I am looking for a cost effective long lens.
There is a lovely green wood pecker that regularly feeds on the large area of grass outside my office window. It is extremely camera shy (my colleague says it is a female!) and my current 150 to 300 Sigma is just not long enough.
I would be very interested in an un-loved 500mm lens that needed a new home!

Rob

I have a nice tidy Pentax-A 1:1.7 50mm that is doing nothing complete with Hoya skylight and both caps?

If you ask nicely I can throw in a Vivitar 70-210 4.5-5.6 again PKA fit with filter and caps?

Rob

I agree the main problem is not the battery dying it is the monitor telling you it is dying! I have only twice got to the point where the camera actually stopped working due to flat batteries!
Tbh I carry several spare batteries and have given up on checking the monitor.

Rob

I know the thread has shifted to battery life but....

My K-r battery life was OK on the first cycle but not great. Second cycle seems to be holding the charge better. The AA issue is a bit of a red herring IMHO. The K-r needs a special holder for AAs and it costs around £30. Leaving aside the issues of genuine or non genuine batteries a generic Li 109 can be had off Ebay for £10. Even allowing for lower performance than the 'real thing' you could still purchase 3 Li batteries for the same price as the holder! Seems a bit of a no brainer to me..........

Why did I choose the K-r over the K-x? Well two things, Jessops were doing the K-r twin lens kit for £550 inc cashback and also the K-r has a proper low light AF light. I hate the flashing flash used by the K-x in low light. It really annoys people and is very energy inefficient.

Really happy with (my boring black) K-r and just starting to get to grips with it. Go for the K-r, you know you want to.....

Rob

Thank you all. I have now got the camera set up and am enjoying my new lens!

I am off to Svalbard in late February so am hoping for some Northern Lights. Ideally I need something wider and faster but budgets are budgets.

Very happy with the K-r even if the weather has been so bad I should have stretched a little and gone for the K7

The K-R low light performance was the final factor in the end. The K5 would have been lovely but ££££££££

Rob

After many years of canon ownership I have got back into SLRs and bought myself a K-r twin lens set up. Very pleased with the kit and have been doing a bit of investigating the wonderful world of Pentax. I was very interested to learn of the back compatibility of Pentax lens so i thought I'd dip my toe into the water and purchased a SMC pentax-M 2.8 28mm prime. I got the lens today and put it on the camera and found that nothing worked . The rear display refuses to read an aperture value and the shutter button is in operative. I am cool with not getting any digital readouts with an old manual lens but it would be nice if I could actually take an image!
I am sure there is something obvious here. The camera is fine with a DAL lens and while I cannot check the manual lens it seems to be OK and was sold to me as being in good working order.
Any help and guidance no matter how basic much appreciated.
Rob