Hi,
I have very limited experience with tele lenses and was pretty sure that my 15+31+77 kit covers everything I need
. However, the amount of missed opportunities already reached critical numbers so I can not ignore that fact any longer.
The primary purpouse of the lens I want is taking some distant views of mountains peaks or rocks or some animal I spot while hiking in the mountains. The wheather there is unpredictable and changes very quickly from heavy rain/snow to bright sunny day so WR is a must (I had to pack K-5 with ltd lens as soon as it starts raining... I wish Pentax released a couple of WA DA* primes). Providing that I'll be carrying it all day long the weight is also a concern.
Taking all the above into consideration the questions are:
1) Which lens is sharper? I once borrowed a 28-300 Sigma lens and it was so soft at 300mm that zoomed at 150-180mm it gave more details after cropping. Can you say if, e.g. DA* 200 at F/4 is so much sharper than 60-250 at the same aperture at 250mm that it provides more details?
2) I read more than one topic on this forum where people complained about bad copies of 60-250. I practically don't have an option to return a lens because shipping cost is very high. Well, I have but I'll have to pay at least half the cost and have a long unpleasant conversation with the seller. The question is how often do you get bad copies of DA*200/300?
3) Which of the lenses focuses faster on K-5? Is AF speed of any of the lens is better on K-5 II(s) than on K-5?
4) Which lens, 200 or 300 is closer to magnification one gets with 8x46 binocular?
5) Which lens, 300 or 60-250 appears darker in viewfinder (or maybe T-value is known somewhere)? I don't really like to compose with DA 15 F/4 lens compared to bright 1.8 on two other limiteds I have or even to 16-50 F/2.8 I had.
6) Is lens creep an issue on 60-250?
7) How easy it is to hand-hold DA* 300 to get decent sharpness? I heard that SR is not that good with tele lens. I mean, the most probable use case of the lens will be quick taking from the bag, reverse the hood and shoot, a half a minute at most, so tripod is rarely an option.
8) Having in mind that Pentax one day will release DA* teleconverter, wouldn't it be more practical to have it along with DA* 200 in the bag than to carry DA* 300?