Bird flight shots with KM 70-210f4 plus TC

[AncientMariner]

During a short holiday in Xiamen recently, I went for a dawn walk alone and came across flocks of birds in a lake. Though it was overcast and foggy, I could not resist trying some shots with the KM 70-210 f4, the longest lens I had brought along. Even though the lens has been described as slow, I had to couple on a TC because I needed the range.
Below are a couple of the shots I got.

It would appear even with my poor skills that lens is capable of in-flight shots of birds.

Below is another shot the next day when the fog lifted.

 

[GENO]

U never attach a UV filter on? it will help a bit, i think..

 

[AncientMariner]

U never attach a UV filter on? it will help a bit, i think..

I did have a Hoya SHMC UV filter on to protect the lens.
The pics that bad, ah?

 

[GENO]

I did have a Hoya SHMC UV filter on to protect the lens.
The pics that bad, ah?

u got any photo taken without the TC?? is that the main problem??
:think:

 

[AncientMariner]

u got any photo taken without the TC?? is that the main problem??
:think:

I did not try without TC because of the distance. I had enough problems with the camera "freezing" every few shots and the temp was reportedly only 12 deg. So didn't think to try anything else other than to get it working to shoot.
But I did crop the pics to remove bare space.

 

[zcf]

seem to have quite bad CA for the first 2.

 

[Isaiahfortythirtyone]

i dont think its so much of CA, more like image softness

 

[Trigger Happy]

did u have to resort to manual drive? i used a 2x kenko on my 70-300 sigma at the bird park and shot everything on manual that day. but the tc didn't affect my photos one bit. may just be the weather being foggy.

 

[GENO]

with TC on the lenses, it will become a little soft most of the time, i try before, end up giving up to take long distance pics..

 

[AncientMariner]

zcf - I examined the originals and you are right. CA is quite bad for the 1st pic but not so evident for the 2nd. I compensated EV +2 for the first since the heron looked black against the sky but none for the egret.

Isaiahfortythirtyone - Softness could probably be due to my panning failing to sync properly with the speed of the bird in flight or hand-shake since I was shot hand-held.

Trigger Happy - I used AF for the flight shots and manual for the last. The TC I used was a Kenko Mx-AF 1.5x Teleplus SHQ. It has allowed me to use AF even with my Tamron 200-500 which is f6.3 max at 500mm, though it does affect sharpness. However, that day the AF was "hunting" and I had to pan by estimating the flight speed and path of the subject.

Geno - I wd expect image quality to deteriorate when putting a TC esp non-APO in front of a telephoto lens but have to try first in order to test the limits mah.