Panasonic DMW-STC14 Lumix S 1.4x Teleconverter

I use the STC 14 with Lumix S Pro 70-200 f/2.8 and a Leica SL2 body. Works well, very sharp. I am pleased. NO lens update is required.

Part 3 of my review: the 1.4 TC works very well with new Leica SL2. I'm seeing Much better IQ (resolution) than with the Leica CL for obvious reasons.

Stacked with the new Lumix S Pro 70-200 f4 (the only compatible lens for now), this piece offers the equivalent reach of a 147-420 mm on my Leica CL. I think I see a slight drop off in sharpness, but this is expected and not a comment on the quality of the piece. This impression is based on looking at images. I did not do formal comparisons with a fixed subject using the lens with and without the TC. I hope to switch to the Leica SL2, soon, with which I expect significant improvement in IQ/sharpness with 280 mm reach. I think this stack will be a reasonable and much less expensive tele-zoom for the SL2 than the Leica equivalent (90-280), which costs over .6K. I've used the Leica 90-280. It is a fabulous lens, but it is a beast to handle (4.1 pounds versus 2.83 for the Lumix+TC stack with hood). This stack is fairly compact and easy to handle when I am out birding. The AF works well, but only after you download the lens firmware update from the Panasonic website. Without the firmware update, the lens and TC will not be read by the camera; and AF and IS will not function. I had to figure this out on my own. The info sheet is useless. The image below is a slight crop (approx 80%). The lens was at 258 mm (equivalent of 387 mm in the APS-C sensor in the CL) according to the metadata.

If you are using this teleconverter on a Leica CL, you will need to download the lens firmware update (S-R70200V011.zip) from the Panasonic website and load it into the camera/lens without the teleconverter in the stack. Once you do the update, Lens Firmware ver 1.1 will show in the menu, and the stack will work with ver 3.1 of Leica CL firmware. The max aperture becomes 5.6; OIS works fine; AF works fine. No comment on IQ as I have not had time to take photos with the lens and tc, yet, but I wanted to post this for any other unsuspecting Leica CL L-mount users who mount the stack and are left holding a non-functioning camera.