Long Lenses

I have seen cameras with REALLY big/long lenses. What are they and where could I find them for my K7?

Thanks in Advance

You are more than likely looking at the big Canon/Nikon 500mm and 600mm lenses. No Pentax equivalent unless you can find a 250-600mm zoom (fabulous). All of those long lenses mentioned above will cost you your first born and at least one kidney.

Something Pentax sadly lacks, unless you use the 300 F4 and teleconverter.

Might also be an A*1200/8 or A*600/5.6 or similar

Only available second hand although rumours are / were that a FA*600/4 can still be bought new on special order; I haven't checked the Japanese website for a while.

Sigma / Tamron anyone? It's a fair bet what the OP has seen are Bigmas.

I think Sigma do a 500mm f4 in K mount, arm + leg gets the lens, then you need both kidneys to get the tripod and head to use the thing.

Davex.

You often see big lenses on 35mm sized sensors with built in motors amking them bulkier still.

In Greece this May I was very struck how cumbersome even a 300mm zoom was on my friends Canon 5D compared with my DA 55-300mm on my Pentax KR which of course gave me up to 450mm '35mm' equivalent,

The mentioned DA 300mm F4 would be equivalent to 630mm with a 1.4 tele adapter or 900mm with a 2x. That's a pretty powerful optical crop surely BUT still compact and manageable. I'd love one especially now we have such good high ISO capabilities to make up for the one or two stop loss!

Maybe worth mentioning Bill that you meant equivalent FOV. Nothing other than a TC behind a lens increases its magnification. Very misleading to non experienced members. The 300mm f/4 + a 2x is still only 600mm regardless of the body its on. The down side of course is the two stops of light that is lost. Not so bad on a 300mm f/2.8 however.

Best regards

Drool............... 300mm f2.8.

The Sigma 150-500 and the Sigma 50-500 are both available in Pentax fit. These are both very big and are often nicknamed the Bigmas. Their image quality is pretty good, especially up to 400mm.

The Bigma is the Sigma 50-500. The 150-500 is called the Bigmos.

The 50-500 is the Bigma, the 150-500 is the Baby Bigma .
Well it is 60g lighter and the (relative) new kid on the block .

A pity the Sigmonster (the 200-500 F2.8 ) isn't available in Pentax fit.

Hadn't heard Bigmos Frogfish, only heard it referred to as Baby Bigma, or even as BB. I like Bigmos thos.

Here are some more that I hadn't heard of before (I knew the two above already) - shamelessly stolen from another site :-

Sigma 4.5mm Fisheye - Fishma
Sigma 10-20 - Wigma
Sigma 12-24 - Popeye
Sigma 50 f/1.4 - Sigmalux
Sigma 50-500 - Bigma
Sigma 150-500 OS - Bigmos
Sigma 300-800 - Sigmonster
Sigma 200-500 - Sigzilla
Sigma 150 Macro - Bugma
Sigma 24-70 HSM - Brickma

I do not really consider the Bigma that big. I handled it once and weigtht wise it's big, but size wise there are worse ones