Screw-on 1.45x telephoto lens with 35mm equivalent of 200mm f2.4. Metal body. For models: E-10/E-20N. Note: Teleconverter lenses extend the camera's telephoto range. This lens is not intended for use at wide-angle zoom settings. Zooming to a wide-angle setting with this lens attached will cause vignetting (darkening) on the frame of the image. An adapter may be required in order to attach this lens to your camera.
The Olympus TCON-14B 1.45x tele extension lens adds a magnification of 1.45x to the built-in magnification of the Olympus E-10. The lens is equivalent to a 200mm F/2.4 lens on a 35mm camera.
1 Advanced Amateur leaving 35mm
Switching from 35mm film to digital? This is the system for you unless you are shooting layouts or high def posters for billboards. 4.1 megs with tiff format gets you a 36" x 24" poster size print (Kinko's if you don't have a 4x printer). Use Photoshop to up the definition 300dpi to 600dpi and be prepared to burn a whole CD for your cause. I used to shoot 35mm with fuji 50 with a Nikon F2 and the biggest frek'in lens (f 1.0) that you could buy. I'm so happy with not having to rent a custom color darkroom to get the photos that I want. If you are a low light shooter, you have to play with the camera a bit...easily done with digital, quick feedback. If you shoot speed one disadvantage is the E-10 only goes down to 1/640 sec. I have to admit I rarely used the 1/2000th on my Nikon, unless it was on a sunlit day with my 400mm f2.8 and I needed to "freeze" the shot. Rare with anyone, but outdoor sports photography.
The compliment of lens allows for some very creative shots. In addition, going digital gives you the control of your very own darkroom. Enjoy!
2 Olympus TCON-14B 1.45X Tele Extension Lens for E-10
Overall I like the Extension, however anyone purchasing should be aware of the following;
It is somewhat heavy!
It uses very large filters.
With converter on camera you have to use the maximum zoom or it crops the corners.
Other than those things I am very happy with this
3 Impressive chunk of glass!
I'm a big fan of the Olympus E-10, though I've only had it for a short while, because they started from scratch and designed a camera system to take advantage of what works best for digital. Unfortunately [for someone who has a pretty good collection of "traditional" SLR lenses], part of that design is that the lens is not removable. Hmmm . . . what to do for those occasions where you need a tighter shot?
In comes the Olympus 1.45x tele extender, and it is as impressive as the camera itself! I have a fair bit of experience using tele extenders and converters on traditional cameras, so I was prepared to do some give and take -- more give than take. I was quite surprised that this extender actually gives more than it takes! A big, heavy chunk of glass, it [almost completely] retains the speed of the permanent lens, and delivers bright, clear images. Olympus' directions tell you to set the camera control to "extender," and then zoom the permanent lens to full tele; in pradtice, you can get away with about 20mm [equivalent] of play, but then you start to get vignetting (looks like you're shooting through the end of a pipe).
For the price, this is certainly a great value. Even if you don't think you'll need to buy the 3x extender, you will probably find lots of uses for this one -- and the price is low enough that it doesn't hurt [too much!] to buy it.
4 203mm on the Camedia E-10
This was made specifically for the Camedia E-10, but will fit many other systems. On the E-10, this is a 203mm fixed lens (as considered in the 35mm film format). Although the base lens is a zoom, when using it with this extender you have to keep it pretty much locked in the full telephoto mode. There is a little play for framing, but any wider than say 180mm and the vignetting starts (viz., begins to look like you're gazing through a pipe). I have a fairly broad experience with extenders. My judgment overall is that they're not worth bothering with - the amount of distortion, chromatic aberrations, flaring, and the lose of lens speed makes them a real trial - IN MOST CASES! In the case of this extender, however, I'm really impressed with Olympus. I think that they probably figured, well we're not offering interchangeable lenses with the E-10, we have to provide outstanding performance in our extenders. And that's exactly what they've done. What I think was the best part of the surprise for me is the speed of this lens, and the others, in that there is almost no reduction. But I wouldn't care that it was fast if I couldn't get a good picture with it. The image brightness and contrast are really superb. When used outdoors, which is where you normally run into trouble with any lens because of the extremes of lighting, I've been very pleased with the performance. Gotta love this lens! I've become a huge fan of the Olympus extenders. For my E-10, I have the 0.08x and the 3x extenders, as well.
