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No Gravitas posted:I just love how thanks to the Q the Pentax thread is full of "Don't buy this Pentax" advice. Any of the dslrs, ME Snypes, MX's, or even the K-01 are all great. Just not really the Q.
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Apr 11, 2014 01:52
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Melthir posted:This is exactly the stuff I was looking for. Whelp since you shattered my hopes and dreams of under a pound multi lens I think I may just jump on the pentax for the weather sealing as it rains almost all day every day here and I'll just suck up the weight increase. The Fuji x100 looks great but we want to do bear photography and I would rather not get eaten so I may save up and get that to for a day to day. Ideally for wildlife you want a fast, long lens but they're not cheap or light. The standard recommendations here are some kind of low-end pro-grade 70-200mm lens (ideally), possibly with a 1.4x TC if you need the extra reach, or a decent consumer-zoom lens like the Sigma 70-300 Apo DG Macro. Not sure what Pentax has specifically in their lineup, but if you want to stay weather sealed you'll probably want to stay brand-name Pentax.
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Apr 11, 2014 03:05
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Paul MaudDib posted:Ideally for wildlife you want a fast, long lens but they're not cheap or light. The standard recommendations here are some kind of low-end pro-grade 70-200mm lens (ideally), possibly with a 1.4x TC if you need the extra reach, or a decent consumer-zoom lens like the Sigma 70-300 Apo DG Macro. They just released a weather sealed version of the 55-300 which would probably be ideal. Not only that, but they also released a weather sealed 1.4x TC.
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Apr 11, 2014 03:11
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Melthir posted:This is exactly the stuff I was looking for. Whelp since you shattered my hopes and dreams of under a pound multi lens I think I may just jump on the pentax for the weather sealing as it rains almost all day every day here and I'll just suck up the weight increase. The Fuji x100 looks great but we want to do bear photography and I would rather not get eaten so I may save up and get that to for a day to day. Bears. Bears are great, especially if you shoot Pentax, because bears never leave home without a waterproof fur coat so weather means gently caress ALL to bears. Get a Pentax DSLR. Weathersealed bodies (seconding KEH for at least your first look and budget-guessing) - roughly in order of increasing price.
Get a K-30 2-lens kit (18-55 WR and 50-200 / 55-300 WR) for like $600-$700, then spend $400 (plus $50-$60 on shipping) on this: PentaxForumsMarketplace[/url posted:Pentax SMC M42 500mm F4.5 in good condition $400 gently caress it, go to the gym if you need to. Pictures of the first one linked: https://plus.google.com/photos/107889959053824454678/albums/5474356587769024001?banner=pwa Using that lens (not that *individual* lens, the same mass-produced item, though), I took pictures of bears on my K-10D:  And a goofy picture of me using said lens on the wrong tripod head from a while ago (this shows the size of the beast, at least):  I haven't seen anything else, in any mount from any era of photography, that puts you behind a supertelephoto longer than 400mm with maximum aperture f/4.5, for anything like that price. Seriously, less than $1/mm for supertele and brighter than f/5.6.
