What is better?

I'm new to my Pentax, I'm particularly enjoying wildlife photography. My biggest lens is a Tamron 18-250. I have been scouring eBay for a reasonably priced long lens 400mm. Would I be better buying a teleconvertor for my Tamron? What do you think? Thanks Rich

A teleconverter rarely offers any quality and it won't do well at all on such a wide ranging zoom. Apart from the two stop loss of light, which means a very dim lens at the long end.

The most likely useful 40mm is probably going to be a Tokina 80-400mm. Although not a common lens, they are found from time to time and they perform quite well.

Thankyou I will keep on looking.

Hello

I bought a Tokina RMC 400mm F5.6 manual focus lens but it had to be returned due to fungus. Even with fungus this produced some good photo's and was useable without a tripod (not all the time though). It is a manual focus lens and may show up some fringing though.

This lens can be found in numerous disguises and models, some af, most mf I think.

Later I bought the NPS 400mm f5.9, seems to be very rare, I took the risk and it seems to be producing some pretty good results but it seems to scare the birds away and it is totally manual My flickr link is http://www.flickr.com/photos/10126769@N05/sets/72157624884345744/

I have a Super Paragon manual focus 2x converter - it is truly awful on any lens I own (Sigma 70-300, Sigma 50mm Macro f2.8, Pentax 18-55, NPS 400mm, Tokina 300mm F5.5, Vivitar 28mm f2. at least it is consistently awful.

I am no great expert here but lenses seem to be going up in price (Hoya version of the Tokina 400mm above (made by Tokina I believe) sold for £170 on ebay recently with a Tokina RMC mf 400mm f5.6 having sold for £97.00. In February a Hoya 400mm wne tfor around £80 and the Tokina's around £40 to £60.

If you want an af lens you should expect to pay more and do your home work so that you don't end up with a lemon.

Pentaxforums.com have a lens database whilst 'mflenses' are a useful source of information about all things manual focus.

If I were looking now I would check out ebay, try an internet search on anything I was interested in and then ask specific questions on this website before purchase as the ladies and gentlemen here are likely to be able to offer advice on specific items.

I believe that there are many versions of the Sigma 400mm f5.6, some good some bad but I have not had any of them but would recommend that you make sure before bidding on one (sharpness issues, fogging of lens elements etc) if I remeber correctly versions with a 77mm filter thread are the ones to go for but check this as I could well be wrong, it's a memory thing.

Hope this helps.


Cheers


Stu.

Hi Applemac. It's worth checking out the big Sigmas (50-500 and 150-500). Both will produce a reasonable picture in the right circumstances and they are freely available and not very expensive for what they are.

I second that!!!!!!!!!

I love my 135-400 sigma. Great up until about 350. it gets a bit soft after that though. 350 cropped is sharper than 400.

Great advice, I will avoid a teleconvertor. I have been monitoring eBay for about a month now for a decent 400mm. I will seek your advice should I find anything. Thanks Rich

You shoul dcheck out the second hand stores too (SRS Microsystems, Fforbes, LCE, etc). You may pay a touch more but most will describe the item to you and take it back if you're not happy.