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zoom/telephoto beyond 300mm and wide angle?

Posted 19/09/2009 - 08:19 Link
hi everybody,
can you guys recommend a zoom/telephoto beyond 300mm, i maybe looking in the wrong place but they seem quite hard to find.
also i'm looking for a decent but inexpensive wide angle.

all help appreciated
Samsung GX-20
gartmore
Posted 19/09/2009 - 09:07 Link
What lenses do you have already?

ken
Ken
“We must avoid however, snapping away, shooting quickly and without thought, overloading ourselves with unnecessary images that clutter our memory and diminish the clarity of the whole.” - Henri Cartier-Bresson -
Posted 19/09/2009 - 09:26 Link
have the following lens:
pentax 18-55mm
tamron 70-300mm
tamron 18-250mm
tamron 1.4x converter

cheers
Samsung GX-20
08tiger
Posted 19/09/2009 - 09:28 Link
tallguy_uk_98 wrote:
hi everybody,
can you guys recommend a zoom/telephoto beyond 300mm, i maybe looking in the wrong place but they seem quite hard to find.
also i'm looking for a decent but inexpensive wide angle.

all help appreciated

Probably find the sigma site has about the only big zooms,50-500, 150-500, but yes they are hard to find for pentax unless you own a bank
The sigma 20-10 is quite a good lens in the wide, but there are others to choose from.
C&C welcome.
Don.
PeteL
Posted 19/09/2009 - 09:35 Link
Hi,
Have you taken a look at some of the second hand dealers that advertise in Amateur Photographer Mag?
Mifsuds.com

Ffords.com

nicholascamera.com

mxvphotographic.com

collectablecameras.com

I have not checked these sites recently but i remember Mifsuds had a Pentax FA 400mm f5.6 at £799 and a manual focus Pentax 500mm f4.5 at£599 last time i looked. Sigma do a range of new lenses in Pentax fit (zoom, telephoto and wideangle.)
If you don`t mind a manual focus wide then the old 20mm M lens is a cracker if you can find one, (Though its not that wide when fitted to a non full frame Camera being equivalent to 30mm on an APSC format)

Regards - Pete
Mannesty
Posted 19/09/2009 - 10:38 Link
There's one here at https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/sigma-50-500mm-for-sale-14905

It's probably what you'll end up buying as it seems to be the best of the bunch. Not a lot of use in low light though, apparently.
Peter E Smith - flickr Photostream
petemasty
Posted 19/09/2009 - 12:24 Link
Was about to post a new subject on the same issue. So I shall add it here in a round about sort of way. There are a number of third party telephoto lenses beyond 300mm on ebay (Vivitar, soligor, Falcon etc). Dont know how good they are. some have pics posted with the ad to show the level and quality. TBH some shots are pretty rubbish in that they are very soft indeed. Now they are 'inexpensive' (read cheap, no doubt) and when compared to the big lenses that are £700+ it does make me wonder whther they are worth taking a punt.

Anyone have any experience of these lenses at all? some go up to 1000mm+, but how good they are is anyone's guess.

Probably best to pay the money and go for the known brands
Pete M
My Flickr
alfiemooon
Posted 19/09/2009 - 12:34 Link
petemasty wrote:
Was about to post a new subject on the same issue. So I shall add it here in a round about sort of way. There are a number of third party telephoto lenses beyond 300mm on ebay (Vivitar, soligor, Falcon etc). Dont know how good they are. some have pics posted with the ad to show the level and quality. TBH some shots are pretty rubbish in that they are very soft indeed. Now they are 'inexpensive' (read cheap, no doubt) and when compared to the big lenses that are £700+ it does make me wonder whther they are worth taking a punt.

Anyone have any experience of these lenses at all? some go up to 1000mm+, but how good they are is anyone's guess.

Probably best to pay the money and go for the known brands

Just wondering what the general concensus of opinion is on them there "telephoto" lenses on that well known Interweb Auction Website,I see one "retailer" has around 3000 "satisfied" customers.

Nic
K10D,K20D
Pentax 18-55,Tamron AF 70-300,Sigma 150-500
Kenko 2X Teleplus MC7
AF 360 FGZ
Mannesty
Posted 19/09/2009 - 13:26 Link
When buying new lenses, you gets what you pays for.

If it's new, and cheap, it's cheap for a reason. Do you really think that if a lens produced first rate, top notch, world beating images at 500+ mm with a decent wide aperture, that it would sell for peanuts?. . . No? Neither do I.

Oh, and 3000 satisfied customers CAN be wrong.
Peter E Smith - flickr Photostream
Edited by Mannesty: 19/09/2009 - 13:27
petemasty
Posted 19/09/2009 - 13:43 Link
It also depends what they were satisfied with. The sevice may have been great but the actual product may have a been a crock of..............
Pete M
My Flickr
alfiemooon
Posted 19/09/2009 - 19:41 Link
Appreciate your comments PM,thanks.

I`ve read a comment from the Cameraman who vids the airshow stuff and he`s said it`s all down to the quality of the lens..but them,they do sell the dvds.One wonders who these factories make lenses for,afteral,the LG factory in Sth Wales used to produce PC monitors for "Uncle","Tom","Cobbley" & "All",just differnt casings,differnt badges and different boxes...

..and,Mr Smith,I ain`t no David Bailey,more an Arhtur Daley.

Nic
K10D,K20D
Pentax 18-55,Tamron AF 70-300,Sigma 150-500
Kenko 2X Teleplus MC7
AF 360 FGZ
George Lazarette
Posted 19/09/2009 - 20:27 Link
To sum up, good means expensive, and you can either buy one of the Sigmas, or fit a GOOD teleconverter to a lens like the Pentax DA* 300mm.

By good, I mean a Pentax 1.4 or 1.7. You'll find them on Ebay now and again. A teleconverter will magnify the defects of the lens it is fitted to, so only the best lens should be used.

G
Keywords: Charming, polite, and generally agreeable.
Oggy
Posted 20/09/2009 - 00:25 Link
To reinforce what George says, I have the DA*300, the Sigma 150-500, and an average(Tamron) 1.4TC.

950 times out of 1000, the best image will be cropped from the 300. 49 times it will be from the 150-500, and 1 will be with the 300 on the TC. A good TC may do better but they are expensive and hard to find.

The Sigma 150-500 is capable of producing a reasonable image, but given it's price, it has limitations. I have posted some of my better ones here.

One of the members has the 50-500 (Bigma) for sale here.

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