Advice Needed for Gift Camera (1 Viewer)

Hey All.
This is my first post here. I'm not much of a photographer. My wife is an avid birder. She has outgrown the little Point and Shoot (Sony I think it was) I got her a couple years ago. She likes to take pictures of nesting and flying Eagles,and swamp birds way off in the distance( 100 yds +). Her distance pics. with the P&S are very grainy,blurred. Close ups are great!!.
I want to get her a long distance camera, for her birthday.
I think I will get the the Pentax K100D. Cost, Simplicity. I am tempted to get a Tamron 75X300mm lens. Less than 150 bucks, we can upgrade,if needed later..........But I think the Sigma 135-400mm, or the Sigma 170-500mm are much better lenses. Would there be a great deal of differance in their photo quality.
I know she would like to take "professional" grade pictures.
My other concern is the weight, The sigmas and camera will weigh upwards of 3 lbs. Is that too much for a little 110 lb lady??
Any advice would sure be appreciated.
Thanks
G

Gobbler said:

I think I will get the the Pentax K100D. Cost, Simplicity. I am tempted to get a Tamron 75X300mm lens. Less than 150 bucks, we can upgrade,if needed later..........But I think the Sigma 135-400mm, or the Sigma 170-500mm are much better lenses. Would there be a great deal of differance in their photo quality.

Click to expand...

Hi G,

Welcome to BirdForum. Pentax forum seems a bit quiet these days, doesn't it

I don't use Pentax DSLRs for bird photography, but I know they do work for that too. Unfortunately your lens suggestions are not very highly regarded among bird photographers. They are all quite dark, slow focusing, noisy and soft - especially at their tele-ends. You can get a little better sharpness by stopping the lens down a couple of stops, but there are not very often good lighting conditions for that. But why not, with some patience and maybe with the use of a hide a DSLR with a 300mm may be quite useful for starting the bird tele-photography. The improvement to a compact P&S is clear, but I wouldn't quite say that any of these lenses are capable of producing professional quality pics from 100+yds distance.

From your options I would probably just choose the 70-300mm for general lightweight nature photography (including birds) and sooner or later look for secondhand K-mount prime lenses for longer distance bird photography. One thing worth noticing from bird photography's point of view could be that a newly released updated version of the K100D, the "K100D Super", has a support for much faster focusing, new (and more expensive) Pentax lenses ("SDM") - which could be very useful later if your wife would like to get good flight shots.

Anyway, the Pentax K100D is an excellent camera, with great selection of new and old lenses, which can be used for any kind of nature photography. IMHO a fine gift camera indeed. :t:

Best regards,

Ilkka

Thanks for the info Iporali.
After endless hours on Google,and forum reviews, I'm leaning toward Pentax K10D with a Sigma 50-500 mm. I know , bigger heavier , more $$$$. I don't know what happened, This all started out so simple.
Thanks Again
G

Gobbler said:

I don't know what happened, This all started out so simple.

Click to expand...

Well, the same has happened to so many of us.

But that is an excellent choice, if you ask me! Weather sealing, image stabilization and one of the best viewfinders for unparalleled price. And the Bigma is a very good lens. :t:

Ilkka

Gobbler said:

Thanks for the info Iporali.
After endless hours on Google,and forum reviews, I'm leaning toward Pentax K10D with a Sigma 50-500 mm. I know , bigger heavier , more $$$$. I don't know what happened, This all started out so simple.
Thanks Again
G

Click to expand...

I think this is a good choice Budget wise It is what I have view my gallery for samples of this combination