I'd heard rumours about it closing. I hope it doesn't come to that - it's a great track for getting photo's.

Afraid I missed out on the bikes last weekend, but hoping to get there for the Vintage Sports Cars on Sunday.

Here it is

http://www.sigmaphoto.com/product/17-70mm-f28-4-dc-macro-os-hsm-c

Isn't the new one an F2.8-F4 as well?

There are quite a few 'Jacobs' filters on eBay at the moment, at quite a good price. I recently bought a couple and they seem just fine.

Lens delivered promptly and well wrapped, thank you. Everything was just as described, and I enjoyed using the lens on my first outing with it last Sunday.

It was a pleasure dealing with you David. Good luck with selling the other lenses.

It was a little while ago!
It's certainly likely to be a useful range

https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/tokina-at-x-12-28mm-f4-pro-dx-40106/p-0#comm_448532

The Tamron 1.4X Pz-AF MC4 is quite highly regarded, link but is no longer in production and it's difficult to find one nowadays. I managed to get hold of one, and am not planning to let it go.
It does autofocus quite well on the DA* 300 - not as easily as it does without the teleconverter fitted, but still quite acceptably. I find there is no noticable loss of image quality.
I would say that if you regularly want the extra range then you might be better just getting a longer lens, but for infrequent/occasional use and travelling light then this TC is more than up to the job.

Image 1 for me, followed by image 3
As for the grass, I think I would have cropped it out and just left the two flowers on the right, something like this

FA 31 - Payment sent