[aslyfox]

Kingfishers

Malachite Kingfisher Alcedo cristata - Malachite Kingfishers | Beauty of Birds

Grey-headed Kingfisher Halcyon leucocepha - Grey-headed Kingfishers | Beauty of Birds

found along the banks of the Rufiji River in the Selous Game Reserve

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[acoufap]

K-1 • FF mode • DA55-300PLM @108 • IS0200 • f/5 • 1/125s • slight pp crop

[aslyfox]

on our recent trip to Tanzania, my D FA 150-450mm literally broke in half as we were traveling in the Serengeti

luckily I also hauled my HD Pentax-DA 55-300mm F4.5-6.3 ED PLM WR RE on the trip

it performed very well and became my only telephoto lens in the rest trip through the Serengeti and the Selous Game Reserve

male Greater Kudu Tragelaphus strepsiceros feeding in the Selous Game Reserve

the second largest member of the Antelope family

https://www.theanimalfiles.com/mammals/hoofed_mammals/kudu_greater.html

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there is a yellow baboon Papio cynocephalushiding in the foliage as well

http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/yellow_baboon





crop and pp

[ramseybuckeye]

Closeup and distant samples.


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[ThorSanchez]

Some more from Austria. First two from around Mittersill, the second two at the Kaiser Franz Josef Hohe on the Großglockner Hochapenstraße.

[aslyfox]

hippos in the river western Serengeti

doing what hippos do in the water

just be glad this isn't a scratch and sniff photo


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looking like the part -

the most dangerous animal in Africa [ with Red-billed Oxpeckers on board ] found in the Selous Game Reserve

[Benz3ne]

On the K-70, down Rhossili Bay yesterday. Managed to miss focus on what would've been an epic shot;


Post-processed and cropped anyway.

However, also snapped this one;


In retrospect should've brightened it up a smidge.

Found it a little tricky yesterday for whatever reason to absolutely nail the focus but that's almost certainly down to me. Spot focus and AF.S was used for the most part, though I dabbled with AF.C as well. I need a bit more airtime with it.
It's also safe to say that at full reach, it should be stopped down to about F/8 or smaller to get reasonable sharpness. F/6.3 makes edges come across quite soft (from my experience).

[jeallen01]

@Benz3ne

"Missed focus" may NOT have been your fault - similar issue was one of the first things I noted about the PLM very early on, and why the title of this thread includes the word "CAN'T"!

A number of other posters have noted similar behaviour, or that it sometimes locks onto the wrong targets.

For example, I was using mine with the K-70 yesterday at a local wildlife spot and when I started off with the lens focus distance almost correct then there was no problem in then finding/locking onto the "target" - but if the lens was not focused at roughly the appropriate distance, then I had a viewfinder full of "colourful fuzzy nothing" until the combo (generally) finally managed to find and lock the target.

[Benz3ne]

@Benz3ne

"Missed focus" may NOT have been your fault - similar issue was one of the first things I noted about the PLM very early on, and why the title of this thread includes the word "CAN'T"!

A number of other posters have noted similar behaviour, or that it sometimes locks onto the wrong targets.

For example, I was using mine with the K-70 yesterday at a local wildlife spot and when I started off with the lens focus distance almost correct then there was no problem in then finding/locking onto the "target" - but if the lens was not focused at roughly the appropriate distance, then I had a viewfinder full of "colourful fuzzy nothing" until the combo (generally) finally managed to find and lock the target.

Interesting - I wonder why that has been the case or what the 'fixes' (if any) for it are? It's not as if there wasn't enough contrast available so it's a curious issue.
Mine yesterday, also on a K-70, seems to achieve and lock focus quite quickly. On reviewing the pictures, some which I'm certain had the subject in focus, were slightly, or sometimes more than slightly, off. For the most part, the subject wasn't particularly small through the viewfinder...
I think there's certainly some user error at hand, so I'll have to try and become more familiar with this lens to eek the best out of it.

[normhead]

Very cool. The most important factors in birds in flight is lighting and access. Better than Pentax AF is way down the list.

[aslyfox]

Impala and Warthogs in the Selous Game Reserve

[normhead]

I've been getting queries about the DA 55-300 on a K-1.

I took a couple screen caps to show the amount of vignetting. At 300mm vignetting is minimal and image files are typically larger after cropping than APS_c file taken with ak-3.


You can see with this image the vignetting is heavier, but still produces a 16:9 cropped 24 MP image.


The largest I can get cropping a K-3 image to 16:9 is 16 MP, so there is still a distinct resolution advantage on FF even if you can't use the whole frame. You just have to leave a bit of space around the desired part of the image. And it sure beats carrying a heavier lens.
This one taken at 108mm, but you will see similar vignetting at many other focal lengths.

[Benz3ne]

Not that sharp to the pixel peepers, but handheld and cropped. Happy enough though room for improvement.

[Pål Jensen]

This lens punch above its weight. It is incredible to have the angle of view of a 450mm lens in 35/FF terms in such a small size and at such quality.
In the film days such things were science fiction.....

[normhead]

On a K-1


On a K-5




I think many just don't understand the optical quality of this lens.