That is a stunning shot Mike

And what you just told me above helps. I think I will have a go and try also keeping an eye on how much of the frame the subjects cover and then take a shot and weigh up from there. I hadn't thought of any reference point through the viewfinder like you mentioned and all I did was just look at the distance it was and then think whether it was a shot with the TC or not.
Obviously I prefer to shoot without the TC as I handle it much better that way and also the SDM is a huge huge benefit, and I lose it and have also to struggle with the focusing issue with the TC on.
I would be quite keen on having a try on a TC that would allow me to use SDM to focus and then compare it with the AF1.7 I have.
May be one of these days I run into someone who has one of the Tamrons I think that allows that and then I can have a go at it. Mike I think you have one of those don't you? but Spain is definitely way too far .

Thanks

Amin

Hi Mike

yup you are right, definitely there might be loss of detail with close subjects. But today I wanted to just shoot the ones further away (my neighbour's gardens birds ha) so decided to get in the shed and wait for them, but suddenly these little beauties perched on the feeder about 20 ft away so couldnt resist . But the idea was that, taking shots of the distant ones .
Pigeon one coming which seems to be a good measure of it.

Mike, what physical distance the birds you shot usually are when you decide to use the TC? Got to learn a few tricks from the masters here , so they will come handy when I need them .
Thanks

Amin

You are right about the TC Shim, but its absolutely fabulous being able to have that reach. I dont mind at all giving it a little nudge and then getting the AF to work. Just the extra reach that it is giving me I am absolutely fascinated with it.

The bird with the feet out of focus I think it was because of lack of light. F stop was 9.5 on that one, and its grey and dull like heck around here.

A couple more to come . Oh I have a pigeon one shot at aproximately 200 ft that seems a cracker . Wouldn't be able to reach that one without the TC

Got to go and have something to eat and then will process the rest. All these were taken in RAW

For those who want to have an idea of the capture of this TC, I took this one just to test the range of the TC. This bird was perched at approximately 250ft, in very conservative terms. The link with the unedited image in size is here.
I shot it in RAW so all I did was convert it and then used Topaz Denoise on it to reduce noise

Had to chop the body on this one as it remained hidden behind the feeder

I should have done much better on this one . The lack of sharpening just disappointed me big time when I saw the feet and the underside of the bird with lack of sharpness

Thanks Scott

Still struggling with RAW. By the way all images were shot in RAW
Help naming this bird please. I am a total disaster recognising birds

All shots taken today were with the adapter.
With my limited experience I can quite comfortably say it does a great job at far off subjects. I have a couple of images taken with the subjects as far as at least 200 ft, and this is a very conservative distance as I think they were further away from 200 ft ( this reminds me my neighbours might want me to pay royalty fees for shooting birds perched at trees in their backyards ha ), and I was quite happy with it.
But definitely in my view the TC has some minor glitches. And that is to do with AF. At least with the DA*300. It needs constantly nudging and bringing the focus very close to the sharpness in order to then let the TC do the final job. And not only that, at times I found myself that it wouldn't focus at all. At certain points I really had to manually focus the subject as it wouldn't do at all. I thought they were only with very far off subjects but seems that at times even with closer ones it just kept on hunting and not locking up. My impression is definitely the light pays a huge part on this. Ah, and the other thing is you end up with f6.7 as the largest aperture, unless I am mistaken and doing something wrong, which someone can please tell me and then I can try again. But this was already expected anyway.

In order to shoot at faster shutter values I had to really bump up the iso settings, this one was taken at 1100. But bear in mind that the weather is totally awful today, most times if not all the shots I have taken were in the shade and quite cloudy.

Thank you all so much for all the tips. Off to the local stationary shop today .
And Stefan I am putting the Topaz to test now, seems to be pretty effective.

Oh Kris, thanks for the vote of confidence , that's really reassuring and helps me knowing I am making some progress, it has been quite a steep learning curve but one that I have been enjoying every minute of it and all your help has been absolutely wonderful.
Thanks

Amin