D2 tele..?

[overgaardcom]

Sorry, I know I'm eons behind on this. But does a good tele converter exist from Leica, Panasonic or others for the D2.

I need it to be 180mm or 250mm ... thereabout.

[stumac]

Panasonic made the only one I know of, it is a monster and only gives a small increase in focal length. May be hard to get now.

Sorry Thorsten, I was confused, the Panasonic is a wide angle converter, I dont think there has been a tele converter.

Regards, Stuart

[stuny]

Thorsten -

I do recall soon after I bought my D2 (March 2004) that some dealers were offering supplementary wide and tele units. I couldn't get any of the dealers to tell me (email) the manufacturer or the size & weight of the units. I suspect they were not very good.

[farnz]

Thorsten,

I did an extensive search a few weeks ago and there appear to be a number of variants of telephoto adaptor available (although I never found one specifically for the D2 or LC1) but the largest I found had a 58 mm screw thread, which of course would mean finding a 69 to 58 mm adaptor and putting up with serious vignetting.

As far as I remember, this telephoto adaptor produced 3 times magnification but was manufactured by Opteka, whose lenses are reported to give particularly ordinary results. I found it (most of them) by trawling Google and the meta-search engines.

Eventually I decided not to blight the superb performance of my Vario-Summicron lens. Please post if you have more luck than I did!

Pete.

[overgaardcom]

Thanks, I've searched a bit and took a look at Panasonic acessories page and what I find is a wideangle. The only tele lenses Panasonic has avilable is not for D2 or LC1 and cost £300!

I also saw some a photo.net who had gotten tele extensions for other Panasonic cameras and in that price range.

I guess I would be better of cropping. And Farnz, you might be right that it would be violent to the D2 to add a tele converter - bot physically as aesthetics.

I just recall the wide angle thing to be talked well of. So I thought some might have deramed up a tele as well. But I recin I would have to be a huge thing then.

Thanks so far. Appreciate it a lot.

[Riley]

As far as I am aware Leica never offered either the wide or tele for D2. panasonic offered the .78x wide converter (zoomable) which was an excellent lens, but now is too far out of manufacture. It is part # DMW-LW69 and a tad on the expensive side. Check out B&H or Adorama for limited leftover stocks.

I am aquiring a Sony .8x part # VCL-HG0872 on 72mm screw thread requiring a stepup ring 69-72mm. 72mm thread gear is industrial quality and .8x is in any event quite subtle so it should be ok. About your best hope is industrial video 72mm per the route described.

Riley

[svenning]

Try to check the below mentioned link:

Some High Quality Telephoto Converter Lenses

All the best, Svenning, DK

[Riley]

I doubt any of those lens will work effectively
the discussion there is for FZ series cameras with 55mm thread
the Digilux 2 and LC-1 have a 69mm thread

Riley

[philipotto]

I have the DMW-LW69.y4984824608528.jpg
Impressive piece of glass, and the one of the only accessories made for the LC1/D2, still I might sell it, as I dont use it much.
I could put the proceeds in the M8 piggy bank. =)

[lesh]

In some situations a bit more reach would certainly be welcome.
I put the question to CK Shene - someone who seems to be something of an expert on the use of teleconverters with Panasonics & Nikons.
Says he has not directly tested a telecon with the D2/LC1 but suggests the Olympus TCON-17 (gives 1.7X) as the most likely solution (presumably with step down ring). It's been widely used with various FZ series Panasonics.
Might be worth a try if someone has access to one.

[cbretteville]

I have a Soligor 1.5x Pro (that isn't being used), it vignets even at 90mm despite the front element being a whoping 86mm. It is also rather heavy.

- Carl

[overgaardcom]

Interesting with the Olympus. It's even economical:
Olympus TCON-17 : Test, Preisvergleich, Preis, Vergleich und Kaufen

Looks a bit like this by the way:
Panasonic DMW-LT55 55mm 1.7x Telephoto Conversion Lens

I'll see of anyone has some around here so that I can test it.

[MP3]

There has been some discussion in the old forum on this topic. And it has made clear that as far as the original accessory lens from Pana or Leica, there are just 1 wide converter (Pana) and 1 macro converter (Leica/Pana).

Regarding tele converter, many old forum threads points to SONY VCLHG1758 TELE-LENS 58MM, a sony video converter lens. You may try a google. There are some image quality studies posted in the old forum which commented that the image quality from this gadget is of usable standard. Center quality is fine and edge corner quality will suffer a bit, but no unusable.

I have seriously consider this as well but was stayed back by the bulk. Now as I'm not intended to move up to D3, I may take a serious look at this again.

Best
Matthew

[spylaw4]

Hmmm, just did the old Google bit on the Sony and got a UK price of £300! I would need to do some serious trials before buying at that price.

[Riley]

you could ofcourse use a 69 to 72mm stepup ring, and im sure you would find a 72mm tele adapter for video, probably from sony, but be prepared to sell the car to finance it. This would put you in a position with no vignetting

Some High Quality Telephoto Converter Lenses

lists several tele converters for FZ pana use, among them
Olympus TCON-14B with 62mm rear thread
Nikon TC-E17ED with60mm rear thread