400mm lens

I was just having a browse on ebay to see what there is available in the way of a 400mm prime lens for a future purchase when I came across a Pentax 400mm F5.6 ED IF priced at £1700

All I can say is ouch...

When was this lens discontinued?

Rob

According to Boj's site 2004. It is an FA* lens which was the top of the FA range.

http://www.bdimitrov.de/kmp/lenses/primes/extreme-tele/FA400f5.6.html

Looks a bit of a monster

I think that could give some radio telescopes an inferiority complex. So, that would make it the equivilent of a 600mm on a Digi?

Barely any bigger than your 60-250, and only 100g heavier.

Dan

Really, pictures can be deceptive can't they

I guess I didn't take a long enough look at the dimensions...

Take a look at the A*400 f/2.8 that one looks a bit bigger

Are there any Pentax lenses available with a focal length of say 500mm that could compete with the likes of sigma and Tamron?

Not new if you mean that with available.
You could special order the FA*600 f/4 but I believe they stop doing that.
The most modern Pentax covering 500mm is the FA* 250-600 f/5.6, Mighty expensive lens if you could find one secondhand.

The good news is that Pentax have a super tele-lens on the roadmap so maybe with some patience you might be lucky.

I've just acquired a SMCP 500mm 1:4.5 lens but I've not had time to take any useful images with it as yet. Just started playing with it today.
It's an original K mount, manual focus, no A setting on the aperture ring.

I took a few of a juvenile Pied/Grey Flycatcher today. The bird was backlit and there was evidence of some red CA in the images but that was easily corrected in Lightroom. When I have some images worthy of posting, I will.