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Fun with the Pentax K5

Armanius

Armanius

New member
All K-5 + 18-135 on a recent birthday golf outing in Palm Springs.

The 18-135 is small and light for a super zoom lens. But I had a lot of trouble with the auto focus whenever the lens was not set on 18mm or 135mm. The lens would sometimes simply refuse to auto focus. So I returned the lens.



Sunset by Armanius, on Flickr


Monster bunker by Armanius, on Flickr


Salvage the tee by Armanius, on Flickr


Starter by Armanius, on Flickr


Warm ups by Armanius, on Flickr


Art Filter by Armanius, on Flickr


Posers by Armanius, on Flickr
 
Knorp

Knorp

Well-known member
ecsh said:
The sun finally made an appearance today, so i got a chance to try my new 300 F4. Quality build, no doubt. What is also certain is that this is not a fast sports lens. If you are close to focus, then the lens immediately focus's on the intended target, if not, it goes through its focus range. For subjects which are static to a certain degree, its very nice. I also like how it blurs out the background, even when shooting at F8. Of course this is effected by the distance behind the subject, but it does do a nice job. The last shot of the street sign, the sign is around 200 feet away. Outside of resizing, or a crop or two, thats all that was done, JPEGs out of the camera. Here are a few very non-artistic shots.
Click to expand...
Good for you (and us :D) that weather turned for the better.
But Joe, should this imply that all SDM lenses are more or less slow ?
Quiet but slow ?
And it makes me wonder, is it the lens or is it the K5 or should we just forget about AF ?
Or to put it differently: are there any "fast sports" lenses for the K5 out there at all ?

Questions, Questions, Questions ... :loco:

All the very best.
 
ecsh

ecsh

New member
Bart
I do not have the answer. Both the 200 and 300 act the same, but take lovely shots. Like i said, if i was close with focus, no problem, but, i cannot photo one scene at 5 feet, then try and focus on a bird 20 ft away without the lens going through the cycle.
I will not be selling either of them. I don't believe Pentax has any current lens you could say would be a sportshooters lens, but, i could be wrong. <G>
Joe
 
W

woodyspedden

New member
Knorp said:
Good for you (and us :D) that weather turned for the better.
But Joe, should this imply that all SDM lenses are more or less slow ?
Quiet but slow ?
And it makes me wonder, is it the lens or is it the K5 or should we just forget about AF ?
Or to put it differently: are there any "fast sports" lenses for the K5 out there at all ?

Questions, Questions, Questions ... :loco:

All the very best.
Click to expand...
The 77FA works well for me. But, I would love to have its characteristics in a lens of longer reach. I wonder if Pentax made too many compromises in the SDM series to get quiet autofocus instead of quick autofocus? Both my 55 SDM and of course the 200 SDM are really slow to AF. Lovely lenses once focused but it leaves a big hole in the Pentax lineup for a fast sport shooter.

JMHO

Woody
 
Knorp

Knorp

Well-known member
woodyspedden said:
The 77FA works well for me. But, I would love to have its characteristics in a lens of longer reach. I wonder if Pentax made too many compromises in the SDM series to get quiet autofocus instead of quick autofocus? Both my 55 SDM and of course the 200 SDM are really slow to AF. Lovely lenses once focused but it leaves a big hole in the Pentax lineup for a fast sport shooter.

JMHO

Woody
Click to expand...
Thank you Woody, so no "fast sports" lenses from Pentax then.
I found that especially focus confirmation at moving targets is "slow" using the 200.
Getting a focus lock takes ages.
So no doubts about the AF capabilities of the K5 ?

Well perhaps I'll try my hand at MF next time, after all coming from the RF-world that shouldn't be too much an ordeal.
I think ... :rolleyes:

But what about other K-mount brands ? Sigma ?
Any thoughts ?

