Second Lens

Hi All

At the moment on my K10D i have a 18-55 kit lens and a 80-320. I am very shortly getting a 16-45 to replace the kit lens and i am thinking of replacing the 80-320 because of the gap between the two. I only want to have two lenses and i was thinking about a 55-200 and if i need the extra bit , then i would get a 2 x converter, i don't want to spend too much and i don't mind if it's a third party lens.. Advice most welcome

Richard

I think it's well documented here that the Pentax DA/Samsung D-Xenon 50-200mm is an very good performer and good value. Have a look at one in a store and you'll be surprised how tiny and light it is. I've been amazed at some of the images I have taken with it. Curry's have had it listed at £29.97 but I'll doubt you'll find a store that has stock. Jacobs were selling it for £49.99, then £99.99, now £149.99. Chris at SRS might do you a deal on the Pentax DA lens, he has it listed at £169. You'll only be missing the 45-50mm range which is completely inconsequential I think.

I'd keep the 80-320, better range than the 50-200 and probably a better lens to boot.

I was thinking of doing that because do i really need to have the range between the two lenses (45 to 80 ). As i will be using it mainly for distance shots.

What you'd be better off doing is getting a FA50mm f1.4 for low light/soft shots to compliment the 16-45 and the 80-320. I don't think the gap would be that bad at all. Most of the time you can either step forward or back for that slight gap in FoV.

45 on 1.53 crop is 34.9 degrees FoV
80 on 1.53 crop is 20.0 degrees FoV

15 degree gap isn't bad at all really.

Sorry Tyr i dont really understand that. As for the FA50mm i'm not sure because i would be using the 16-45 most of the time and i really would'nt know when i should be using it plus it's another lens to carry. i'm not that clever when it comes to lenses all i know is that the more you pay the better you get.

I wouldn't worry too much about the gap. It's not essential to have a continuous spread of focal lengths. The difference can be made up by two low-tech solutions: walking backwards and forwards to change position and cropping the final image.

I agree with that john.
I've heard good and bad about the 80-320 mostly good , so am i to assume that its quite a competent lens. You see i paid £90 for it about a year ago then had to pay another £65 to get it repaired because of a faulty Iris so i'm a bit relunctant to get rid of it.

The 80-320mm is one of the (few?) lenses I have not used, but the reviews in the photo magazines were generally very complimentary.

I've been looking out for one to try, but so far the prices on eBay have been far too high. That in itself suggests that the lens is well regarded and sought after.