I shot 124 images over a 2.5 hour period and selected 24 for this gallery. The intent was to illustrate what can be expected from this lens and a TC17E-II on a 12 mpx (D300) sensor.

All images shot with the following gear:

Nikon D300
300mm f/4 AFS
TC17E-II
Gitzo GT3541LS tripod with Markins TH-300 replacement hub.
Spikes were installed on the tripod and used without rubber caps (not a good idea on concrete but I guess I was lazy)
Wimberly WH-200 gimbal
Wimberly flash bracket with one extra extension arm
Nikon SB-800 flash

Exposures are as indicated. Most images wide open; a few at f/8 (1/2 stop down). All at ISO 400. Shutter speeds as needed, ranging from 1/160s to 1/320s

A reasonable real world (generally tight) crop on each image. Each cropped image is accompanied by an uncropped version for context.

Post processing: Shot lossless compressed raw, rendered in Capture NX2 with a standard "recipe" consisting of Standard Picture Control with pic control sharpening removed, USM 59/5/0 applied. No noise reduction in camera or in post. If these images were important I would apply noise reduction, masking out the bird, and would mask out the background on the USM sharpening step.

These images are a bit noisy but for the purposes of evaluating the lens and TC I wanted to do as little post as possible.

No other post processing was applied except a few images have exposures adjusted downward by a small fraction of a stop. No one's perfect :-).

The JPGs were generated from PhotoMechanic V5, basically converting the embedded raw file JPG. Soft cropping and added downsize sharpening applied as computed by PM's secret sauce.