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Apr 11, 2014 05:13
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Actually if you want to shoot wildlife from a long distance with a low weight, that might be one of the legitimate use-cases for the Pentax Q. 5.6x crop factor means you're getting a lot of reach from lenses that are reasonable weight. A Nikkor 105/2.5 would be a 588mm equivalent, a Pentax K135/2.5 is a 756mm equivalent (roughly the same reach as that 500mm on APS-C, at 1/7th the weight), a Pentax K200/2.5 is a 1120mm equivalent (a bit longer than the 500mm on M4/3). It's still only a 12mp image and I have no idea what manual focusing would be like on it. And with a sensor as small as the Q's you will want to be as wide open as is feasible to stave off diffraction. High ISO performance will suffer. e: A firmware update did add focus peaking which should help with the manual focusing. Diffraction is a big issue and for this approach you should probably stay with fast/superfast mid-range teles (not supertele) like the ones listed above and shoot them near wide open. Your overall weight savings may not be that great because you'll need a tripod for supertele work and the tripod makes up a lot of the weight of a kit, but it can probably be a lighter tripod. Hauling around a 500mm and something to put it on is definitely going to be a chore. I went canoeing with 20lbs of Pentax 67 and tripod and even portaging it was a pain. The Nikkor 300/4.5 EDIF is also relatively affordable and lightweight. The Takumar long lenses are pretty standard triplet-derived telephoto primes from the 60s/70s. Such lenses are definitely heavy, they usually are sharp but low-contrast and have a lot of chromatic abberation* particularly near wide open. EDIFs are lighter, high-contrast, and have low CA. That's not necessarily a show stopper - you can boost contrast and fix a lot of CA in Lightroom, it's multicoated, and that's a good price for that length - things get real expensive real fast beyond 300mm. *CA is a distortion where the lens can't focus all the colors/wavelengths of light to the same focal plane, so the colors separate and you end up with "color fringing" in high-contrast boundaries, for example around tree branches backlit by sky. Regarding diffraction, stopping down farther makes the lens sharper, but it also makes the sensor less sharp. Every sensor has a diffraction limit beyond which stopping down further will paradoxically reduce the practical resolution no matter what the lens is actually putting out. The smaller the sensor (more correctly, the finer the pixel pitch) the sooner you run into that limit. For something like a D800 (36mp full frame), it's f/8. For something like a D5200 or K-5 (24mp crop) it's f/5.6. With a tiny sensor like the Q (12mp P+S) it's f/2.8, so you need lenses that can deliver high resolution levels near wide open. Stop down and diffraction robs the lens of sharpness, which is the Q's achilles' heel and why that system is an utter dead end except for specialty uses like this (shallow depth-of-field shots are also virtually impossible). This is why decent cell phone cameras usually have fast (f/2.8) lenses - you want a physically short focal length for a thin phone body, which means a miniscule sensor, which needs a fast lens. The problem gets worse as megapixel counts go up for a given sensor size (the pitch gets finer) which is why I'm down on M4/3 (and to a small extent APS-C) - increasing megapixel counts beyond their present levels is becoming very technically challenging and expensive because it's not just a matter of making a body with a high megapixel count, you have to deliver a whole system with lenses that can deliver resolution right from wide open. At present those lenses tend to be big and heavy which hurts the size/weight advantages. That's beginning to change - Sigma in particular is really kicking rear end with the 35/1.4 and 18-35 f/1.8 and the new 50/1.4, and Zeiss has the Otus for the well-heeled. But they're definitely not cheap or light-weight. And the returns from that are incremental rather than generational, in the long run smaller sensors are a dead end and FF/larger will be the path forward. 4K resolution displays are starting to hit affordable prices and that will vastly increase the need for high resolution relative to current 1080p displays (by four times, in fact). You can deliver a lens that's 50% sharper wide open, but not 4x, while you can scale up the sensor arbitrarily (balanced by the fact that wafer yields decrease and it gets more expensive, you need new, bigger lenses to cover the larger sensor, etc, there is never ever a free lunch in optical design). I'm not quite sure how telecompressor-based designs like the Olympus f/2 zooms or the Metabones Speed Booster play out. My sense is that it might act like a T-stop increase rather than f-stop (i.e. the lens acts like f/2.8 in terms of diffraction but with the brightness of f/2) but I don't know for sure. One more note, M42 and M4/3 have similar names but are totally different things that have nothing to do with each other, just for the record. One's a manual full frame camera mount, one's a sensor size and electronic camera mount roughly half the size of full frame. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Apr 11, 2014 |
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Apr 11, 2014 05:17
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Hey, if you have a lot of money there is a new Pentax mid-format camera out now! It is a crop frame.
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Apr 16, 2014 01:46
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It's a newly updated version of the 645D, which has been available for several years now. Digital medium format cameras are generally crop frames, so that is not unusual.
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Apr 16, 2014 13:53
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It's a pretty big bump in features too. Pentax also just officially announced their medium format slide duplicator thingy. Up to 90cm of extension, only announced in Japan as of right now. Sale price will be $1200.
