Motorsport lenses

Hello all. I'm wanting to see if I can get a better motorsport lense for my K100D. At present I have a Tamron 70/300 f/4-5.6Di but it's just lacking in that AF speed and resulting in not so good shots. Any recommendations?

This is actually going to be a hard one.

You might want to look at lenses that are a bit faster - but unfortunately this doesn't mean that they focus much faster than the one you already own.

Perhaps you can look at the DA* 50-135mm, or the 2 new ones, DA*200 mm and DA*300mm. All these should give you much better performance than the lens you own, but for speed, well, you'll probably have to be patient and wait for the next pentax camera!

By the way; how are you using your AF on your K100? there are many ways of taking photos of motorsports, and relying on an AF that tracks the subject is not always the best way to go!

Hope this helps,

Nathan

Thanks for you advice. I think this is part of the reason I have a D300 and a few lenses ordered up at the minute but I'd like to add to the Pentax as well. I guess I'll just stick with what I have and keep on shooting.

You should sell the NC30 track bike....to me... and buy a DA*200mm, a DA*300mm, a spare body and two monopods with the money you save not racing any more

All I have left of the track bike is a frame, some forks and wheels, everything else is now gone (how do you think I can afford a D300 an some lenses LOL) Gonna take the safer option and take pics instead of chewing up rubber on the tarmac

I've got a K100D and the same Tamron lense 70-300. I know what you mean about lacking in AF speed, so I bought a 50-200 Pentax lens from ebay and I prefer this one. A couple of weeks ago there was a Motorcross event local and I took this lens out and tried a few things. The AF shots were disappointing-wasn't always focussing in time,so i went manual and a lot of the manual focussed ones I liked. i tried different parts of the course and focussed manually for certain jump areas, this seemed to be the best way as the depth of field on longer telephoto lenses are so narrow,difficult to get it sharp in time. Also advantage of Motor sport if you miss them once make sure you get them next time around..lol.