The landscapes below were all taken with a Zenzanon Bronica PG 2x teleconverter for the GS-1.
I have used the 2x extender only occasionally, and always with the prime lens 2-3 stops below its maximum (so as to give the best performance). Optically good, reducing the light only slightly more than the mathematical 2-stops expected. However the camera shake is considerable, requiring a much more robust tripod than the Benbo Mk 2 I usually use.
As with all 2x extenders, the aperture of the prime lens changes. So if it says f8, it’s actually f16. There is also an additional loss of light from the extra 5 elements of glass, of about ¼ of a stop. So the camera exposure needs adjusting a total of 2 – 2.5 stops.
The picture is from the Alps in the north-western concern of Italy.
Below, detail from the above photograph.
The landscapes below were all taken with a Zenzanon Bronica PG 2x teleconverter for the GS-1.
I have used the 2x extender only occasionally, and always with the prime lens 2-3 stops below its maximum (so as to give the best performance). Optically good, reducing the light only slightly more than the mathematical 2-stops expected. However the camera shake is considerable, requiring a much more robust tripod than the Benbo Mk 2 I usually use.
As with all 2x extenders, the aperture of the prime lens changes. So if it says f8, it’s actually f16. There is also an additional loss of light from the extra 5 elements of glass, of about ¼ of a stop. So the camera exposure needs adjusting a total of 2 – 2.5 stops.
The picture is from the Alps in the north-western concern of Italy.
Below, detail from the above photograph.
With the 2x extender camera shake becomes a serious issue for landscape photographs. The main cameras mirror can be locked up before the photograph reducing shake to almost nothing, but with the extender there is mechanical action. Because of this I’ve never tried photographing with small apertures, with the inevitable long exposure times of a second that come from using fine-grain films. For the kind of photographs I take, this does not seem to matter because the long-distance shots have no foreground.
Bronica GS-1 PG 150mm and PG 2x extender at f16 (marked f8), using Agfachrome RS50 and 6×6 film back. The picture is from the northern plains of Italy, near Turin/Torino.
Below, detail from this picture.
Below, detail from the above photograph – see rooftops to the right.
The above pictures were all taken with a Bronica lenses. The film was scanned with an Epson V700 Photo at 48-bit colour depth using SilverFast SE software. The pictures were then tidied for the web using Photoshop CS3, reducing the image to 24-bit colours.
