Dream of 800mm f/2.8 Super Tele Combo Connection
This is a story of my early project that I have spent much effort with it. I thought it is worth publishing in the blog as a historical record….
The Dream Connection F707-T314B
1. THE DREAM
Here is my project for a dream connection setup between the Sony F707 and two Olympus tele lens, the TCON-300S and TCON-14B. The challenge is a tailor-made mount for supporting this mass configuration for handheld and on-tripod work.
2. TECHNICAL CONSIDERATION
The expected T314B tele len combo will give a zoom power of 4.35x with about 0.5EV loss of light. With the connection on F707, it introduces an effective tele len with focus length of 826mm, max. aperture F2.8, optical zoom power of 21.75x. The final output could be further extended to 43.5x by using the 2x digital zoom in the F707.
3. INITIAL IMPRESSION
A heavy configuration, excellent finish and quality lens. It is not ideal for handheld work.
No vignetting found at the full tele side, there is approximately 10% zoom range available from the full tele side in the F707. The autofocusing surprisingly works so well. Noticable CA distortion was found, it reduces when using smaller apertures, F4.5-F8.0 produce the best result. There are loss of estimated 0.5EV light, some contrast, sharpness and saturation, OK, but all these are expected, it generated overall acceptable images for my eyes. And it is not surprised that the assistant laser, internal flash and infrared light just no longer working for this new setup.
Post image processing is must in this case to reduce the noticable CA, enhance some contrast and sharpness. In short, excellent len finish and zoom power, acceptable image quality, the choice for serious tele photography in the costs of price, weight and the owner’s work efforts.
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From: GoldenHammer
The F707 is strong enough to support that..
From: lobella
Date: 03-Jul-2002 09:09
Hi…
your setup is very impressive !
I’ve a question, with the 314b setup the lens are blocked by the element you’ve build by yourself…using only the tcon14b ( that as I can see is very BIG ) simply attached to the front filter ring of the F707 do you think that it can cause the detachment of the filter ring itself ?
bye
From: Sony Talk Forum
Date: 31-Mar-2002 21:04
This is a great innovation! Would you mind posting an image of the mount that you made? I assume that the T300 and the 707 lens tripod mounts don’t put both lenses in precise vertical alignment. Did you have to build up an area under one of the lenses to fix that?
Thanks!
From: GoldenHammer
Date: 19-Feb-2002 08:42
Hi. I could not get through by your email address. I tried to give my reference on web here:
The original mount from Olympus could not work with F707. The mount I use is actually a piece of flat platform for mounting camera and flash units on standard tripod. You may get one from a local shop, there are some flat platforms available that seems can also make life a bit easier.
The challenge is the mount did not come with fix points for the F707 and the lens, it requires efforts to measure the exact position and open holes on the mount. Some length screws and hard pastic are also required to fix the F707 and lens on the flat mount and tuning them for the best alignment.
A 49mm to 62mm ring is required for connection between the T300 and T14B. It is possible for that connection T300 + B300 with higher zoom power but in the cost of less image quality. The T14B is much better than B300 in items of image quality.
From: Peter
Date: 17-Feb-2002 13:53
I’m always looking around for good equipment for my Sony F707. Your super combo F707-T314B is really impressing. I’m interested to build such a thing too. Could you send me by mail the details of contruction for the tailor-made mount? Is it necessary to buy the original support arm or not? What kinds of special rings between the TCON300 and the TCOM14B are necessary? Could you imagine a combo of TCON300 and - instead of TCOM14B - an B300? Would it work with same quality as your construction?
From: GoldenHammer
Date: 17-Jan-2002 15:18
After days of work, I finally completed the fine alignment, the combo lens and F707 are all mounted well on the base. I am ready to go for the first life shooting. The complete gallery will be online after my initial life run in this week-end.
It is an exciting moment… and congratulations to myself!
From: GoldenHammer
Date: 13-Jan-2002 11:43
Hi, I just have the base mount up, but still have much work to do for fine alignment. I just also took some quick handheld shots. The zoom power is excellent, image quality is acceptable though some distortion found.
I expected it would produce more nice pictures when I have everything fixed on the mount and run it under better environment for photography. I will continue to post more sample images later.
From: lonesta
Date: 07-Jan-2002 20:40
My other camera is an Olympus E-10. I also have the TCON-300, but not the TCON-14B. I have not tried the TCON-300 in the Sony F-707 yet, but you have my interest up with your experimenting. Now I have two reasons to buy the TCON-14B lens. The mounting problem is big issue with the TCON-300 + TCON-14B setup being SO HEAVY and the Sony such a lightweight unit. I’d like to see your progess on the mounting system so I can have some ideas/options for what to try next.