[Barry Pearson]

I envisage doing some testing and ending up with two or three values to memorise or carry around with me. Optimum focal Length. Optimum aperture. Limits on ISO for particular focal-length-equivalents for particular purposes.

Then I can use the D FA 28-105mm plus Lightroom as a superzoom--equivalent with confidence.

I've just done my first test.

I used a photo of a pilot in a Spitfire flying alongside the de Haviland Rapide that I was on. This was my original uncropped image, (downsized before uploading):
Air-to-air photos: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review
(If you view that image, and click on "!00% Zoom", you will get and insight into the capability of this lens).

I cropped the original 7360 x 4912 DNG version in Lightroom to 2574 x 1708, equivalent to using a 300mm lens from the same position.
Then I printed the result at A4 (on an uncalibrated printer), and also viewed it 1:1 on my 2560 x 1440 photo-monitor.

I'm astonished! I could hand the A4 print, from just 4.4 MP of the sensor, to another photographer, and not expect significant debate about image quality. The pilot's sunglasses are reasonably sharp. Every rivet and scratch on the Spitfire, inside and outside the cockpit, are sharp.
I would not enter the result into a competition! But for printing at A4 or A5 for handing around, for social media, and perhaps for a web gallery for aviation images (rather than a demonstration of image quality), I think it would be OK.

I shot at f/11, resulting in ISO 640. I would probably have got slightly sharper results at f/8 (where this lens has its best MTF at 105mm), with a correspondingly lower ISO (hence slightly less impact from the trace of noise).
Perhaps I would also have got better results had I not been shooting through an optically-imperfect window of a vibrating plane!

Conclusion so far: the D FA 28-105mm lens is a good walk-about lens on a K-1-series, even in cases where a focal length of 300mm would be ideal. Combined with Lightroom, it can validly be considered to be a superzoom-equivalent for casual use.
Care is required at capture time: use 105mm when longer focal lengths are prefered, preferably use f/8 or else f/11, keep ISO lowish, and obviously avoid camera shake as much as possible.
Lots of care is needed in Lightroom (or equivalent): use lens profile corrections, and pay careful attention to the Detail panel to optimise noise reduction and sharpening. I especially always use the Masking slider, to ensure that I don't sharpen noise. This enables me to use more sharpening than I could otherwise get away with.

I'll run lots more tests, with better capture parameters, for the equivalent of 150mm, 200mm, 250mm and 300mm. (I started with 300mm as a "proof of concept").
I now have a PSD file, the same pixel size as a K-1-series DNG, that I can "pretend" is a shot at 105mm. It has rectangles in it that correspond to each of the above focal lengths. So I can trivially crop it in Lightroom, and synchronise the crop with any DNG I choose. This will make it very easy to run those extra tests.

---------- Post added 2nd Jul 2018 at 10:45 AM ----------

Yes, the ability is very nice to have, but being forced to do it because one is lacking a full-frame superzoom lens is not as nice. I would call that making more work for myself, personally.

If you are waiting Ricoh/Pentax to release an FF superzoom, you are making things impossible for yourself for years!

There isn't one on the roadmap, and I haven't found even a rumour that there ever will be.
That could change, but it won't for years, because there is a backlog of 6 other FF lenses on the roadmap.

Meanwhile, I'll be using my existing D FA 28-105mm lens plus Lightroom as my superzoom-equivalent on my K-1ii, often carrying just this small, light lens, with super image quality, around.
(And I now know how to change lenses safely in bad conditions as well).

[Barry Pearson]

If you are waiting Ricoh/Pentax to release an FF superzoom, you are making things impossible for yourself for years!
There isn't one on the roadmap, and I haven't found even a rumour that there ever will be.
That could change, but it won't for years, because there is a backlog of 6 other FF lenses on the roadmap.

But ... Perhaps Ricoh/Pentax could do a deal with Tamron to obtain access to their lens components and fit Pentax-specific features to it?
Tamron officially launches 28-300mm F3.5-6.3 full frame superzoom: Digital Photography Review

It wouldn't be the first time. But, unless they are already working on this, (in which case why isn't it on the roadmap?), I would still expect this to take years.

[h4yn0nnym0u5e]

My observation is that the larger the sensor, the smaller the typical short-to-long zoom ratio. With FF, a ratio of 2 or 3 is common. With smaller sensors, far greater ratios are common.

I think the the problems of large-factor zoom ranges, (greater than 2 or 3, say), don't simply scale up linearly with sensor size. Perhaps the size and weight for a given zoom ratio scale up as the square or cube of the sensor size?

Hmmm. OK, so I just did a little calculation to take a guess at the engineering. I'm of a technical disposition, but I'm not an optics expert so take all this with a big pinch of salt...

