[Canada_Rockies]

I am stressing my new-to-me DA-L 55-300 lens. This is today's exercise (Dec 11, 2011).
K10D, DA-L 55-300, hand held, camera in green mode, ISO 400 - no Exposure compensation. I did take a couple of images at ISO 200, but felt that 1/45 at 300mm was stressing things a bit too much. The short answer is that I am impressed with the DA-L 55-300. I actually expected less of it than I got. Once I have run some more normal tests with it, I will post a review. The next test, I think, will be a hockey game or perhaps figure skating.

CP Rail runs a holiday train every year, with proceeds to the local food bank in the communities where it stops. My wife and I went down to have a look. The white "noise" is snow falling. The pictures were taken a few minutes before sunset. If you open the files on my Flickr site, you can see some typical K10D noise resulting from relative underexposure and ISO 400 combined.

Post Processing: I copied the images from the camera card to a folder on my hard drive (62 images). I then created a DxO project which produced another 62 images. They can be told apart by the _Dx0 suffix on the file names. The DxO images converted the in camera PEF files to DNG using the defaults for the lens+camera combination. DxO does not differentiate between the DA 55-300 and the DA-L 55-300. I then started Lightroom 3.5 and imported all 64 images using Lightroom's defaults.

Any fellow PF member is welcome to examine these images on my Flickr site. They have been uploaded at full resolution. You can tell them apart quite easily, even without checking the file names. DxO detected underexposure and corrected somewhat. I found the images were good with another 1.33 to 2.0 stops, but have left these imiages untouched for you.

Here are a pair of images to tempt you. This engine was parked, and it is the first image on the card. I took them just to see what unlit stuff can do. I'm sorry, but the EXIF does not seem to have survived the upload. Full EXIF is available on Flickr. Here is a summary:
K10D, DA-L 55-300, ISO 400, Pattern meter, 300mm, 1/500 @ f/8

Attached Images

   

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Last edited by Canada_Rockies; 12-11-2011 at 11:20 PM.

[Docrwm]

Congratulations on the DAL 55-300, its a very competent lens and should serve you well. BTW, what did you say that white stuff all over your pics is? ;->

[Jimbo]

I have seen the Christmas Train at my old home town, Revelstoke BC. Cool train. Here is one I took a couple of years ago with my K10. Cheers and you can keep winter there please. JIMBO

[Azzy]

it really is a great lens, though it is ~$100 too expensive. If nikon can release theirs with VR and their SWM motor for $250 why can't pentax