FA 100-300mm

If life and circumstances conspire to limit the opportunities for taking photographs, one can always indulge in that other time-honoured aspect of our hobby: buying new (to you) kit. For me, that meant getting a FF DSLR for the first time (a K1 - I know, I'm always behind the curve...). And that inevitably led to checking for gaps on the lens shelf. Primes were OK, but FF general purpose zooms for carrying 'just in case there's something interesting' were lacking. A search in the usual places resulted in a £50 (-ish) FA 100-300mm f4.7-5.8 arriving a week or so ago. For that sort of money, I wouldn't be too upset if it turned out to be a lemon.

Well, it's a light weight (good!), plastic, slow, no frills thing with zoom creep that must have been designed before ergonomics was invented. But I took it on a dog walk, than another walk, and another... And I must admit that once I got used to handling it the lens started to grow on me. Here are a few shots from those early walks.

1. At 135mm



2. At 210mm



3. At 300mm




I don't remember seeing much mention of the lens on this forum. However, as far as I'm concerned, it was £50 well spent and the FA 100-300mm is here to stay. And if something a bit more sophisticated is needed, the Sigma 100-300mm f4 and DA* 300mm f4 are also on the lens shelf. But they are really not lenses for taking on walks with one hand holding the camera and the other hand holding a lead with a big dog on the end!

Steve

These look very nice, especially the background blur in the first one. I have an 80-320mm that does not see the light of day. Inspired to try it out now.

Pleasing images...very good value on the face of it with the K-1.

The 80 - 320 is a very capable lens. I wouldn't part with mine.

Aaaagh!!! Why do you tempt me thus?? Surely I have too many lenses already and need no more ... Begone, foul spirit of temptation .

Steve

Yes I've found that the 80-320 is pretty nice except at the extreme of the telephoto end which is soft.

+ 1 They look ok to me on the monitor, were they SOOC ? and if so you could apply some sharpening in PP and then job done, got a bargain as is though.

A wide-range zoom is good to have. I use a K-70, bought in part because I could start with just the body and my K-1000 glass. My first new lens was my smc Pentax-DA 18-270mm. I bought it for its wide focal range to handle a variety of situations. After more than eight years (and three other lens purchases) it remains my #2 lens, behind my smc Pentax-FA 35mm, because of its versatility.