Lens or new camera advice appreciated..

I currently have a K100DS which I have had a great time with.

For the last couple of months I have been considering upgrading to a K200 or the K20.

I am still new to it all, only 1 years worth of experience.

My reasons are I crop a lot and more MP would help with less noise. I am out and about a lot so a sealed camera would be a god send.

So I have read and read and read about all sorts of cameras, inc Nikon D60 and Canon EOS450D. I driving myself slightly mad with it all now!

NOW, I am thinking....what about a decent lens to go with what I have. Learn and play with that before getting a new body.

I am finding my 18-55mm (F3.5-5.6AL) can't handle low light and I am in the woods a lot with the children right now and not getting what I want no matter how many ways I shoot.

I also have a Sigma 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 for SA and Pentax 35-105mm F-4-F5.6.
So nothing thats good for low light.

I also want sharper images which I have been told will involve a better lens.

My question is tho, which one! There are so many. I know I need a low F number but thats it. Its all a bit mind boggling so I'd appreciate advice on this.

So to conclude, do I get a new body or a new lense

Hello Amanda, I appreciate your feelings of confusion regarding reading up on cameras and lenses. I'm sure you will get good advice from some of the seasoned photographers on this site, they always go out of their way to help. I went through a similar process recently, and ended up buying a K200 from SRS Microsystems. They had some interesting offers on 'bundles', and I opted for the K200 body and Tamron 18-250 zoom lens (which cost almost as much as the camera.) I've been delighted with it, my first DSLR. My only forays have both taken me into woodland, in local parks. I have had no problem taking what, to me, look perfectly acceptable shots. I did use the auto bracketing feature, and that helped me decide which snaps to keep. Maybe it's more about technique, and less about the choice of lens. However, I realise that you already know a lot more than I do about these things, having had previous success with your K100. I look forward to reading what other wiser and more knowledgable people can contribute, it will help me at the same time. Best of luck, Adrian.

There are quite a few wide aperture prime lenses in the Pentax range, some quite expensive, some more reasonable.

The 50mm f1.4 is a super lens at around £160, but if you want something wider or longer there are plenty of choices. Check out the SRS website to see what is readily available.

If you are making large prints then the better lenses will give better results, but the most important thing is good technique. You can make brilliant A3 prints with the 18-55mm and my wife Sue frequently does!

You maybe dont need a new lens or camera, it sounds to me that you just aren't getting close enough to the action! SLRs are designed so that the photographer sees exactly what is being recorded so take a good look in the viewfinder before you press the button. What ISO are you using? I'm a bit surprised that you find that f4 isn't fast enough; sure you can buy a faster lens but that will bring problems of its own like hardly any depth of field so if you are going to do massive crops then you may well have very soft, out of focus pictures. Why dont you post a couple, full frame and cropped, for some constructive comment.

Ken

As Robert Capa said

'If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough. '

(before he got too close to mine that killed him, while covering Indochina.)

As others here will remark the best and cheapest zoom lens are your feet but possibly watch where you put them .

Mike

Amanda, I've given some thought to your post; it's so tempting, I find, to want more and possibly-better equipment when one researches it. What Ken (Gartmore) seems to me good advice. If you were to get closer, though, (physically or by zooming) would you still want often to crop considerably (and, presumably, view the crop at size)? This would tend to necessitate more MP (although, incidentally, this may result in more noise, if anything. Perhaps pixellation is your concern, if I'm not being a bit niggly?), and your wants would tend to suggest a K10d or K20D, seals and all;I'm not sure if the K200d has the seals. Are you often shooting at the tele end of your zooms, as the max. aperture is then f5.6 or f6.3? If not, I agree with Ken that, at max aperture at the wide end of the zoom, they could well be fast enough, unless it's a very dense wood and/or you want to use fast shutter speeds. (I believe the K100DS has shake reduction,(?), which, if you're not using the latter, I would have thought good enough unless you want to stop action).
Again as Ken says it would help a lot to see some of your problem-pics. Perhaps alternatively you would elaborate on in what way your results aren't what you want?
If you did decide to buy a faster replacement for your 18-55mm (I have been surprised by the quality of mine, incidentally; have you tried applying an "unsharp mask" with some photo-editing software? The problem isn't camera-shake?), I see from a search or two that the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 (constant-max-aperture, £250-£300) has many recommendations, and fast longer lenses tend to be expensive. (I work to a tight budget, mind you).
Good luck, Amanda, and Ken, apologies for plagiarising your comments.
Martin

looking at your post, you've got 18mm to 300mm (that equates to 24-450 in terms of fov on film 35mm)
if you're cropping lots, you need to re-evaluate how your composing your images at the taking stage.

now for low light. shoot raw look at raw converters and noise plugins, all covered extensivly in nthese forums

look at the 50mm1.4 to start, then decide if you nedd a new body or more fast primes.... they got you covered for everything from wide angle to telephoto.....

happy shooting!

Just a point about the format of posts.

It's incredibly offputting to be faced with a huge block of text, so wherever possible please use paragraphs to split up a post. Especially a long post.

If you split it more like I'm doing here, more people will persevere and read it.

Thanks!

Thanks, John, but I'll wait and see what Amanda makes of my post, now, as I meant it mostly for her, and she can presumably tell whether she wants to read any more from the first lines anyway. Personally, I disagree.I rather find it helpful to have text on the same subject in the same paragraph, and this is what I've tried to do here.
Martin

That's freedom.

Right.
Martin

But not I fear the easiest text to read.

I started but was finding the lack of spaces after each paragraph made it hard going.

Mike

Well, I may bear this in mind if I ever post here again. However, I personally have found in the past that, in general,the most "readily accessible" advice is often the most expensive, and can lead to unsatisfactory results, if I'm not being presumptuous.
As I say, I always expect to find like with like, and actually find "split-up" text harder to read. Perhaps it's horses for courses?
I do hope my carefully-considered advice is of help to Amanda. If, and it's a big "if", it's worthy, dare I say it might be worth the "effort"? I must admit that Internet companies I deal with often overlook completely points that I've raised in emails but I doubt that that is due to the format.
Best wishes, Martin

I make a point of never reading posts formatted (or rather, the lack of any) in this way.

The poster should not only consider the person they are responding to, but everybody here who might have an interest in the original subject.

We do have the edit function, so these posts can be made easier to read if the poster had any inclination to do so.

I assume that you are now taking the Michael.