I just tried my 50 1.4 and It most certainly will not work with a Sigma 1.4 EX tc the rear element of the lens and front element of the tc would be grinding together.
The new teleconverters are designed for telephoto lenses. I believe nikon has a table of which lenses function with the new teleconverters. TC-17 is the newest teleconverter, so that's not going to work.
By not work, it typically means that the teleconverter lens juts out from the housing into the lens itself, so none of the short focal length lenses are suitable as they tend to jut into the camera (!). In other words, the teleconverter can't mount on a short focal length lens without colliding elements! I have a (non-Nikon) 500mm lens which also does not work due to colliding elements. The focal length really has nothing to do with it, it's really all about whether the lenses can mount without colliding elements.
Obviously, the long focal length Nikkors have empty space where they mount on the camera, so the teleconverters mount on them just fine.
That's the scoop. I did mount a 2x teleconverter (TC-201x) on my 60mm AF f/2.8 recently and it was an anxiously close fit, but seems to work great. On the other hand, I tried a TC-14b on my 500mm, and it wouldn't work (even though the tc-14a did!). I learned the hard way that Nikon makes (made?) the TC-14b for long focal length lenses, and the TC-14a for the short focal length lenses due to the different form factors. In other words, the 14b is not a "newer" version of the 14a, they're meant for different focal length lenses due to the colliding elements issue.
I do not understand why the TC-14a (no colliding elements) is not good enough to work on long focal length lenses, but assume that there's an optics reason for the dedicated long focal length TC-14b.
Doug Quance wrote:
Has anyone used a teleconverter on a 50 1.4 to take portraits?
How did it work for you?
You can't use the Nikon converters on that lens.
However, the Kenko 300 DG converter WILL work on all Nikon lenses.............. and work quite nicely too.
That being said, I doubt the 50 + converter would do as well overall as the 85. I haven't directly compared them but the 85mm generates some phenom pics.
