Originally posted by Sam Dennis I am thinking of investing in a 300 - 400 mm prime for my k10d , that would be sharper than the zoom I have now (DA 55-300 ) , and I am on a low budget- so older lenses, probably. Any ideas or any particular lens that works well for you? I mostly use the telephoto for wildlife.
The 55-300 is actually very good, considering the price... as good or better than a lot of older manual primes at this focal length; at least, those that can be had for a low price.
Are you doing all you can with regard to post-processing your images? See below... this is a partial 100% crop of a photo taken with the HD DA 55-300. It shows the lichen on a distant chimney stack. I was actually focused on something a little further back, so the lichen isn't quite as well-focused as it could be, but no matter... On the left is the photo as it came out of the camera. Not too impressive. On the right is the same crop, but this time after the photo has been carefully sharpened. You can see that there's actually a lot more detail captured in the photo than was initially obvious.
Bear in mind, the crops below are at 100% reproduction. At a more realistic 50% or smaller, the sharpened output looks *great*!
By all means get a 300 - 400mm prime, but the 55-300 should be capable of excellent results at 300mm if you stop it down a bit, and especially if your sharpen your images in post