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Apr 16, 2014 14:27
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I'm simply amazed that they are selling this at a lower cost than the 645D when it came out. Granted, they are sourcing their sensors from Sony instead of Kodak, but it's 1500 cheaper. It's also a fuckton cheaper than pretty much any other digital medium format camera on the market. Also queue smugness of how awesome the 645Z's crop sensor is to any full frame camera.
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Apr 16, 2014 14:35
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The new Sony sensor really is that much less expensive and it's being used across many MF bodies and backs, resulting in an economy of scale the prior sensors didn't have. Pentax just needs to get more modern digitally optimized MF lenses out there.
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Apr 16, 2014 15:21
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kefkafloyd posted:Pentax just needs to get more modern digitally optimized MF lenses out there. Is there a problem with the current Pentax lenses? Problems that can be tied to "this lens is used on digital" rather than "this lens is a piece of poo poo"? I've never heard a Pentax 645D owner say that the 645 lens lineup was garbage that was wrecking their shots, honestly. It's dogma around here that "lenses must be digitally optimized or they suck on digital" but to be honest I've never noticed my film lenses having much problem on digital. Even wide angles do fine. A few short-register (rangefinder) lenses have problems with red shift in the corners but that's usually a mirrorless-specific problem and I've never seen a practical demonstration of other problems. Medium format lenses are going to be the lenses that are going to have the lowest angles of incidence, particularly crop sensor medium format. I really think the whole thing is higher megapixel counts and modern ULD/ASPH lenses increasing people's standards, and what people are actually after is newer, sharper lenses to match higher-resolution sensors. That's fine but you shouldn't try to hide it behind "lenses designed for film don't work well on digital". The 645 is a pro-level system and always has been, if the lenses "didn't work" then people would be bitching up a storm about their $10,000 cameras. I can't help but think of the fad of "color" lenses circa 1950. Color film had just gotten popular and everyone wanted to use that buzzword to associate their cameras with it. Similarly, there are some minor technical differences in the way you design lenses (CA shows up on color film, on B+W it just looks like softness). Fast forward 50 years and the whole thing is rather quaint, because Color is no longer a buzzword that people want to put in their lens names and good B+W lenses had to control that poo poo anyway (even if you don't see the colors, CA still makes your lens soft). What it really about was a bag of design characteristics (coating and complex 5+ element designs made possible by coating) that were completely unrelated to color. Similarly I think "digital" is a buzzword that sells cameras today, and what people really want is new, complex, computer-optimized designs utilizing aspheric and exotic glass. The actual technical issues like telecentricity/angle-of-incidence are wildly overblown in comparison to the basic question of how well the lens performs. I don't think a "designed for film" lens from the 90s (say, the P67 75/2.8) is going to be much worse than a "designed for digital" lens from 2000, any more than a "designed for B+W" Tessar from the 30s is going to be worse than a Color Solinar from the 50s. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Apr 16, 2014 |
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Apr 16, 2014 15:26
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It's shorthand for "modern designed lenses" that can account for sensor vignetting, better flare control, have ultrasonic focus motors, can actually be serviced under warranty, and in the case of the 645 a few more focal lengths best suited for its crop. I didn't say all the other lenses were poo poo or didn't work, so cool your jets, Paul. At least Pentax saw fit to start selling some more lenses again on this side with the 645Z's release. My comment was more about expanding the system with new lenses in general, less about re-releasing existing ones. I still use my 1980s Minoltas on a regular basis for paying gigs, but they definitely have some 1980s flaws. But that doesn't mean I won't replace them when the time comes because screw drive AF is lousy and getting service on old optics is increasingly difficult. kefkafloyd fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Apr 16, 2014 |
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Apr 16, 2014 17:10
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kefkafloyd posted:The new Sony sensor really is that much less expensive and it's being used across many MF bodies and backs, resulting in an economy of scale the prior sensors didn't have. That isn't the part that really surprises me. It's the fact that the 645D was released at 10 grand, which is already one of the cheapest digital medium format cameras around. Now, pentax is selling an updated model for even cheaper. The next closest digital medium format is a 22mp mamiya at about 10.5 grand. So you get more than double the megapixels for far better resolution, and for almost 2 grand less. In terms of new lenses, they don't really need to. They just announced that they are going to be selling 645 film lenses again in the US so it's not like you are really lacking for options. Not only that, but pentax also released the one lens that would make sense to purchase, the 645 25mm lens. Since the sensor is cropped, the only part the film lenses lack for is wide angle, and pentax already fixed that issue.
