Thanks Rienhuizer, I hope that means you have tried one out and liked it. I was hoping for more 50-200mm users to reply but possibly it hasn't been released in the UK or Europe yet.

I just returned from a 4 day trip to the wilderness and thought about this lens the whole time I was there. My 18-55mm kit lens was very adequate for close-ups and wide-angle landscapes, and my f/1.7 50mm AF was excellent in the dark forest, but I really "longed" for a longer lens. The 50-200mm is not an overly expensive lens but Pentax has produced a few less than stellar lenses in the past and I would really like to find some reviews on this one before I put down my hard earned cash.

Thanks again for the reply.

Hello All

The Pentax SMC P-DA 50-200mm f/4-5.6 ED has been available here in North America for a couple of months now but I have yet to find an on-line review for it. I am very interested in this lens for my *ist-Ds to supplement the 18-55mm kit lens and a Pentax FA 50mm f/1.7 and would like to hear some opinions from users (or anyone else with an informed opinion for that matter)

BTW, it is selling here in Canada for approx. CAD $349

Thanks

Drew

Hello All

I have done a search of the archives and found nothing mentioned about this, so I hope I am posting information that is useful to at least some of the group. At the Photozone website http://www.photozone.de/8Reviews/index.html one can find numerous (but not all) Pentax lenses rated by their users' opinion. While this is not a scientific review, it does give some valuable opinions on several popular lenses. As well, the rest of the website (from the Home tab) is brimming with useful information and it is definitely worth exploring and bookmarking.

Cheers

Drew Peabody

Interesting, reading the differing opinions about the “convenience” of digital vs. film. Unfortunately this topic has taken on the familiar film vs. digital go around with some statements that put film at some lofty plane above the lowly digital image. As George would say, "rubbish"

With the advent of multi-megapixel cameras isn’t the only real difference now to be in the actual media that the image is recorded on, and not a question of who’s better? The screen on the back of my *ist Ds tells me much more than any part of the back or front of any film camera. The combination of the histogram and being able to zoom in up to 12x gives me more than enough power to inspect a recorded image to see INSTANTLY if I need to re-shoot.

As for digital darkroom manipulation, all photographs benefit from development or manipulation of some form in the darkroom. There is nothing “convenient” about any type of darkroom work whether chemical or digital. The digital darkroom is however much more accessible and affordable to the average amateur photographer so in that respect I guess you could say digital is actually more "convenient". Just look at the “top rated images” at www.photo.net that are submitted by ordinary people on a daily basis. All those images have been somehow processed digitally whether they were taken with a digital camera or on film.

The famous work of Ansel Adams was excellent for his time because he made the extra effort to squeeze as much information out of a latent image as he possibly could by using difficult darkroom manipulation. He was not satisfied with “images that were created within the camera”. Imagine what he could do today with Photoshop CS. I think Adams would pee his pants if he knew how easy it is for us today to draw out detail from the shadows and blown highlights from RAW images. And, do you think he would he be as famous if he was alive today and had to compete with the breathtaking and artful images that are achieved by ordinary folks with a computer and graphics software? I think he probably would be more so, because he was a man willing to commit some darkroom time to turn a photograph into a work of art and he was not afraid to work hard to do it. He was not looking for convenience.

In my opinion digital cameras and digital darkrooms have revitalized photography like never before and the main reason is because of the camera's instant feedback, and also the digital darkroom has become so much more “convenient” than a chemical darkroom. I also think the debate between film vs. digital will, in a very short time (if not already), look as pointless as does; the horse vs. the automobile, vinyl vs. CD, B&W vs. colour, or manual vs. auto.
Except for the horse, I’ve personally seen them all.
Time to move on.

Cheers

Drew

Slothy

Thanks for sharing that shot with your 80-320mm. It quite sharp and even better when sharpened with USM. I think the lens has nice bokeh too. Now get back outside and tend to those aphids.

Drew

VERY interested.

I too am in the market for a longer lens for my *ist-DS and I have narrowed my choices down to the new Pentax 50-200mm DA and the SMC 80-320mm. I have a Tamron 28-300mm that I had used on my MZ5n and was never really thrilled with. It is terribly soft on *ist-DS so I will probably shy away from ever buying a third party lens again.

I really like the thought of 320mm x 1.5 = a 480mm f5.6 lens, but even more desirable (to me) is the Pentax 50-200mm DA's ability to be able to touch up the focus without switching off of auto-focus. I find this feature on my 18-55mm kit lens to be very useful and BTW, extremely under-appreciated by most reviewers. Keep us posted Slothy as to how you like the SMC 80-320mm