On the hunt for 500mm

Does anyone other than Sigma do a 500mm lens?......I am going to get back into wildlife shots and I need some length!........"AF only!"

Not really.. sadly.
Pentax made the FA* 600mm, very expensive though.
Sigma make the 150-500, 50-500, and 500 prime. But I think only the 50-500 is in pentax mount.
Tamron do make a 200-500 but im pretty sure they dont make it in pentax mount.

A 500mm lens is a pretty expensive lens.. what price range were you thinking? And are you considering crop factor? A 300 lens is 450mm on digital. A 400mm would suit fine.

Pentax made the FA* 400mm, Sigma make 80-400, 120-400 and 135-400, but again I don't know if they make them in pentax mount.

Think Chirpy on here has the Sigma 500mm, not cheap though! About £3k?

The 'Bigma' is a popular choice (sigma 50-500mm) too.

There is (was!) a Pentax 500mm F4.5, but it is manual focus though, and I have one and am open to offers!

I have a Bigma which I recommend and also the DA*300mm which can be used with a good quality teleconverter for more reach.

But if you want to take out a second mortgage you can get one of these puppies link

Chirpy does have this lens and if you run a search you will find some pics he has posted.

weird, sure the sigma website said that wasn't pentax mount

and i thought chirpy had one (:

I have a Russian MTO 500mm mirror lens I got from a camera dealers in the 1970's called'Brocks'(gone broke now!)and used it for cricket on my screw Spotmatic,S3 and ES cameras. It was £69 I remember.I still have it in its wooden box in my darkroom,complete with a selection of filters which fit my 400mm f4.5 Pentax-A lens.

I use a Tamron 500mm which is arguably the best mirror lens going. I'll upload a shot in the gallery to show the quality. It's here...Sheep taken with Tamron 500mm Mirror lens

Like Peter, I also have a Russian 500mm Mirror lens. Amazingly sharp with terrible bokeh.

Built like the proverbial tank for M42 screw mount.

I use it for photographing loons on our lake. I shoot from a kayak, and one day will wind up under water - this thing is HEAVY

I've used it with 2x extenders, but the DOF is paper thin and begs a tripod, cable release and a flat subject that stays put.

Unfortunatelty, my lens barrel is too large in diameter to mount on my K110D - runs into the pop-up flash overhang. Thus back to needing the 2x converter and really limiting the use of the lens.

Mac,

have you tried using an extension tube? Depending on which of the Russian lenses you have, you may still be able to get infinity focus. Works on my Rubinar.

Steve

Mac....."I use it for photographing loons on our lake. " that is no way to talk about your neighbours.

When you gonna post a few for us to look at?

Pity they aren't Loonies - that would help with the LBA no end if you could catch a few of them

lol @ Gwyn


(look in the fountians, at the mall)

Thanks very much folk !....I might look at the mirror lens option!...if not, it will have to be the Sigma 50/500......and thanks for the sheep shot Peter..it's pretty good!....the highlights look like fairy rings!......lol........thanks again for all your help........Ken

I absolutely second that link

I do have the lens and it continues to be a stunner. Haven't had much chance to get out with it this year (been concentrating on Macro stuff since spring) but hope to get out more now that autumn/winter is here.

It was considerably less that £3k when the dollar was at its weakest, but it's climbing back up again.

Regarding the bigma - I had that too, but was disappointed with the long end for consistent sharpness and AF with it's relatively slow aperture at 500mm (bearing in mind the UK weather).

One of my favourites with the 500mm: