Originally posted by Miguel How disappointing. I'd do the same as you.
I'm curious about how you tested the lens' capabilities? Action shots, static shots, charts? How many shots in a sequence? I'm as much curious about how other shooters do this as I am about this lens. I've read lots of very good things about the Sigma "Sport" 120-300mm f2.8, but it's heavy, and I'm uncertain whether it's available in K-mount.
M
Well I started this morning by taking it to the zoo here, and everything I was shooting just wasn't as sharp. I chalked it up as harsh lighting/shadows and getting used to a new lens. When I got back home, I tested some depth shots. Having focus points set on the ground at different distances. I noticed it was never focused on my points. Static shots that should be crystal clear, were soft. I found it consistently back focusing quite a bit. I played with the cameras AF fine tuning and moved it forward some with some better results but then I found it searching to AF quite a bit more. F4-F8 should be money on this thing, and birds in the back yard were all much worse than the pics I've taken with my old 300mm Pentax. All taken on a tripod in good light. Occasionally I'd catch a bird in the lens sweet spot and pushing f10+ because a bird would fly back in the appropriate focus depth. Then my ISO would be high and it was still an ugly shot for me.
What is interesting, I noticed focus problems when I first shot that puma at the zoo yesterday. Looking at the images I found certain pics coming in blurry in the front of the focal point and sharper in the back. Again, I just played with my focal points and it was sufficient, but at the end of the day, I thought that the puma pics weren't that good. Nice, but I was expecting better...
I played with it for about 8-10 hours today.. Took thousands of shots. I did everything I could to try and convince myself it was me and not the lens. I took my old KX and put my old 300mm on it and snapped hand held alongside with better results. That's when I knew, it was 100% the lens. I even made sure to test the camera, which my k3 is rather new itself, but all my other lenses were great. I've heard of this happening a few times with this lens needing calibration, and coming back perfect. I just think you want that out of the box when you spent $3500... I'm not familiar with these large Telephotos so maybe that's the norm, but it's just disappointing I need to wait a week or more for a replacement. Thank goodness for BHphotovideos return/exchange policy. Fingers crossed the next one is better.
On a side note: why is it my camera wanted to shoot everything at f2.8 on auto? I mean everything... Made no sense to me either. Is this a communication problem with the camera and lens, or a camera problem? My auto pics with this lens were OMG horrible. Made absolutely no sense to me. I had to shoot everything on manual mode to even get anything normal. Aperture mode and my shutter speed and ISO seemed extreme for the lighting, shutter mode and aperature was again stuck on 2.8... This thing was just a mess for me.
Last edited by MajorLeaguePentax; 07-24-2014 at 10:27 PM.