Excellent set, the 3rd and 4th are the stand-out ones for me.

Kind Regards
David

Thanks to Jon for the 'heads up' that this lens was available, I've just snapped it up.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions, I've now managed to source a suitable lens, which is one of those suggested in the replies.

Kind Regards
David

Thanks Defragged, I have owned several 55-300 lenses and this is not one I would consider, I want one that has no compromises on full frame, i.e. no vignetting. I prefer my 80-320 to the 55-300.

Kind Regards
David

Hi Peter, I'm not looking for something as large, heavy and expensive as this. I have a DA*300, which I love and will never sell, also a 1.4 TC, so this is my go-to wildlife setup. The 150-450 is definitely not what I'm looking for.

Kind Regards
David

Hi All

I've just acquired another K-1 Mk1 (have 2 now), so am thinking about ditching all my APS-C kit, including all of my APS-C lenses. This leaves me with a slight issue in that I will be lacking a high quality full-frame telephoto zoom lens, something in the region of the 70-300mm focal range. I have a Tamron Di LD 70-300, which for what it is (a cheap lens) performs miracles, but does suffer from the dreaded purple fringing and the max aperture is not very wide. I also have a Pentax 80-320, which I do like very much, but again it's not the last word in IQ.

Can anyone suggest for me please what lenses I may be able to find that will better my two existing telephoto zooms for image quality and max aperture, and will work at all focal lengths on a K-1 without vignetting.

Thanks in advance for your advice and suggestions.

Kind Regards
David

I would lean towards replacing it, maybe with the same lens bought second hand? You should be able to pick one up for not too much money and could sell you broken lens on ebay as 'parts or not working', which would go a little way to offset the cost.

Kind Regards
David

A K-5iis wouldn't be a bad bet. It's a classic camera and although has the same functionality as a K-5, it produces superior images. Also, I don't know if you could stretch to a K-1, which is head and shoulders above any other Pentax DSLR, but if not also consider a KP. The KP is rugged, full of useful features and after having owned both a KP and a K-3, I would say the KP produces much better image quality, which would be of benefit for wedding photography, particularly when shooting in low light conditions. The only downsides of the KP are a single card slot and a small battery, which doesn't last as long as the K-5 and K-3 batteries do.

Kind Regards
David

The ME's suffer badly from sitting and not being used. There are components in the mechanism that degrade over time and cause the film winding to lock up. It doesn't sound as if yours has this particular issue, it sounds more like sticky foam causing the mirror not to return, but it could also be sticky lubricant on the mirror pivot points. The foam is an easy fix if it is the only problem, just buy some sticky backed foam from ebay, 2mm or 3mm, then cut a strip to fit. To clean away the old residue you will need some isopropyl alcohol and some toothpicks or similar. Make sure you don't get any of the old foam on the prism.

Kind Regards
David

Thanks for all the feedback so far, I'm not sure we have found the source of the issue, but some avenues are there to go down. I can confirm the following:

1. Astrotracer was definitely on and showing as operational, after performing the precise calibration

2. SR is automatically 'off' when using the 2 second delay, which is what I was using on the night, but I would have thought that Astrotracer ignores this?

3. The star streaks were across the entire frame, not just in the corners

Does anyone else have any ideas?

Kind Regards
David