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Apr 16, 2014 17:13
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HolyDukeNukem posted:In terms of new lenses, they don't really need to. They just announced that they are going to be selling 645 film lenses again in the US so it's not like you are really lacking for options. Not only that, but pentax also released the one lens that would make sense to purchase, the 645 25mm lens. Since the sensor is cropped, the only part the film lenses lack for is wide angle, and pentax already fixed that issue. I liked the 645D, but the one time I rented a 645D (along with the 55mm DFA) to shoot an aerial I was a bit disappointed at the options available for optics because the place I was renting them did not carry a wide array; they just had the DFAs and that was it. I really needed something longer at times. I did like the 55 DFA, though, it did a bangup job for a print that the client made into a 30x40 wall hanging. If you're a legacy 645 user then it's probably less of an issue I guess, but the one guy I knew who had this stuff sold his kit before the 645D was released. Perhaps with the rerelease of the back catalogue optics this will change. kefkafloyd fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Apr 16, 2014 |
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Apr 16, 2014 17:21
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Paul MaudDib posted:Is there a problem with the current Pentax lenses? I haven't seen that attitude, but I fully believe it happens. But it's still really weird - what's the difference between "Digitally Optimized" and "Lens was updated / new multicoatings were applied / other technilogical breakthrough in the last 30 years" ? Light moves through glass in certain fairly well-understood ways, how does it matter if the sensor is a grid of electronics or an emulsion of crystals? HolyDukeNukem posted:I'm simply amazed that they are selling this at a lower cost than the 645D when it came out. Granted, they are sourcing their sensors from Sony instead of Kodak, but it's 1500 cheaper. It's also a fuckton cheaper than pretty much any other digital medium format camera on the market. Also queue smugness of how awesome the 645Z's crop sensor is to any full frame camera. After I read the summary blurb on PF I browsed B&H for "Medium Format Digital" - top-spec Hassleblads go for $45 000, which is mind-blowing.
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Apr 16, 2014 17:21
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kefkafloyd posted:I didn't say all the other lenses were poo poo or didn't work, so cool your jets, Paul. That's not even directed specifically at you, I've just seen a lot of "your lenses need to be designed for digital!" lately and it bugs me. You just happened to deploy that bit of folk wisdom in reference to an absurdly expensive professional camera system with characteristics that even in the folk wisdom would tend to make it less susceptible (crop sensor) and pushed one of my hot buttons. I probably should have put it in the general gear thread. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Apr 16, 2014 |
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Apr 16, 2014 17:22
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ExecuDork posted:I haven't seen that attitude, but I fully believe it happens. But it's still really weird - what's the difference between "Digitally Optimized" and "Lens was updated / new multicoatings were applied / other technilogical breakthrough in the last 30 years" ? Light moves through glass in certain fairly well-understood ways, how does it matter if the sensor is a grid of electronics or an emulsion of crystals? The argument goes that silver halide absorbs light pretty well no matter what the angle. So you can design lenses like the Biogon type for film, where you have really high incidence angles. Digital sensors can't handle that as well, and react best when a lens design is "telecentric" - the iris is optically placed at infinity, so all beams of light are perfectly orthogonal to the sensor. Practical example of this is the NEX-7 or some of the Leica rangefinder bodies. The Nex-7 had hosed up microlensing which seriously hurt corner resolution on certain lenses (particularly rangefinder lenses). The Leica bodies also had hosed up microlensing and had noticeable color shift in the corners (the NEX did this too actually). I don't think it's a coincidence that both of the worst examples are mirrorless/rangefinder designs with hosed up microlenses. It's a real thing, I just think people put way, way too much weight on it as an explanation for poor lens performance, relative to other factors, like "this lens is an all spherical design computed by hand in the 70s that uses 0 exotic glass elements". And it's also something that the next generation of organic sensors are way better at handling. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Apr 16, 2014 |
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Apr 16, 2014 17:26
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Paul MaudDib posted:"this lens is all spherical design computed by hand in the 70s that uses 0 exotic glass elements". Cheap-Old-K-Mount-Glass.txt or Vivitar-Series-1.txt Thanks, that clears that up nicely for me. It's always fun to peek into areas I never go, like the world of professional medium-format cameras. Someday, not soon, I'll find something I want to shoot and then print 12 feet wide.
