For years I have just assumed 'the dark side' referred to DP Review. Feel stupid now as this is a great lens resource that I have never bothered to click thru to as I thought i knew about it. Guess I made an assumption based on the colour scheme used by DPR.

daph - sorry for going off topic, will cease now,

Maybe interested but was looking to sell my Pentax 18-250 to fund so timing probably wrong for you. Just on the offchance, no interest in a some sort swap arrangement I presume?

Thanks

Thanks & Good shot DarkM, I live near the North Devon coast and from your shot and others I have seen it really adds a certain something to beach shots.

The sharpness of the 55-300 would be perfectly acceptable to me, do you feel they are similar?

Thanks all,

Chris A - your words resonate, the 18-250 stays on the body by default but it doesn't make me want to go out and take photos with it. It's easy to pick up and use but in a way I want my DSLR to challenge me. Perhaps I am not creative enough to get interesting shots with 'normal' lenses and need the advantage of lenses that give unusual views.

It IS a great travel lens and did great on the holiday I bought it for, but as we have no forgiegn travel plans for the next couple of years that aspect isn't attractive right now.

Also thanks for the SLR Gear info. Agree it does look a tempting price but one shop in London and a phone number aparently keeping US time is no comptetion for SRS service when I am spending that sort of money. However, good to know for negotiating purposes Pentax P50!

Geordie 01 - I am SO tempted at that price, but right now do need to sell the 18-250 for a decent price to fund it... and as the one in Classifieds isn't going even for what looks like a great price maybe I will have to save up a bit.

I too am looking to sell my Pentax 18-250 but only for the right price - it needs to realise £310 net.

As figures aren't being mentioned and there seem to be plenty of sellers I'll not post the whole details here, will do that probably over the weekend and put on e-bay. in the meantime, if interested PM me or if you can't PM post here.

Exactly what you would pay depends on if using paypal or can meet up for cash etc.

Umm, lack of responses ( but thanks Pentaxophile)I guess I'm being over hopeful on people having experience of these specific lenses?

I do think ultra wide is something I will enjoy using, so how about I ask which ulta wide would you get- do any others justify spending more than the £329 from SRS for the Sigma 10-20?

Thanks I appreciate the special needs of an ultra wide in terms of focussing, allowing for distrotion etc.

|I know what you are saying and if we shot ariund there much I'd agree. We rarely shoot 20 - 35 with DSLR, just compact and phones for when we do that as they generally snapshots for us. Certainly wouldn't justify the cost of a Tamron 17-50, if we were to get anything zoomy around there would just bea 18-55 WR, for the WR at cheap cost.

Also, having read 4 years of threads I am aware some suffered from QC sharpness issues hence would only buy from srs, although these issues seem to be less of late.

If the extra cash is a barrier i'd take a (optically excellent of course) second hand Pentax 55-300 over a new Sigma or Tamron anyday. If you are worried about warrenty look at srs microsystems used section.

Hi all,

The rise in what we could sell our Pentax 18-250 for and the SRS special offer on the above Sigma have us seriously considering selling the Pentax to get the Sigma.

We appreciate the job that the 18-250 does but having got the quality of the 35 and 100 (see line up in siggy line) it always slightly disappionts quality wise. We would like to have something wider but only if it's good quality. I have recollections of the Sigma 10-20 being highly rated but can now see that there is also a 10-20 f3.5 HSM, so it could be that I am remebering.

Also having looked at a number of review sites I note the other place rates the Tamron 10-24mm F3.5-4.5 Di-II LD sharpness better. Does that tie up with peoples experiences? It's £50 more but if it were the differnce between being happy and being disappionted that's nothing.

So questions:

1. We would have a gap 20 / 24- 35mm, we don't photo in that area much so are thinking we could crop the ultra wide when required. Is the quality of the Sigma f4- 5.6 / Tamron 10-24 up to that?

2. If you had to rate the quality of the Sigma 10-20 f4-5.6 / Tamron 10-24 in comparision to our other lenses (siggy line below) where would you put them. I do not expect they'd match the 35 & 100 primes (which are 10/10 to us) but if it's not better than to 18-250 (which I'd give 6/10) I wouldn't bother.

Thanks to anyone who can help, it's so difficult to compare technical reviews and I have found that real world views from the people here, more helpful.