New lens for my Pentax (1 Viewer)

Hi all.

Ai agonised and decided over the sigma 70-300, the pentax 75-300 would probably be the better bet due to the fact that a pentax lens would probably work best with a pentax camera.
I bought the SMC FA J 75-300 F5.6-6.8. Here are some preliminary tests hand held at between 220mm and 300mm zoom.

I think you made the right choice, Pentax may have been a little slow in the DSLR market but they have never been slow to produce excelent glass, your images are testement to that, I have a "cheap" Pentax 80-320 that cost me around £150 new, I was considering selling it after buying my Sigma 50-500 but cant bring myself to part with it, I got this with it in the Canaries earlier this year; http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j168/impotentspider/SpanishSparrowMale.jpg

Wow....
Nice sparrow shot.

Have you ever used a teleconverter with that lens? I want to know if there is any value in getting a tele on a slower lens like that and if the image is still acceptable. 300mm is still rather short when it comes to the reach so to add 1.7x would be nice but only if it still works ok.

Doug, I have never used teleconverters on my Pentax gear, I once tried a cheap 3X converter on a cheap Halina zoom for my OM system, the results were extremely poor. Having said that if you got a genuine Pentax T/C for use on Pentax glass then you should get some decent results, just dont expect to market the shots to National Geographic8-P, alternatively the matched Sigma combo's are reported to be reasonably OK.

I am considering a 1.4X for the Bigma, but it will only get used in very very good light, and if a Pentax T/C ever comes avaiulable at the right price I would probably add one to my collection anyway.

PS: I was lucky with the sparrow, we were feeding the Barbary Ground Squirrels on Fuerteventura and that little chap came extremely close in the hope of a few tit-bits.

Teleconvertize yourself and get back to us with some canopy shots.

Thanks Spiderman!!! Appreciate the advice. I will wait till I can afford a Pentax 600mm F/4 ED and then use a tele with that if I really still need reach.

No teleconverter yet but here is a canopy shot of sorts.