Sure was the DA* 50-135mm got to love that lens

Was shooting at the Sheffield Arena in the pit last Monday, Deacon Blue & Simple Minds.

When I came out of the pit & checked my photos, I pressed info and realised I had my ISO set at 200. I really thought I had blown it as we are not allowed to use flash in the pit.

On getting home & uploading my photos I am just stunned with the quality of them SOOC.

Here is a link to them, can't post directly due to copyright issues.

http://www.egigs.co.uk/index.php?p=7934&d=2008-12-01

These have been converted from RAW to JPEG in Lightroom & resized for web, no croppong or post processing.

Having had various lenses over the past year since going Pentax, I would definately stick to Pentax glass.

Not just for the quality but also for the matching ergonomics of matching lenses.

My choice would definately be

DA* 16-50mm
DA* 50-135mm

Thats the 16-135mm range sorted, I was desperate to get my hands on either a Sigma or Tamron 70-200mm but having handled both I am so pleased I went for for the 50-135mm, don't forget this is the 70-200mm equivalent on the cropped sensor, so a lighter better to handle lens. After using a 70-200mm 2.8 for a day this year to shoot a festival I really do appreciate the lightness of the 50-135mm, images are pretty good too

Cheers John, fortunately I have lots of images from last weeks holiday so will be sorting those this week

Really really sorry guys, I went on holiday last Saturday, wife booked a late deal to the Canaries & forgot all about the competition. Typical first one I am away for & I win DOH!!!!

Oh well won't be away for a whilst now so will carry on entering.

Gary

Many retailers seem to think by paying minimum wage that is the end of their wages obligation, unfortunately this does not attract the most knowledgeable staff members. Neither is it good for attracting decent staff, a company paying minimum wage obviously does not care for its staff otherwise it would pay more & retention would be higher too.

My wife used to work in Currys when they used to pay commission, she made it her business to know products inside out & she was regurlarly one of the top sales people in her store. Now you could walk about in our local Currys on a Saturday for 3 hours and not have one member of staff approach you, they wehere all watching football last time I went in

I think the biggest problem with bricks & mortar model is if I travel into town to purchase a camera, I expect to be able to handle it, play with it, get some advise & then purchase it. Unfortuantely most of the camera stores, in fact all of my local camera stores do not stock Pentax equipment, they don't carry much Canon or Nikon too... they can order it for me which will take 3 to 5 days, great!!!! I recently asked my local independant camera shop if they could get me a 50-135mm DA*. Oh the look on the guys face, I might as well have been speaking swaheelee, sure he could get me one, it would take a few days & cost £699!!!! Yeah right I don't mind paying a little more but £200 come on!!! I will just order it from SRS & get it next day cheaper than the stupid bricks & mortar store can do it.

So the answer is to actually carry some stock, then you might just sell something & make some money.

I went into jacobs in Hull whilst visiting & the amount of stock they had in was incredible & guess what??? I bought something, I also got to play with the Tamron 70-200mm 2.8 ok it was a Nikon fit but they could get me a Pentax in next day & price match, now that is service.

I recently went into Jessops to see if they had a Tamron 70-200mm 2.8 in the guy in the shop pointed me to a Tamron 70-300 for £79 I said you do understand what I asked for??? I got a blank expression. I said you do realise how much a 70-200mm 2.8 lens is going to cost??? He just shrugged his shoulders, he had no idea what I was talking about!!! They deserve to shut down, haven't bought anything from their store for a long long long time.

Ouch didn't think it would be that expensive. Thanks ofr all the replies

Bought a 2nd hand one from ebay but has no hood. Called Pentax but they could not give me a price for one without the number of the hood!!! I am surprised that Pentax don't know the model number of the hoods they supply with their lenses.

Any how could some kind soul please give me the lens hood number of theirs for me so I could order one.

Many thanks

Gary

The prices of Super A's has fallen dramatically this year, I have sold a couple recently & niether fetched more than £30 & both went to Italy...