Macro Lens for K10D

I am looking for a good macro lens for my Pentax K10D - anybody know of a good one?

I noticed this on E-bay but don't know much about these lens types?
Pentax SMC M 100mm f4 Fast Prime Macro Lens
Should I just buy the magnification add ons for kit lenses?

Thanks in advance for any tips

A true macro lens will give you much better results than a supplementary lens. The optics are likely to be better and the lens will be optimised for such work.

The lens you refer is a very good macro and has the advantage that it will be relatively cheap. The big disadvantage is that it doesn't have the A setting so it is not all that compatible with the K10 although it can be made to work. The A series lenses are compatible but the F4 version is difficult to get hold of and costs more. The 2.8 version is very rare and very expensive. The F, FA and DA Macro lenses are fully compatible and if you search other threads, you will find opinions on the relative merits of them. A chaeper opytion is the Cosina built F3.5 version. It does give good results but feels plasticky and makes a noise whist focussing.

The option I have just gone for is the Voightlander 125/2.5 SL macro lens. Superbly built but getting very difficult to get hold off and certainly not cheap. The new Zeiss F2 one will be available soon but that will cost a fortune. I haven't used them but the Tamrom and Sigma lenses also have a good reputation either in manual focus or autofocus versions. There are probably on a par with the Cosins built Pentax one and not quite as good as the better Pentax, Voightlander, Zeiss ones but that comes down to how much you want to pay.

Kim

all I can say is if my Tamron 90mm F2.5 isn't as good as the Pentax 100, then the Pentax 100 must be truely amazing.

It is possibly true that the Pentax is better, but I honistly can't see a way in which it can be better so you'd notice the difference in terms of the final result.

I'd also put in a vote for the Tamron 90mm SP, especially if you are on a budget, and you might find one of the older "pre-digital" versions quite cheaply.

The Tamron 90mm f2.5 is a lens with a well deserved reputation, but the pre-digital ones at least are very bulky and very heavy. I feel the mechanical construction and finish are not quite up to Pentax levels. The results are undeniably very good.

A professional friend of mine who has used macro lenses extensively for the past 30 years or more has had many Tamron 90mm f2.5s. He wears them out. He probably has around 3 or 4 Tamrons in the time he still has the original Olympus lenses on the system he uses. The Tamrons are indeed good, and cost effective, but they don't stand up to the professional wear and tear to the same degree as marque lenses.

I've recently bought a Tamron AF Di 90mm 2.8 Macro for my K10D. Bit early to tell but first impressions are that the results seem pretty good. The only thing I would say about the lens is that is does extend quite a bit at the minimum focusing distance. The closed length of the lens is about 114 mm and fully extended it's 166 mm. I don't know how the pentax Macro works but some other Macro lenses seem to have internal focusing?

Vic.

This is my AF 90mm Tamron 2.5 and i would'nt say it was bulky or heavy and as for build quality its first rate. There is no wobble what so ever in the focusing element and has a very solid feel too it. Length when front element is retracted is 90mm and when fully extended just 120mm and it weighs 475 grams. A very good all round lens in my opinion.
I believe mine was made in the mid to late 80s

I should have been more specific - I was referring to the manual focus models.

No problems John. But i had to sit down with my Tamron and explain to him that the bad man was only joking

well perhaps I should have been more specific, no mention of professional use was made so I was refering only to optical performance. In that regard my 90mm F2.5 is peerless in my experience, though I admit I have not had the chance to sample a Pentax 100mm (probably a good thing from the point of view of my credit card, optical performance on par or better than my Tamron with AF thrown in.........)

Certainly it's heavy, but bulky I would dispute. It is smaller than my Pentax 50-200. In any event it isn't nearly heavy enough to prevent me taking it more or less litterally everywhere, you never know when you're going to find an interesting critter.

BTW, Clarky, I keep my non-Pentax lenses a good distance from the computer so they can't hear John