btw.
The T-CON17 is quite sharp, has little distortion. In all the samples I have seen before I bought it, it was the only one that is in the same league as the orginal Fuji converters and considerably better compared to Raynox.
It has some noticable Chromatic Abberation in the corners at wide apertures, but they all do that and this is one of the best when it comes to that.
The downside of a teleconverter is that you have to screw it on and be careful not to get dirt on the front and rear element. So you don't want to change it that often (maybe that's just me). That limits your possibilities, because it will start vignetting soon when you start zooming out. A solution is to treat it as a fixed lens and find a way to stand back. :)
In my collection I linked to above:
"Lazy" is at full zoom
"Natural born killer" is zoomed out a bit
"Yawn" is zoomed out until it started vignetting
"Natural born killer 2" is where I stepped back 8m or so.
The first three were from the same position.
My experience is that a monopod is very useful to use with a teleconverter. It seriously adds to image sharpness. Get one with a quick release plate.
Message edited by author 2003-08-14 16:29:49.
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