photoman43

I will add some to my earlier post above. Back wen I was shooting with slide film, I often used a Nikon 500mm f4 P lens with both the Nikon TC 14B (1.4x tc) and the TC 301 (2xtc) attached to my film camera. Resulting images were useable and acceptable if the whole rig was adequately supported (usually with two supports) and the shutter was triggered with a cable release. Focusing was done manually. Support and technique was critical.

Now that I am shooting digitally, support and technique is still important for good IQ images both with and without tcs and with and without cropping. My personal preference would be to add a tc before cropping in post. However, if good support or technique is not possible, then I would likely not add the tc and just crop.

btbg

The lack of contrst is probably from shooting raw and not really adjusting contrast as my job is sports photography for a newspaper and they prefer limited contrast. Would have to check on whether that would help or not.

btbg

Interesting comments. These are shot with no support hand held. That could be an issue although they are taken with a fairly high shutterbspeed so it may or may not be a factor.

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

While I do like your photos I also think you lost some sharpness using all of the things you listed. The photos are not as sharp as they should be. Which of your attachments caused the lack of sharpness I have no idea. I am just saying I do not think they are as sharp as they would have been without the attachments. But it is you who has to look at them. My guess is you also do not think they are as sharp as they should be or you would not have asked.

Yes I did look on download as Rong suggested.

Dennis

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Do post an original w/o any post-processing and in the WEBP format. It will appear as a link but will be viewable once the download is used.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

"Seventh".... Some are not satisfied with anything other than complete perfection.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

Maybe sharper but not an improvement. Lots of artifacts and it looks like you over pushed saturation too.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

Yes, attacking noise in post will always hurt sharpness - even the best noise abatement software ! So, the best idea is to control noise in the camera !

Yes, newsprint is very forgiving in showing fine details of any kind - including noise......
.

coolhanduke Loc: Redondo Beach, CA

Boy, that’s a difference from the original post.

gwilliams6

The new reality is that the latest TCs, internally and external are excellent optical quality, and top wildlife and sports pro photographers around the world use them all the time, with excellent results.

Just go to any Wildlife and Sports shooters groups and forums and see wonderfully sharp and optically excellent shots made with the latest TCs. It is just fake news that TCs are no good nowadays. The latest TCs and best long lenses are designed to work great together, and they do if you know how and when to use them.

Here top wildlife pro Mark Smith uses both Sony 1.4X TC and Sony 2X TC with the latest Sony 300mm f2.8 GM lens:

Sony 420MM F4? What???? 300mm 2.8 + 1.4 Tele - Beautiful Combo for bird and wildlife photography.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4WA2OglKLo&t=90s

Sony 300mm 2.8 + 2x Tele - Beautiful Combo for bird and wildlife photography.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBNF3xu5w5w&t=436s

Here my 24mp Sony A9, Sony 200-600mm lens and 1.4X TC at 840mm, as kids get pulled by a fast speedboat on Brookings Lake, Manistee National Forest, Michigan, USA. This is a 50% crop in here.

Click on download to see better image quality, even with UHH photo compression here. No noise reduction has been done in post on this image, but I could clean it up a bit with my Topaz Denoise AI if I choose to.

Cheers and best to you.

(Download)

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

LOL, Yes, using the latest most expensive bodies and lenses with extenders does give good results in the right hands and the right light .....8-)

charles brown Loc: Tennesse

Seems to me this is another question and/or issue whose answer is "it depends." You do not mention what camera was used. This lens may work great on a camera with a 40-megapixel sensor but might not work as well on my Nikon camera with a 4-megapixel sensor. Again, it depends.

BurghByrd Loc: Pittsburgh

In my opinion there's not enough known here to answer the question. I presume it's safe to say that the addition of TC glass will degrade sharpness; the question is how much and how does it compare to options. Were the shots taken on a tripod, with a cable or timed release? How to evaluate resullts? A real comparison might be based on comparing shots of a test chart, base lens alone, lens with TC, lens w/o TC but cropped (zoomed in comparable to TC) etc. and at some selected distance.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

Hand holding @ 1120mm and cropping is not the receipe for optimum sharpness ....

francosp Loc: Arizona

The use of a 2x converter is very personal and depends on result you can accept. I used 2x converter with suitable combination of lens more than once but most of the time the sharpness of the image was effected.