Kind regards.
 
jonoslack

jonoslack

Active member
Knorp said:
Thank you Woody, so no "fast sports" lenses from Pentax then.
I found that especially focus confirmation at moving targets is "slow" using the 200.
Getting a focus lock takes ages.
So no doubts about the AF capabilities of the K5 ?

Well perhaps I'll try my hand at MF next time, after all coming from the RF-world that shouldn't be too much an ordeal.
I think ... :rolleyes:

But what about other K-mount brands ? Sigma ?
Any thoughts ?

Kind regards.
Click to expand...
HI Bart
the 18-135 has a new motor, and focuses much more quickly. My 60-250 is lazy and a bit slow, no good for galloping Pyrenean Sheepdogs (but then nor was any camera I've had since the D3).

I wonder about sigma as well - I do have the 10-20 f3.5, which seems to focus fast, and is certainly quiet.

Who is brave enough to shell out for a Sigma 300mm f2.8 to find out!:ROTFL:

Perhaps the older non-SDM telephotos are faster?

I'm afraid I won't be experimenting!

all the best
 
ecsh

ecsh

New member
Since i am not a sports shooter as well, my current line up suits me fine. I am not ready to play the Sigma lottery.
Joe
 
Knorp

Knorp

Well-known member
ecsh said:
Since i am not a sports shooter as well, my current line up suits me fine. I am not ready to play the Sigma lottery.
Joe
Click to expand...

LOL - nor am I, Joe !
Just curious what could be wrong with the Pentax line up.

Kind regards.
 
jonoslack

jonoslack

Active member
ecsh said:
Since i am not a sports shooter as well, my current line up suits me fine. I am not ready to play the Sigma lottery.
Joe
Click to expand...
Knorp said:
LOL - nor am I, Joe !
Just curious what could be wrong with the Pentax line up.

Kind regards.
Click to expand...
FWIW, I've had lots of Sigma lenses (mostly ultra wides) in my time, and never had a problem with one . . . . and this is from the man who sent back 5 copies of the Pentax 16-50, and 3 of the Nikon 17-55 (not to mention many other lenses).
 
ecsh

ecsh

New member
I have had my share of Sigma good len's as well. I have the 180 Macro for my Sony system, and its great. I have had decentered len's, no focus, on a few in the past, and had problems with Nikon and especially the Pentax 15 lens.
I think that in most cases, if there is not a significant difference in the lens cost from Pentax or Sony, or the Sigma copy, i feel i have a better chance with the original. Of course in some cases what you want is just not available, so you have no choice.
Joe
 
Knorp

Knorp

Well-known member
jonoslack said:
HI Bart
the 18-135 has a new motor, and focuses much more quickly. My 60-250 is lazy and a bit slow, no good for galloping Pyrenean Sheepdogs (but then nor was any camera I've had since the D3).

I wonder about sigma as well - I do have the 10-20 f3.5, which seems to focus fast, and is certainly quiet.

Who is brave enough to shell out for a Sigma 300mm f2.8 to find out!:ROTFL:

Perhaps the older non-SDM telephotos are faster?

I'm afraid I won't be experimenting!

all the best
Click to expand...
Hidihi Jono,

I'll bet keeping up with Caspar is no small feat indeed !
You could be well right that the more recent SDM lenses are faster, perhaps we'll see more new products from Pentax this year.
Is there such thing as a PentaxRumors site ?

Well, it was Woody's remark about the DA*200 being 'rubbish' shooting his grandson's sports activities that started off my curiosity and made me wonder how it would affect my own ventures with this lens.
The jury is still out, but really so far I think I can live with it :)

Tell you what: I remember quite well the day when a colleague brought his E3 and 12-60 and how lightning fast the focusing was.
Admittedly, never used a decent AF system before, but I was truly very impressed nonetheless.

And I'm definitely not brave enough trying whatever lens without sound advice. Let alone expensive fast tele-lenses.
Though not really fast, the DA*300 is still tempting !

Kind regards
 
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