Here at last! - DA* 60-250

Mine too , can't wait to go and try it out.

wow. post the original for shits and giggles.

Have a look here (the last two pairs I took with the Kenko Pz AF 1,5x Teleplus SHQ):

http://forum.digitalfotonetz.de/viewtopic.php?p=790373#790373

My DA* 60-250 mm arrived today courtesy of SRS
Lovely looking lens well built and nice to handle. I swapped my 16-50 for the 60-250 and did some tests later this afternoon to see if it performed as well as other examples I have seen here and other sites.
All captures were tripod mounted at 250 mm with mirror lock up. All are 100% crops about the centre focus point, no PP'ing apart from the crop.

[IMG]http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/2061/swing250mmf4.jpg[/IMG]
250mm f/4

[IMG]http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/8694/swing250mmf8.jpg[/IMG]
250mm f/8

[IMG]http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/3558/roofline250mmf4.jpg[/IMG]
250mm f/4

[IMG]http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/1962/roofline250mmf8.jpg[/IMG]
250mm f/8

[IMG]http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/2900/olylens250mmf4.jpg[/IMG]
250mm f/4

[IMG]http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/5769/olylens250mmf8.jpg[/IMG]
250mm f/8

[IMG]http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/346/flower250mmf4.jpg[/IMG]
250mm f/4

[IMG]http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/5505/flower250mmf8.jpg[/IMG]
250mm f/8

My conclusion for the example I have is that performance at f/4 / f/4.5 is disappointing. It starts to clean up from f/5.6 but isn't really of a quality that is usable (IMHO) until f/8. A shame.... I'm hoping mine is just a bad sample, I'll be talking to SRS tomorrow morning

I too will be disappointed if the softness at f4 shown by your examples is typical. I'm collecting mine today but have no camera with me to make any tests.

I think we should expect the performance at f4 to be something less than at f8, but not as different as is evidenced by your images.

I think we can expect all lenses, no matter what they cost, to be at their worst at the long end of the zoom range and wide open. The quality displayed here would be unacceptable to me.

My son has a Canon 70-200L IS f2.8 lens and it is better at 200mm & f2.8 than these images. OK it's a more expensive lens, but the time we have waited for the DA* 60-250, you'd have thought Pentax would have got it right by now.

I wouldnt be happy with those shots either, I did a few sample shots with my Sigma 70-200mm when trying to persuade myself to buy a 60-250mm.
These were handheld @ 200mm f2.8 wide open.




100% Crop.

MIKE-P: Much better, and hand held too.

GREYTOP: Did you have SR turned on or off? It should be off for tripod mounted.

Have a look at Gerhard's shots at http://forum.digitalfotonetz.de/viewtopic.php?p=790373#790373. His seem to show much better performance at f4, though none taken at 250mm & f4.

Those shots look like your focus is off.

Mine seems pretty sharp even at f4.0

Here's a link to some first shots taken outside SRS on a tripod with 2 sec MLU. 3 focal lengths at f4 and f5.6.

link

Mannesty, SR was off (tripod mounted) when I took these yesterday. I have shown f/4 -v- f/8 but I can tell you that f/4.5 and f/5.0 is not much better than f/4 with my copy. I can live with f/4 being a little soft and even f/4.5 but I wanted it usable. Quite clearly it isn't.

Just as a comparison I took the same shots yesterday with my Oly e-510 and ED 50-200 SWD (2x crop factor so its almost the same focal length at 100-400mm in 35 mm terms). These were all taken a f/4 again no exra pp'ing other than the crop....

[IMG]http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/4051/swing200mmf4oly50200.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/1251/roofline200mmf4oly50200.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/2423/flower200mmf4oly50200.jpg[/IMG]

No comparison IMHO

I'm about to drive up to SRS to test a couple that they still have in stock, they are going to hold at least one back for me to try. I'll report back later.

Hi Richard,
Yes I thought that too when I first looked at the samples, so I tried some shots with manual focus, unfortunately the same result, infact they actually looked a little worse

Maybe I just have a bad copy :

If they are looking worse than the others at f4 in manual then i would have to say its beyond the point of a "bad copy" those f4 ones are woefull.

Definitely, no doubt about it.

Not good are they,in fact pretty dire really

Hope you get a better copy because you must be very disappointed.

Something from me, not a real life yet, just "from the balcony" ones.
I tried some reals yesterday, but it was a bit late, sun was hidding, handheld and I've got a bit of mixed results, sometimes maybe too mixed, If weather good later on today, will try something proper.
I tried one more balcony test today, on a metal white sign with black letters on it (focusing was on these), sign some 2 metres in front of the wall, did few photos for each f-stop to pick up the best one, black letters came out not really sharp every time, at every tested f-stop (4, 5.6, , but the sharpness of the wall behind it was varying, what leads me to think that focusing was not consistient, it could be that the black-white edges were too small for K10D focus sensor and it was a bit of confused (however was setting up focus without hunting every time), or soemthing else, will have to look again on it.
And now back to some samples, below how the full frame looks at f/4, then 1:1 crops from f4/5.6/8, just bear in mind that clouds were moving quite fat, so the pictures will show a bit of different light conditions. Photos from the tripd with remote of course, focusing on the white 'water' text.

f/4.0 full pic.
[IMG]http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/7239/f4full.jpg[/IMG]

f/4.0 crop
[IMG]http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/2151/f4crop.jpg[/IMG]

f/5.6 crop



f/8.0 crop
[IMG]http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/2848/f8crop.jpg[/IMG]

I hope we are not going to have a repeat of the DA* 16-50mm fiasco, especially after all the time they have had to get it right.