Lens Test Glossary     About these reviews

I bought mine here

I bought mine here

Introduction

This is an expensive 1.4x teleconverter.

It ONLY works with expensive AF-I and AF-S lenses. One CANNOT mount any other lenses on it unless one grinds down certain lugs on the female mount at a machine shop.

Nikon cheapened it a little (same glass) and introduced the TC-14E II around 2001. I got the more expensive original model.

Both models work with the AF-I and AF-S lenses.

Nikon makes NO AF teleconverters for its general line of AF lenses. One must instead use a manual focus converter like the TC-200 and focus manually, or screw with discount brands and hope the matrix metering couples correctly.

To retain AF ability with ordinary AF lenses one must slum it with a discount brand teleconverter.

Specifications

It has five elements in five groups.

It's 2.6" (65mm) around by 1" (25mm) long.

It weighs 7 oz (200 g).

Nikon Product Number: 2129 (TC-14E II) , in catalog as of spring 2008.

Performance

I've used the TC-14E with the 400/2.8 AF-I and the 80-200/2.8 AF-S. See those reviews for details.

The AF speed is great with both lenses. The autofocus accuracy wavers a bit which affects sharpness.

Remember that the sharpness of a system with a TC is dependent more on the prime lens and chance than the TC itself. The TC is magnifying the image from the lens by 1.4x. A lens needs to have over 40% as much sharpness as you need to begin with to look good with a 1.4x converter.

For whatever reason, I wasn't able to get consistently excellent results with the two lenses above, so I returned it.

Recommendations

If you have an f/2.8 AF-S or AF-I lens this is a very handy addition.

It is useless unless you have a long AF-I or AF-S lens. One CANNOT mount any other AF or manual lens or accessory to the front because it is keyed mechanically to prevent this.

It makes little sense to use this with the 28-70AFS, and you'll damage the system if you set the 28-70 lens to its shorter focal lengths since glass will collide.

You'd have to be kidding to want to try to put this on the 17-35 AFS, but some worry about it anyway.

Just for fun, you can attach another manual focus teleconverter to the rear of this, but not the front.

The inconsistent results I got with both the 80-200 AFS and 400 AF-I led me to return this.

This convertor is intended for professional use with long super telephotos. It is not like the old TC-201 teleconverter that was intended for general use to make a normal lens into a telephoto. Likewise, the results are great with 300mm and longer fixed AF-I and AF-S lenses and so-so with the 80-200 AF-S zoom.