Telephoto lens - need advice

Hi guys
I'm looking for some telephoto zoom for my K10D so I've found
Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO DG
Tamron AF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 Di L
any experience with those 2? as well
Sigma 50-200mm f/4-5.6
faster lens is lighter and smaler as well
Cheers guys

In my honest opinion it has to be the Tamron hands down.

And if you need examples....













A very versatile lens. It's only downside it that as it's also a full frame lens, it's a little on the large as compared to the 50-200. But the important one for me, is that at 300mm it's still pretty sharp, and it has a very useful macro mode, offering 1:2 but still keeping a fair distance between you and the subject - very useful if you don't want to scare off little critters.

Of these the Tamron gets my vote too, sharper than the equivalent
Sigma 70-300 APO although my copy did suffer quite a bit of CA (the reason I sold it).

If you want the best consumer zoom then its undoubtedly the
Pentax DA 55-300, best colour/contrast of all, minimal CA and sharp at 300mm - unfortunately though its quite a bit more expensive than the others, although 2nd hand they are reasonable

Simon

Not if you grab the 55-300 DAL version, which I recently saw brand new (they had been unbundled from the K-x kit) from London Camera Exchange for nearly £130)

Alternatively, SRS still have them for £159.

Here's quite a good test on the Pentax 55-300mm

True..although personally I prefer the metal mount of the DA to the plastic one of the DAL...I assume that the optics are the same on both though - looks like the OP is spoilt for choice !

The optics are certainly identical. I did have the DAL 18-55 for a while, and that did put to rest any concerns I had over a plastic mount.

There are 2 factors for me that are genuine concerns with the DAL 55-300 - no lens hood and quick shift manual override.

The no lens hood has been addressed with Ebay sellers now selling identical lens hoods to the Pentax counterparts for very little.

So for me, it now truly boils down to not having a quick shift manual override once AF has locked on. Is that worth spending potentially an extra £150. Is it heck.

Agreed Bob, I've got the full version, but rarely ever use the quick shift. I would switch to manual focus in any case, if I was in a situation where AF wouldn't work. I use it mainly in manual anyway.

Ok so what if a difference between DA and DAL? And how Pentax looks comparing to Tamron. My budget for this lens is around 200 pounds so if you know any other lens that is worth considering 200 or 300mm I'm open for suggestions.

Jaroslaw

Just to add more options..if you feel you won't need 300mm then the Pentax DA 50-200mm is very good and SRSMicrosystems currently has a few for sale at £99 with 6months warranty.

I do find though that when I use the tele (not all that often) the extra range comes in useful (I used to own the 50-200 too).

Reading the comments from Bob and Algi, in your budget the DAL looks probably the best bet. I'm sure a few more owners will add further comments

Simon

I've owned the 55-300 and 50-200 WR as well as Tamron 70-300.

The one I've kept is the 50-200, because it is very compact and the WR is important to me (I have both WR kit lenses for British weather related reasons!).

That said, I think the best bang for the buck is the Tamron (and I note there is one on offer in the classifieds here for £85) which has a nice macro ability, decent build, and is pretty sharp too. Main downside is that it can give you some nasty purple fringing on occasion that needs to be processed out on the computer.

The best lens optically is the 55-300 - similarly sharp to the Tamron with less of the fringing. It does perform better than the 50-200 at 200mm, but is obviously quite a lot larger.

I found the 55-300 to be rather sluggish at focussing at longer lengths - it hunted terribly on occasion - so personally, I would prefer to go for the more expensive version with quick shift over-ride - I used this a lot.

Hope this helps,

Jon

The DA has a metal mount, has the manual shift focus mechanism, and is supplied with a lens hood. The DAL has a plastic (Low cost) mount and does not include the manual shift focus mechanism or a lens hood.

Optically they are identical.

ok cheers guys
price is not a problem because I've found all of them under 200 pounds. I think I will take 50-200 WR by pentax.

as well I would like to ask is there any difference between 18-55 I had with my K10D and Pentax smc 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 AL WR? or it's the same lens just with WR?

Cheers
Jaroslaw

The WR (and DA II) version is slightly improved, upon what was already a good little lens.

I suspect the 18-55 you had with the K10 was the MKI version, whereas when the K20D came out, it had a revised MKII version to take advantage of the extra resolving power. For the K-7 kit lens, weather sealing was added to the MKII to create the 18-55WR.