I took the Q 06 15-45, DA* 50-135 and D FA* 70-200 as my reference points, and aimed for scaling factors from one to the other that I could then apply to the DA 18-270 to see what a FF version might be like. That may not be a super enough zoom for our OP, but it's the best I can do for now. It appears that "equivalent focal lengths" scale with crop factor (quotation marks to keep normhead off his hobby horse - please!), diameter scales as square root of CF, length scales as CF to the power of 0.85, and weight to CF squared; the first two probably make sense, the latter two just seem to be what happens... It's not perfect, but it's close.

Scaling up the DA 18-270 to FF would apparently give us a 28-400 lens weighing in at 1kg, with a diameter of 93mm (similar to the 70-200). The length would be 126mm, but presumably if it behaved like the 18-270 it would grow to 252mm as you zoomed (similar to the D FA 150-450). This doesn't sound like a totally outrageous lens to me - when I started I was envisaging an 8kg behemoth 200mm in diameter, but turns out it's just a 24-70 on steroids.

The trouble is, as others have pointed out, that with the limited design resources that Ricoh have, it doesn't look like a very marketable proposition. I'd imagine most FF owners use them for one specific purpose at a time, and choose the lens accordingly; the superzoom walkabout market is typically fulfilled by APS-C bodies, or even bridge cameras, so they wouldn't sell enough to justify designing it. This actually probably makes economic sense, as well - it'd be cheaper to buy a K-70 + 18-270 for just over $1100 than the never-likely-to-happen-even-in-2019 28-400 FF for your K-1.

Cheers

Jonathan

[normhead]

If you want a superzoom, try a Lumix 1000. Small sensor super zooms, can go as high as 30-1. My Pentax XG-1 is close to that. Then by the time you see APS-c sensors 18-300 is about 17:1. So the larger the sensor, the more difficult it is to make a super zoom. I have a Pentax 28-200 FF (Tamron design) and it's not that good a lens. The preferred model for full frames seems to be 4:1 or less.

For posting on the forum at 2560 x 21600 that 28-200 is fine. But that's a 3:1 reduction in size. If I pixel peep the images are not very good. So if that's good enough for you , find one of those. If you want a razor sharp lens for FF though, look 4: or under. I have no comment on the theory behind it. Those are just my oveservations.

My DA * 60-260 at about 4:1 is as good as any Pentax prime through out it's range.My DA 18-135 is really only top shelf at around 22-32mm. But, most of the time top shelf is wasted, and the time taken for a lens change isn't worth it. And the fact that an image isn't top shelf technically, doesn't mean it isn't top shelf as an artistic image. People worry way too much about gear and way to little about setting up their images.

I have shots taken with my old FA 35-80 on the K-1 I absolutely treasure. It cost me $75. Sometimes I think there should be a operate site for folks who want to solve their photographic issue in other ways besides owning the latest greatest gear. But that is not a popular approach. Everyone wants to shoot the things they are interested in and there are 1000 different perspectives, the only thing we all have in common is the gear.

[Barry Pearson]

Hmmm. OK, so I just did a little calculation to take a guess at the engineering. I'm of a technical disposition, but I'm not an optics expert so take all this with a big pinch of salt...

I took the Q 06 15-45, DA* 50-135 and D FA* 70-200 as my reference points, and aimed for scaling factors from one to the other that I could then apply to the DA 18-270 to see what a FF version might be like. That may not be a super enough zoom for our OP, but it's the best I can do for now. It appears that "equivalent focal lengths" scale with crop factor (quotation marks to keep normhead off his hobby horse - please!), diameter scales as square root of CF, length scales as CF to the power of 0.85, and weight to CF squared; the first two probably make sense, the latter two just seem to be what happens... It's not perfect, but it's close.

Scaling up the DA 18-270 to FF would apparently give us a 28-400 lens weighing in at 1kg, with a diameter of 93mm (similar to the 70-200). The length would be 126mm, but presumably if it behaved like the 18-270 it would grow to 252mm as you zoomed (similar to the D FA 150-450). This doesn't sound like a totally outrageous lens to me - when I started I was envisaging an 8kg behemoth 200mm in diameter, but turns out it's just a 24-70 on steroids.

The trouble is, as others have pointed out, that with the limited design resources that Ricoh have, it doesn't look like a very marketable proposition. I'd imagine most FF owners use them for one specific purpose at a time, and choose the lens accordingly; the superzoom walkabout market is typically fulfilled by APS-C bodies, or even bridge cameras, so they wouldn't sell enough to justify designing it. This actually probably makes economic sense, as well - it'd be cheaper to buy a K-70 + 18-270 for just over $1100 than the never-likely-to-happen-even-in-2019 28-400 FF for your K-1.

