Is distance the key ? (1 Viewer)

Hi all
I wonder if anyone can help ?
I'm fairly new to serious Digi SLR photography, but don't seem to get anywhere near the sort of image quality that most people seem to achieve but wonder if I am being too ambitious with distances.
Hardly any of the shots that I look at state the distance the subject was at, I currently have a Nikon D50/Sigma 70-300 and 50-500mm set up
I recently took some shots of a Spotted Crake at about 30 meters and once cropped to a reasonable size they were all pretty ropy.
I was considering buying a tele converter but with such mixed reviews I wonder if I just need to cut down the distance although that's not always possible.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Barry

Getting closer to your subject will always help - the larger the bird is in the frame, the more pixels covered on the sensor; better detail recorded. Having said that, I found with my sigma 50-500 that I could crop in to 2700x1800 pixels or even 1800x1200 pixels and still get a good enough output for viewing on a screen or printing at 9x6" or 6x4" respectively.http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/141854/ppuser/28570This was cropped to 2700x1800 before resizing for the web. This one http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/147774/ppuser/28570 was cropped to 1200x1800. Both shots were taken with the 50-500.

I have tried a TC on the 50-500.Results were a bit mixed. In good light image quality was ok, but you could see there was some degradation even then. Other lenses seem to do better with TCs. Keith Reader gets excellent results with a 100-400 + 1.4TC.

1- It takes time to master bird photography - and learning never ends.
2- Technique is of crucial importance - meaning understanding exposure , speeds etc.
3- I suggest you take a look into this thread : ( there are 2 pages ) .
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=92002

There are a lot of examples showing how to photograph birds.

You have a good set of gear . With time - you'll get the results.

Hi Barry, yes distance is very important - you need to get close to your subject. For example this image in my gallery is about 95% of the frame (only a tiny crop off top and left side) of a juv SemiP Sandpiper (6" bird). Although I had the 1.4x TC on, even without it I could have still cropped to present a similar composition and retained good detail.