I'd second the suggestion of a fast fifty - 50mm/1.7 or faster - they're cheap secondhand and do things your zoom lenses simply cannot do. Also very compact.

I think the most cost-effective replacement for the kit lens is the Sigma 17-70, but there are still some Pentax 16-45s around new (try Park Cameras) for less. That said, if you have a good copy of the kit lens, the 16-45 might not be all that much better.

Difficult one - using it at full tele and wide open is not a strong point for this lens - or any tele-zoom. In fact, I reckon that if you use it closer to 300mm and then crop on the computer, you may find the results are significantly superior to shooting at 400mm! I compared my copy with the 55-300, and at 300mm wide open, the Tokina was easily sharper so it does give some "cropping room". Will stop posting in this thread now as wandering off the original topic.....

Hi Sam - have you tried it without the filter at all to see if that makes a difference? I also have the Tokina 80-400 (ATXii) and only find it too soft at the longest length coupled with widest apertures. Keep it just off 400mm and stopped down to at least f8 and it does pretty well.

You mentioned getting a good quality 77mm circ polariser - something I've just been looking for too, and which can cost a small fortune if you're not careful. I found a comparison test of circular polarisers on the Lenstip website, which made very interesting reading.

link

As a result, I bought the Marumi DHG from Optics Warehouse on Ebay, cost £51.

I've always been happy with Marumi filters in the past (they make some great close up filters too), and so far this one appears to be no exception - I'm very happy with it.

Lens sold subject to payment. Thanks for looking, Jon

Hi Ravi - you have a reply too. Let me know what works best....

Jon

Voigtlander Ultron 40mm/2 SLii

If you lust after the FA43 Ltd, and would prefer something with slightly more substance that the DA40 Ltd, then this lens may be the perfect solution! It's a pancake lens which covers full frame and acts as a (very) short telephoto on APS-C. The build and image quality is certainly up there with the Pentax Limiteds - after all, this lens has come out of the same factory that produces the modern Zeiss lenses, so they know what they're doing....

It's a lovely lens but on APS-C the focal length turns out to be one that I personally rarely use.

Image quality is excellent, being sharp staight from maximum aperture and getting even better as you head towards f5.6/8. Build quality is superb like proper lenses ought to be, and world's apart from some of the stuff we get nowadays. It's not AF, but the manual focus is a joy.

The lens has been used only a handful of times and is therefore in as new condition. It comes complete with hood (which was supplied with a tiny amount of the white "Ultron" lettering missing but it wasn't bad enough for me to do anything about it). Also a very handy close up lens which gives 1:4 "macro" ability (on 35mm body). Complete with box and instructions etc. Aside from the minor issue with the hood mentioned above, this lens is "as new".

There are some images of the lens, and taken by the lens, in the following thread:

link

New from sole UK dealer Robert White (which is where I got this one), these go for £370 plus P&P. As mine has been for sale for a month, and I'm keen to decide what to do one way or the other, the lowest I'll go to before deciding to keep it is £185 plus Paypal fee and P&P - half the price of a new one and a significant reduction compared to either of the Pentax Limited alternatives (DA 40 Ltd, FA 43 Ltd).

If you respond quickly, it'll be sent Special Delivery and could be with you by the weekend!

Best wishes,

Jon

I do the same but have also done one other thing. Write a list of all the lenses you own - which in my case was bad enough and spurred me to think that the collection was getting ridiculous.

Then think through all the near-duplications and the pro's and con's of each one. As people looking at classifieds may have noticed, I've been selling rather more than I buy as a result, even though I have sold some excellent lenses... I bought them because I knew they were excellent, rather than because I was going to regularly put them to good use. In which case there seemed little point in keeping them. I'm now getting down to a collection of lenses that I know I would miss if I sold any of them. I think there's only one or two more that I might sell, then I'm going to call it a day and stick with what's left.

For now!

Jon

I was in SRS on Friday - Chris mentioned the work they are still doing to develop their new enlarged shop, including lens rental. I wouldn't write it off!

For infrared, the 6MP bodies are all more sensitive than the newer cameras. You can use a Hoya R72 filter on front of the lens, and the kit lens is perfectly adequate for IR photography - not least because you'd probably be shooting in its sweet spot of f8-11 in any case.

On a bright summer's day, you can shoot infrared with the 6MP bodies with exposure times of around 1 second. On newer cameras you'd be at 10 seconds or more.

If you want to find out more, send me a PM and I can explain in boring detail, along with links to other sites and some IR shots from my unmodified K100DS!

Cheers,

Jon