I'm on to my second 70-210F (the first got mouldy) both bought second hand for about £40. It focuses far faster than my Sigma 70-300 on my cameras and the results are very sharp from f8 and acceptable wide open. I have found that it tends to be better both in terms of the AF and sharpness with subjects further than about 2m away but you can use the minimum focus distance if you need to. At mid range I think it is a match for any lens. I also have the 28-70 f4 which is a bit plasticky and light but again gives very sharp results. I think that one cost me £60. You could get the 35-70f which pairs up with the 70-210 and is equally well made and sharp. I think mine was £40. I have the Samsung GX10 (sorry but I didn't buy it) which came with their 18-55 lens which apparently is the same lens as the Pentax which is reasonable from f8 but I have never used the 50-200.

Carl

You might have to be quick before they go out of business and you might want to pre order. My experience with Jessops recently that if you want anything that is remotely unusual then you will have to wait 28 days for it. This appears to be the case for anything in Pentax fit. Having said that you might have a bit more luck with their own brand kit. i don't know about the Minolta fit tubes but the Pentax ones are KA not AF so you will have to manual focus but AF and macro don't really mix anyway so that's no real loss. I think they go for about £40.

Carl

When I read Tom's post the other night I thought I'd give his idea a go but I didn't want to hijack his post so I started this one.

This is a wasp that was in my conservatory. I think it had eaten ant poison so it wasn't in the mood for an argument




This is an aphid that must have dropped on my hand when I was rooting through an ivy bush




This one was on my jumper so I snapped him as he walked over my hand




This was a test of the resolving power of my little plastic Cosina macro lens which I think it just about fails.




The first 3 were taken with my Pentax *istD and cosina macro lens and a Nikon f1.8 50mm lens reversed on the front. The last was taken with the cosina lens on a bellows at full extension to give about 6:1. All were handheld with the af360fgz flash and all are only cropped to get rid of dead space.

Thanks for looking

Carl

I think everybody has more or less covered everything in the comparison. Your mate might want to look at the Samsung GX10 which is more or less the same as the K10d with a different badge but in this country it sells for up to £100 cheaper and you get a 2 year warranty as opposed to Pentax's 1 year.

Just a thought

carl

Another thing to consider is the resolving power of the lens. The more extension you put behind the lens, the more you make the lens work. The quality of a standard 50mm lens will start to degrade at about 1:1 which is why it is often recommended that you reverse the lens above certain magnifications. Doing this you lose camera control over the aperture but you will not lose as much quality because conventional lenses are designed to work best at infinity so they focus a distant point on a relatively close film plane so when you reverse it you are getting it to do more like what it was intended for. It is possible to use a macro lens at higher magnifications the right way round because they are corrected to work in that way. I have used a 100mm macro lens on a bellows for magnifications up to 4:1 with some success but that is about the limit.

Carl

According to the re-review this week in amateur photographer, one of the things fixed with the new firmware update is vertical green lines that some people had reported. I don't know if that is VPN but there you go.

Carl

Just as an idea Pete, if you want people to have a look at your images and edit them you would be better off posting the originals as well as your edited versions because more constructive work can be done with an image that is unprocessed.

Regards

Carl

There is the Sigma 135-400 or the 170-500 which are to all intents the same lens, same optical construction but slight difference in size. Both are cheaper than the bigma but probably not that much lighter. I have a pre digital 135-400 and with my GX10 I can hand hold it at 400mm down to 1/60 second. Stopped down to f8 it is quite sharp but I would expect the DG version to be better.

Carl

According to the histogram in PSCS2 the tones start at 15 and finish at 206 on the composite. A way to alter it without it looking all Chernobyl is to use an adjustment layer set to the Multiply blending mode then reduce the opacity of the layer so that you have details in the shadows (45-50% should look OK).

Carl

First of all. I know this is a Pentax forum not Samsung but you want to try getting info from Samsung

I won a GX10 in a cmpetition last month and I'm quite happy with it. I was going to buy the k10d so I've saved a bit of cash and I don't have to feel the same guilt as if I had bought it in a shop.

The question is: Does anybody know if the BG2 grip will work with the GX10? The manual says that all Pentax accessories will work with it and I know that the batteries are interchangeable but I read somewhere that the grips aren't. The shops seem to have stopped advertising the GX10 and I haven't seen any sign of even the Samsung lenses let alone other stuff. Samsung don't appear to want to answer their phone and the web site is not the best in the world so if anyone on here knows the answer I would like to know.

Thanks for reading

Carl