Which Pentax Lens??? (1 Viewer)

Hi All.

I have read the Pentax lens roadmap and I see two exciting new lenses on the horizon.

The 300mm F4 ED iF SDM and the 200mm F2.8 ED IF SDM.

If the quality of their mew K100 and K10D's are anything to go by, these whould be awesome lenses and they have the latest ED glass and supersonic motors for ultrfast focusing.

The question to all bird photographers out there is..... which one?

Do I got for the 300mm F4 for the reach or 200mm F2.8 for the speed of the lens? Would I be right the due to the shorter focal length, the 200mm F2.8 would still be good on a 2x extender, giving and effective 400mm, close to the 420 one would get with the 300mm on a 1.4X?

Would the logic be to rather get the 300mm F4 as it is only one Fstop slower than the 2.8 but 50% longer focal length?

Maybe next year will see bigger high speed lenses in the new technology like 500mm and up?? Here is hoping!!!

I might go for the 50-200mm ED IF lens at F4.5 - 5.6 for general photography as it is quite cheap ($220) and then go for the 300mm F4 for the "big" lens in my collection once it is available but I have no idea of the cost yet.

Comments would be appreciated.

I am learning the art of telephotograpy and have had lots of good advice on here-so I am repsonding to offer my limited advice.
For bird photography 'reach' is extremely important. Speed is also important but big/fast lenses are for people with different bank balances than me,
The consensus is 'stay away from TC's unless neseccary for several reasons 1) it does reduce IQ 2) it can stop the AF & IS working. The Pentax has IS built into the camera so you need to know specifiacally for this set up.
At present I am using 500mm with 1.7 zoom. It's a bridge camera so not of the quality you are thinking (and doesn't multiply by 1.6 as a DSLR will) but even so I wouldn't want to go much smaller. Hope this is of some help.

Hi I own a Pentax K10D & a DS before that teamed with a sigma 50-500 DG when I'm taking bird photos it stays @ 500 most of the time I find it is alittle slow F stop wise remembering that it is effectively a 750mm and really needs a shutter speed of 1/800sec to stop camera shake at this focal length.this photo was taken at about 3m it is cropped a tiny bit about 1cm all round.I would go with the longer lens but it wont be cheap

Pentax have always had top class lens & I think alot of people are waiting for some new long lenses like this older model
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-PENTAX-SMC-FA-600mm-F4-ED-IF-Telephoto-Lens_W0QQitemZ190110026845QQihZ009QQcategoryZ30070QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

When considering the maximum aperture of a lens you must not forget the effect this will have on the available depth of field, superfast f2.8 lenses are great for letting the light in but IHMO the trade off between achieving a faster shutter speed and losing DoF is not worth the additional cost, DoF is shallow enough at long focal lengths without making it worse by increasing the maximum aperture, also most lenses perform best at around F8 anyway.

Another option is to search ebay or used equipment dealers for the discontinued Pentax 80-320 (f4-f5.6) I have this lens and can vouch for its perfomance. Focus is a little slow (its a Pentax|;| ) but the quality is superb for such a relatively low priced lens.

The 600mm f4 mentioned in a previous reply is an excelent bit of kit but just look at the price tag, no wonder the pro's dont use Pentax |:d|
PS thats a nice shot Nick

Sorry, just a quick edit......Teleconverters are OK if you use a good quality one, either use the matched sigma lens/converter combos or use a PENTAX converter with Pentax lenses. Unless your shooting professionally dont worry about the slight loss of quality.