I bumped the ISO, as you can see, to 1600, in order to achieve 1/500sec of shutter speed. And at F4.0 so I was squeezed between stopping down and sacrificing shutter speed, which I wasnt keen on doing after seeing yesterday's pics.
Comments please

By the way, its heavily cropped, and light wasn't exactly the best

Stefan dont hesitate in making long stories about these technical issues, as I learn a lot from it and I am sure others too.
So keep feeding us with tech aspects of things whenever you feel like.
I definitely want to dig deeper and learn a bit more about noise issues.

I tried shooting with high ISO this morning, weather wasnt exactly the best but let me see, going to process them in a while.

Thanks

Amin

Mike and Stefan
You are right about the crops, I did notice quite clearly that when I crop them and bring them closer the noise just becomes extremely noticeable.

But when you have a chance Mike, take a few shots with high ISO settings please, including some at 800 or higher. And then we wil compare if my K20 is playing up with noise more than should do.

I will go and alter the settings to reduce noise with high ISO in the menu. Up until now its set to OFF

Mike, the shooter also makes a world of difference .
But truth be said, even without analysing which TC has a better IQ, the Tamron one wins with regard to AF and the fantastic capabilities of using it with SDM lens.
When you give the 1.7TC a go you will know what I mean.
So I am hoping the pentax TC wins at least slightly in quality. Right now even that I think is doubtful. Wait for a few more shots with the right settings from me with the tamron and we shall see

Most of those shots of mine with the exception of couple only were all below acceptable shutter speed, just 1/45, so I think there lies the problem.

I see shutter speeds of 1/180, 1/500 etc in your shots, so I am guessing my next shots should at least come close to that quality. And we will hope for some sun too, to match the bright skies of your shots

I get the drift. Brought down ISO on this one to 200 and off went the SS to just 45 . It could have been such a great capture but ended up soft.

Well, that was my lesson for the day , thank you for those suggestions. I will now rather face the monster of noise rather than bring down shutter speed.
Goldfinches .... more goldfinches

By the way, what settings do you generally keep the ones using K20 regarding high-ISO noise? I have mine to OFF, but I have kept my Expand Dynamic to YES lately, so lowest ISO is 200

Ken, that can be arranged, great idea. I am sure we have someone who will be able to carry out those tests . Mike, are you reading this . Once I am done with the TC will drop it in the post first so you could have a good play with it both and let's get some good comparision.

This is what I get at ISO 3200. Bumped up the SS to 500, was hoping to catch it taking flight, but the little bugger decided to move away from the frame first before taking flight.

Noise wise may be I am just wrong as at 3200 this looks reasonable. I might just be unlucky catching the subjects in darker spots or with parts under the shade. Wouldn't that create noise on the subject itself along with background? Just my opinion as I dont have much knowledge about the technicalities of noise.

Bottom line is better put up with high ISO than low shutter speed. Well, something new I learnt today. I would have nailed those goldfinches today, had such a brilliant chance , well next time. Its the joys of learning.

I really have to look into this about noise even at 200 or 300 ISO. I seem to get more than what I have been seeing around with your images. Unless I am missing something, obviously my lack of knowledge in the field might be playing a part on this and probably just assuming there is an issue where there really isnt. I do notice lot of noise obviously when the light is slightly low. I will have to go through my images and see if I have good ones that came out with high isos. If someone has any ideas or tips on how to measure my noise and hopefully check and find that its just ok. I remember reading reviews on K20 and low noise was one of the great aspects of it.

Well, will keep an eye on it and if anyone has tips please drop me a line.

Mike, Ninja really rocks , I find it better than Topaz, definitely faster but first impressions definitely good.

Oh by the way, here it is, 800 ISO and I ran through Ninja and here is the result.
Will upload one without the Ninja so someone can try to see if noise is normal at 800.

Goodness me Mike, that is heck of a difference from the one I uploaded. Actually I ran the Topaz Denoise on the first one but look at what happened, the sharpness goes also. So on the second one I left it untouched and obviously the noise is a killer.

So tell me about this Ninja stuff, seems pretty good, how do you use it? Is it a plugin for PP?
And when you reduce the noise do you do it all over the image or you isolate and select the bird? Quite keen on having a go at it,

Amin