B 300 teleconverter and C2100UZ

[aerobat]

Is there any interest in the Olympus B 300 teleconverter? I have been using one on a Olympus C2100 for a good long while with surprizing results. Does this lens work very well with any more modern cameras? Am I being foolish in trying to get tele performance from P&S cameras, should I just go DSLR? Am I really going to miss the steadyshot feature of the C2100?

[plg3]

The B-300 is still a very good lens. As you know,it was replaced by the TCON-17, a nearly physically identical lens. The TCON-17, however, is less expensive than the B-300 so there is not much of a market for B-300 (especially like there was 3 or 4 years ago.) You can however, use the B-300 on any camera you can hooka TCON-17 on to and you should see much the same results (compared to using a TCON-17.)

Here's a picture I took over this past weekend with my C-730 and B-300 -- gray over-cast day, hand held at max optical zoom. Quickly touched up in Photoshop Elements 3.0.



The Olympus C-2100 has an almost cult-like following. The image stabilization feature was / is excellent and combined with a quality long zoom lens, made for a great digital camera. I would say that if you really appreciate the image stabilization and long zoom combination, you will probably be disappointed with anything less in a new long zoom digital camera. There are a number of new cameras on the market with image stabilization; many with top notch reputations. Can you get similar performance with a DSLR? I "dunno" but if you can find a model or two to try out (friends or neighbors) that should quickly answer your question.Personally, I'm watching the newer models with"mid-optical" (~5x) zoom. Combined withthe newsensors,something like thisshould be a nice compromise (compromise beingthe operative word!?!)

Paul in NoVA
C-730 B-300 WCON-07
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stoney_g