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Apr 16, 2014 17:30
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Tech is advancing to account for these flaws on the sensor side because accounting for it on the optical side is much more difficult (and spendy) than if you can get it right on the receiving end. My statement was simply a wish for more optics in general (and ones made with modern designs), not necessarily that they have to be OMG DIGITAL. I only saw the new camera and sensor, and not the announcement about resumption of sales of other optics, which generally addresses that complaint.
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Apr 16, 2014 17:33
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ExecuDork posted:Thanks, that clears that up nicely for me. It's always fun to peek into areas I never go, like the world of professional medium-format cameras. Someday, not soon, I'll find something I want to shoot and then print 12 feet wide. You probably know this, but for the record "professional medium format cameras" are super cheap! You can pick up 645 systems for like <$300 these days, really nice 6x6/6x7 systems for $400-500, and even the titans of the field (Mamiya 6/7) are down around $1200-1400. Pentax especially is great quality and great value. Instead of one modern lens, you can pick up a whole medium format system. And if you get that one awesome keeper you can always drum scan or wet print. It's going digital that's loving expensive. Even buying some ancient tethered Kodak back from the 90s is still as much as buying a new full frame body. The alternatives (scanning backs, etc) all have issues. I would love it if someone put out a cheap, low-quality large format sensor of some kind (say, 5-10 megapixel 645 full frame) on some kind of obsolete-but-reliable process to get yields up and costs down. The 645D and the 645Z are really aggressively priced for what they are. It's obviously still expensive as poo poo but at least someone's trying to push the prices down. I could definitely see owning a used 645D instead of a brand new 5D mark 3 or whatever. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Apr 16, 2014 |
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Apr 16, 2014 17:59
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I earned 150$ doing awful photo stuff for a good cause: Warning people that a building on my university campus is filled with toxic poo poo! Me doing tiny photo gigs will be a consistent theme with this group of people. This is great news, actually. I'd work with them for free and they are doing a good job. (They also have not an aesthetic bone in their collective body!) To get paid for this? Zing! My rule is: All money I earn through photography goes into photography (or clarinet stuff, but this isn't for this forum)! So... This can mean only one thing! Lens suggestions time! I have the WR kit lens, a manual focus 50 f/2 and a decent 70-210 f/4.5. Right now I have 150$ in my lens fund. This buys zip. Thankfully, there is hope and a high likelyhood of the gig recurring at least two more times. So let's say a lens between 200-450$. I'm thinking primarily of prime lenses. My two zooms treat me very well, if darkly. I don't mind buying used too much. I have no need for macro, nor do I need range above the 210 that I have. Thanks!
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May 18, 2014 06:37
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In that price range, you have a ton of options. What are you planning on using the lens for? Like is it mostly interior stuff? I would like at a 21mm ltd prime or a bower/samyang/rokinon 24mm. But that's assuming you want a wide angle prime.
