Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

My experience is different. Though I have not directly compared the G2 with the 200-500 as I own neither. I did compare the Sport with the 200-500 and found the Sport considerably better, even without the TC on the 200-500. AF was crisp and fast, not dissimilar to the 200-500. But with a 1.4 TC the Nikon just didn't cut the mustard. I wanted something that would give me high quality images at 600mm, and the Sigma gave me that. I was spoiled by my 600mmF4 and found the 200-500 inadequate for my needs.

I participate in Nikon's NPS program, so I had borrowed a 200-500 on two different occasions. I later also borrowed two different copies of the G2 from frineds and found them both to be fine and quite similar to the Sport.

With a D850 I suspect you are seeing differences that I cannot detect with the D810. However I don't think a 1/3 difference in maximum aperture causes a noticeable difference in AF performance. At least not as much as the 1 stop difference when you put a 1.4TC on the 200-500.

Anyway, my results with the Sport, the 200-500, and the original Tamron and Sigma C - all of which I had tried prior to settling on the Sport - were very similar to what was measured in the Photography Life article I posted the link to:

https://photographylife.com/reviews/nikon-200-500mm-f5-6e-vr

This review was just posted by Photography Life a couple of weeks ago, and it shows its strengths and weaknesses.

https://photographylife.com/reviews/tamron-sp-150-600mm-f5-6-3-g2

I actually purchased my Sport before becoming aware of the 200-500 review - but when I saw it, I knew I had made the right decision. It wasn't even close to my eyes. The Sigma was as good as my 600mmF4.

Things are a little different with the newer 500 F5.6. That lens is very sharp.

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makurow

any ideas for a Sony alpha series? A6000

Charlie C Loc: North Liberty, IA

I have found the 1.4 is best. Any more than that degrades image quality. You also loose f stops.

queencitysanta Loc: Charlotte, North Carolina

I hope you're doing well. Closing was a real loss to us but freedom for you.
Good luck with your new adventure.

photoman43

I would get the Nikon 1.4 TC III.

With any teleconverter on a zoom lens, add it only when you need more reach than 500mm, or the max focal length of the lens. Adding it when shooting at shorter foal lengths just slows down AF and may hurt image quality.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

She did mention the D500. I have the TC 1.4 III and I’ve used it with the 200-500 on a D500. Still testing to see if it’s any better than cropping. I don’t really have anything else I would use it on.

sandiegosteve Loc: San Diego, CA

TC's can be great. On my D500, there is a little image degradation from them, but more than acceptable to me over cropping. I'm only using them on Primes as I don't have a push pull long zoom. I've borrowed a 200-500 and got good results with the 1.4.

The biggest problem I have between my 1.4 and 2.0 is the reduction in AF speed. Yes, you need higher ISO or slower shutter with the 2.0, but AF is slower.

george19

I don’t use a teleconverter with this lens, but I end up cropping away more than 75% of the picture at 500 mm with my D810. This is shooting great blue herons from less than 100 yards. Just something to think about when trying to determine reach.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

I haven’t tried mine on the Z7 but you are gonna be cropping considerably more on a full frame than my D500.

Rmccully

Very interesting thread. I was wondering if any of you have experience with a 1.4 TC with the nikkor 300 mm f4. I would be using it on the d7500. Thanks.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

This is what I have been preaching for some time now .....

I tried the Sigma Sport on Canon 80D - very disappointing .....
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TonyBrown

I only use my 1.4 on my 300f4 pf. As far as I’m concerned it just doesn’t perform well enough on the super zooms or even my 500pf.

TomHackett Loc: Kingston, New York

I have a Nikon TC-20E that I got to use on my D850 with a 70-200mm lens. I quickly concluded that I get a sharper result using the 70-200 native and cropping the result to the angle of view given by the TC-20E. The TC-20E introduces too much softness. The TC-20E will give you more pixels than cropping the image resulting from the bare 200mm lens. But you might get just as good a result by cropping the image to the 400mm angle of view and then upsampling the number of pixels in software. It depends on what you're after.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida