Nikon 105vr with 1.4TC?

I've been shooting a Nikon 105vr for 4 years on a D810 in a Nauticam housing. It's a great lens, but I could use more magnification.

I'm upgrading to a D850, and I'm thinking of adding a 30mm extension and a 1.4TC-EII. Anyone shot with this combo? Interested to know how it works, extension needed, etc.

it works, may require auto fine tune.

I'm just wondering what it'll be like for focussing given the TC will lower the amount of light the focussing system has to play with, right?

I sometimes found using the 105 on either a D800 or D500 that I needed to switch to manual focus as there just isn't enough light for the AF.

MF might not be feasible with a TC - although I'm not familiar with the Nauticam. On my Subal if you added a TC I don't think the manual focussing wheel would engage the lens focussing ring. It might be different of course with the Nauticam.

Just a thought

Not sure if you are talking about a port extension or an extension tube. I've used several times the Nikon 105 VR with a Kenko 1.4 TC. With this combination you loose a stop of light wide open and AF becomes slower but usable. You cannot use the manual focus gear for the Nikon 105 VR with the teleconverter (not sure if there is an option for that lens + converter). Anyhow I was able to use that combination with Nauticam SMC using AF (with some headaches at the end of the dives though :-) The port extension for the Kenko 1.4 TC is 20mm (not sure if it's the same with nikon's 1.4 TC).

My plan was to use a 30mm extension tube on the regular 105mm port I already have. Bluewater Photo estimated the 30mm, but when I get the parts if I find it needs something else, I'll return and swap.

I do have the focus gear for the 105, but I never wanted to remove the rubber grip from the lens so I never installed it.

As for focusing, I suspect the D850 with 105 and (Nikon) 1.4TC-EII should focus as well as the D810 did without the TC. I have a focus light as well to help with macro.

A TC doesn't give you more magnification. It just crops the image by turning the 105mm into a 150mm. If you need more magnification you can use an extension tube which has no glass in it. This decreases the working distance and gives you more magnification. For extreme magnification you can best use the super macro converters: wet lenses you attach to the front port during the dive. I get my headaches from using the Nauticam SMC-2! :-) DOF is in millimeters.

--Rob

Converters do in fact give you more magnification, the image is 1.4x bigger at the same working distance. It's exactly the same as using a 150mm lens from that aspect. The other key point is that the minimum focusing distance remains the same. So if you are at the same working distance the image is 1.4x bigger.

Feedback: I used the 1.4TC for a day, but when I reviewed the shots that night I could see some image degradation. I quit using it because of that, but I really did like the focal length. Basically it allowed me to shoot exactly as I've been doing except not have to crop. But I think a) it may be better to crop, and b) I'll just have to get closer.

I've been strongly considering a Sigma 150 macro, if I could get a port to fit.

As for focusing speed, I was correct. The D850 is faster enough than the D810 that a TC'd lens feels about the same on the D805 as the bare lens did on the D810 in terms of focus speed.

The loss of sharpness was very slight, but I'm chasing those gains.

Here's an example shot with the 105+1.4TC-EII.