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May 18, 2014 14:10
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HolyDukeNukem posted:In that price range, you have a ton of options. What are you planning on using the lens for? Like is it mostly interior stuff? I would like at a 21mm ltd prime or a bower/samyang/rokinon 24mm. But that's assuming you want a wide angle prime. Hmm... Good point. I do a lot of artsy stuff. For that a fast tele is important. 50mm on crop is too short for artsy stuff I do and too long for wide stuff I do for $. Say, 70-130mm is what I'd aim for. Not as many good options in the tele range in this price range, sadly.
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May 18, 2014 17:53
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No Gravitas posted:Hmm... Good point. Unfortunately not, if you are lucky, maybe a 70mm ltd. Also a SMC Takumar 135 f2.5 might be a decent deal. But 85mm lenses are expensive unfortunately. I would look at the longer end for some deals with manual glass.
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May 18, 2014 20:43
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So I recently bought a 77mm ltd. I feel like I've actually used it enough to give some remarks. On my K-3, it has pretty bad CA wide open, though appears to be correctable. On the other hand, it's pretty drat sharp wide open and has amazing contrast. I can see why it's worth the money. Here is a picture of some burgers I grilled.
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May 18, 2014 23:47
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No Gravitas posted:Hmm... Good point. You said you don't need macro, but 100/105mm macro lenses fall into that price range of around $400 quite nicely. My Vivitar S1 105mm f/2.5 macro gives amazing sharpness and lovely bokeh, even when focused at infinity (which for that particular lens is pretty much everything further away than 10 feet). Otherwise, yeah, something like the 70/2.4 - which has the added advantage of being tiny and lightweight, as it is essentially a pancake.
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May 20, 2014 03:30
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Am I allowed to discuss the GR in this thread? They just updated the firmware to add a new AF mode and it's just stonkingly fast.
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Jun 6, 2014 14:44
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mediaphage posted:Am I allowed to discuss the GR in this thread? They just updated the firmware to add a new AF mode and it's just stonkingly fast. Oh, God. There is a Pentax post! Joy! Joy! Someone cares about Pentax! Let us celebr...at... e. Oh. I see. Ricoh. Right. Excuse me, I will be crying in the corner right there.
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Jun 6, 2014 15:18
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 yeah, you can talk about Ricoh stuff here. Given the current corporate structure it fits. When you say "stonkingly fast" what do you mean? I'm surprised a simple firmware update makes much of a difference.
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Jun 6, 2014 15:55
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No Gravitas posted:Oh, God. There is a Pentax post! Joy! Joy! Someone cares about Pentax! Let us celebr...at... e. Haha, sorry. I've been shooting less with the K-5 (I mostly gave it to my husband as an upgrade over the K-x he has) though I'm happy to chat about the 35mm macro I also got him for Christmas: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1002135-REG/pentax_21460_hd_pentax_da_35mm.html It's phenomenal. ExecuDork posted:
Well, okay, it's not a huge difference - the GR is already pretty fast. To be fair I haven't tried it with moving subjects yet; I just forgot how fast it can get since my time has been monopolized by the Sony A7r. Which I love, it's just a lot slower.
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Jun 6, 2014 16:03
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I went to the beach the other day with a really lovely 28mm Vivitar I bought for 20 bucks, and holy poo poo does anti-glare coating make a huge difference. There were a few shots I absolutely couldn't get because there was a huge streak across the lens, where I know it wouldn't have shown up on something that had a coating. Even the light reflecting off of flower petals was doing it, for instance (and yes the lens is in good shape, no dust, smudges etc that would have caused it).
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Jun 7, 2014 21:15
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In a few months it'll have been a year since the Sigma 18-35mm announcement and it's still nowhere in sight for Pentax so I'm giving up. I picked up a Tamron 24-135mm that performs fairly well through most of the range but has the little problem of the K01's poo poo CDAF not working at all. Is the 16-45mm f/4 still the best walkabout zoom these days or should I be looking at something else?
