Mid to Long Telephoto

Hi

My longest focal length is 100mm so I'm looking for some suggestions for something with nice reach. My expenditure has been astronomical recently so something like a DA300 is off limits I'm thinking of something like a second hand 55-300. I want cheaper but I don't want to sacrifice too much IQ. I'm not familiar with any older lenses.

Thanks in Advance

55-300mm is an excellent lens as long as you don't want fast af (it tends to hunt quute a bit before locking on to the subject)

Quality is very good for what it costs though.

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. My Flickr

Before the 55-300 came out the FA 80-320 was reckoned Pentax's best effort in this area, not sure what the current going rate for those is second hand but I quite like mine.

It isn't as good as the 55-300, being a little softer at the long end (at least mine is compared to my Dad's DA), but it is very usable, particularly stopped down to f/8, and may save you some pennies.

I seem to recall that John Riley used to get very good results from his FAJ 75-300 so that may also be worth a look.

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you don't have to be mad to post here



but it does help

The FAJ was surprisingly good for flower portraits and other close ups, but the 55-300mm is better.

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Best regards, John

Depending on condition - you can pick both of these up for around the £60-£80 mark.

I agree with John - the FAJ is surprisingly good - especially for a lens that is so light it must be made out of a cardboard tube painted silver with cling film at each end

Joking aside - a strength of this lens is the lack of weight - a weakness is the flimsy build quality - but the IQ is very acceptable - I used one for years on an MZ.

Carl

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No matter how many lenses I have owned - I have always needed just one more

I've an immaculate 55-300 DA-L for sale. If you are interested pm me and we can discuss price.

A bit of Necro here as someone has lent me their 55-300 to try out over the weekend. Having seen a link to the Tamron 70-200 2.8 in the 'leads to deals' forum it has made me wonder about what other offers there may be out there (again!) and how they rate optically and optically for price paid. i.e. 55-300 might be optically 7/10 but for the price paid it might be 9/10. Appreciate there might be other factors for people like weight.

I imagine using this lens primarily more for landscapes at sunrise / sunset so would guess low light capabilities to be more useful to me than say AF speed.

I thought it might help to post a shot of the sort of picture I would like to take

First picture of trees and winter sun

http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/samplesearch.php?do=photos&lens=67&sort=likes...

Thanks again

I would rate the 55-300 higher than 7/10 optically, it's a very sharp lens and ideally suited to isolating portions of a landscape, which is I think the use you are describing. If you take a look at my Gallery portfolio on this site there are a fair few landscapes shot with the DA L 55-300, some examples are:










Regards
David

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Flickr

Nicola's Apartments, Kassiopi, Corfu

Some cameras, some lenses, some bits 'n' bobs

until late this year when I managed to snag a bigma, the DA L 55-300 was my lens for airshows and it did well. it hunted a bit due to the low contrast of sky etc but got some great shots.

link

you can't go far wrong with a 55-300, if you can stretch to the DA, get it over the DA L as it has the metal mount and faster focus.

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Pentax K3, DA 18-55 WR, Sigma 50-500 EX DG HSM, Pentax M-50, a bucket load of SD cards, some lights and a lightbox

55-300 is a no brainer, great IQ for the money. It does have some limitations, I found that at 300mm then it didn't handle strong contrasts that well. But for the money it is a bargain and at its sweet spot it is right up there.

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You can see some of my photos here if you are so inclined

Hi,

much as I like my DA15mm LTD I too think the 55-300 DA great for landscapes (or seascapes)
https://www.pentaxuser.com/images/comment_pictures/10782/10782_1389390088.jpg
This on K5 at 300mm F11 ISO 320 in Girvan Ayrshire last June in between rain showers.

The DA55-300 is not bad, but from a quick look through my shots it appears that I've never actually taken a sunset picture with it. This is more like what I tend to use it for



Blonde by kh1234567890, on Flickr

There is always the DA50-200 WR - greatly under-rated for some reason. And all those cheap old manual lenses such as the M135/3.5, M75-200/4 etc.

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Flickr Stream

Sorry for the delay in responding and thank you all for your comments. There's a lot of love for the 55-300!

The weather wasn't that great last weekend and I only had a little time to put the borrowed 55-300 through it's paces. As David surmised (loved your photos) the subject isolation from distance is what I'm after so think I will see what the guy wants price wise.

There really does seem to be a big leap in price to get the next level of quality