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Jun 20, 2014 12:46
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Startyde posted:In a few months it'll have been a year since the Sigma 18-35mm announcement and it's still nowhere in sight for Pentax so I'm giving up. I picked up a Tamron 24-135mm that performs fairly well through most of the range but has the little problem of the K01's poo poo CDAF not working at all. Is the 16-45mm f/4 still the best walkabout zoom these days or should I be looking at something else? Sigma 18-35mm F/1.8 DC HSM ART Lens for Pentax Digital SLR Cameras - USA Warranty  As far as best-walkaround-zoom, there are plenty of choices that cover a similar focal length range as the kit 18-55. * The 16-45/4 is probably the best choice for around $300, but if you can spend more (~$800), the DA* 16-50/2.8 gives you another stop throughout the range, weathersealing, and an SDM autofocus motor. Plus, Pentaxforums.com claims the 16-45/4 has been discontinued and B&H Photo claims it's no longer available (and I can't find it at all on Adorama). That could push prices on the 16-45/4 either up or down, depending on how anybody else who wants/has one reacts. Interestingly, despite lacking weathersealing, reviews on Pentaxforums talk about using the 16-45/4 in bad weather with no problems. Then you've got your 18-55/variable WR (~$125), 18-135/variable WR (~$300), 17-70/4 ($500), and the HD 20-40/2.8-4 ($1000), which has some of the worst list of features on paper (narrowest zoom range, variable aperture), but some of the most gushing oh-god-I-love-this-lens reviews. Plus three current Sigma zooms (inlcuding the 18-35/1.8) and everybody's favourite "angry bees in my AF motor" Tamron 17-50/2.8. * Your K-01 apparently came with the 40mm pancake as its kit; every other Pentax DSLR has the 18-55 (of some version) as one of its starter-kit options.
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Jun 20, 2014 17:31
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"AVAILABLE FOR PRE ORDER NOW!" Same as everywhere else for months. Thanks, looks like the ones I had been looking at are it.
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Jun 20, 2014 17:55
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Startyde posted:"AVAILABLE FOR PRE ORDER NOW!" Same as everywhere else for months. I would wait at least a week. Someone posted on pentaxforums that they are shipping out pre-orders next week. Of course, take that with a grain of salt since Sigma is having issues getting them out the door.
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Jun 20, 2014 19:18
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Startyde posted:"AVAILABLE FOR PRE ORDER NOW!" Same as everywhere else for months.  ) on the Adorama website. Sorry.I seem to have a blind spot regarding Tamron lenses - that's the second Tammy that I've heard about for the first time this week. Other than being rather unlike the 18-35/1.8 in apparent characteristics (the focal length range, for one), how are you finding your 24-135mm? From what I can find online it seems to be a holdover from the 35mm film days, but there were certainly some fine lenses made in the 90's and I'm curious if that Tamron is decent.
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Jun 20, 2014 23:43
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It's a great lens that's a little heavy but fairly compact. Front element doesn't move when zooming or focusing and it is parfocal which isn't too common. Color is good and it's not flare prone, wide open it's a little soft on the long end but not bad. Save the autofocus problem, which isn't really its fault, the it would do me just fine. I've got a handful of their adaptall stuff leftover from my film days and most of it works great on digital. I don't know of any outright dogs from the SP line. Maybe instead of lenses I should be looking at replacing the 01.  gauche flower pic 
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Jun 21, 2014 00:32
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Got a new lens (and camera)! The couple of pictures I've taken have shown me how amazing these FA Limiteds are. They are pretty drat amazing in terms of quality and size.
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Jun 27, 2014 17:01
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Just bought a refurb K-30 w/ 18-55mm kit lens off keh. Should be here in the next few days. In the event that I go out to local pawn shops and dig for old K-mount lenses, are there any specific ones I should keep an eye out for? Primes preferred since I only bought the kit lens and wouldn't mind manual fiddling on things w/ fixed range, but cheap teles (or wides - are cheap wides a thing?) are good too.
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Jul 17, 2014 20:22
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The manual focus 50mm f/1.7 (Or f/2, or f/1.4) is pretty drat fantastic. That focal length is covered in your kit lens, but you get some extra light, and it's a smaller lens. I found a 135mm f/2.8 which I like a lot. This page is your friend.
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Jul 17, 2014 20:48
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