Thank you! That is useful analysis, in response to my nearly-evidence-free speculation.

An FF "28-400 lens weighing in at 1kg" would be a very interesting lens in the K-mount catalogue!

But I suspect it would have problems. The weight of the D FA 150-450mm is 2000 grams!
Presumably reducing the 450mm to 400mm would (significantly?) reduce the weight.
Perhaps the 28-400mm lens would have to be a constant f/5.6, which would also reduce the weight.
But extending the range to 28mm would increase the weight.

The 150-450mm lens has super image quality! (It has been my most-used lens for over 2 years).
I guess some of that would have to be sacrificed to keep down the weight of the 28-400mm lens.

[normhead]

The 150-450mm lens has super image quality! (It has been my most-used lens for over 2 years).
I guess some of that would have to be sacrificed to keep down the weight of the 28-400mm lens

The 150-450 is a 3:1 lens. Thinking you can get similar (or even acceptable) IQ out of a 15:1 lens might be overly optimistic.

As noted above, my 18-135 at 7:1 has excellent centre sharpness all through it's range and is top shelf at 24mm. as that zoom ratio goes up every thing else goes down the tube.

I am not aware of any zoom with over a 7:1 zoom ration that is known for it's excellence on either APS_c or full frame. And as the trend towards high IQ continues, zoom ranges are getting smaller if anything. The 18=55 kit has become 18-50. The 16-85 is 5:1 compared to the 7:1 of the 18-135. Same lens designer, but needed to make higher specs, so he had to reduce the zoom ranges. To go to full frame and step it up once again, for even higher IQ, the 28-105 is 3.75:1. There's theme here. It's would seem to be impossible to increase IQ without lowering the zoom ratio. And the wider the lens gets to be it's even worse. The 15-30 is 2:1. The 24-70 and 70-200 are not even 3:1. There's a theme here. Do you want IQ or do you want a high zoom ratio. Someone find me a lens that does both high zoom ratio and great IQ and I'll change my mind.

My Tamron/Pentax 28-200 isn't excellent anywhere in ti's range, and that's FF 7:1. ( But it was good enough for Pentax to license the design ). But I guess there could be a good one somewhere that I just haven't heard about. Current observation would argue 7:1 in APS_c can be excellent, as is my 18-135, but still better to go 5:1 like the 16-85. But in full frame with the an images circle covering twice the area, it's clearly harder to make a good quality lens. Or someone would have done it.

By this way of thinking, even imagining you can have a 15:1 zoom anywhere near close to the IQ of a 3:1 zoom is pretty crazy.

[Barry Pearson]

Someone find me a lens that does both high zoom ratio and great IQ and I'll change my mind.

My thoughts exactly!

I used to cover the range adequately on APS-C with 3 lenses: DA 12-24. DA 17-70, (later DA 16-85), DA* 60-250.

Now with FF it takes 4 .(You identified them).

(I don't include the D FA 28-105 in that 4. That is an unexpected bonus!)

[timw4mail]

As far as a walkaround zoom, I'm quite fond of my Tamron 28-300mm (A06) lens. Probably not top of the heap in terms of image quality, but I haven't noticed any glaring flaws in terms of rendering.

[h4yn0nnym0u5e]

Thank you! That is useful analysis, in response to my nearly-evidence-free speculation.

An FF "28-400 lens weighing in at 1kg" would be a very interesting lens in the K-mount catalogue!

But I suspect it would have problems. The weight of the D FA 150-450mm is 2000 grams!
Presumably reducing the 450mm to 400mm would (significantly?) reduce the weight.
Perhaps the 28-400mm lens would have to be a constant f/5.6, which would also reduce the weight.
But extending the range to 28mm would increase the weight.

The 150-450mm lens has super image quality! (It has been my most-used lens for over 2 years).
I guess some of that would have to be sacrificed to keep down the weight of the 28-400mm lens.

Yes, it's interesting that my scaling came up with a 1kg weight - maybe the 18-270 is super light at 453g, or maybe my analysis broke down at that point - wouldn't be the first time! With a K-1 that's a total of 2kg, if we said the 150-450 is more representative, you're looking at 3kg to lug around. Either way it's a fair bit, compared to just under 1.2kg for a K-70+18-270.

At the end of the day everyone has things they're prepared to compromise, and things they aren't. It's definitely worth asking questions like the OP's one, especially on a super-helpful forum like PF, but sometimes it turns out the answer is not what you want to hear, like (in this instance), "Ricoh are never likely to make what you want". Then you have to decide your best fallback position, be it using crop mode on the K-1, getting a Pentax APS-C body for those walkabout times, or jumping ship to a make that does (appear to...) do what you want. I was holding out for a FF Pentax DSLR for a few years, finally gave in and went for APS-C in 2006, a decade before the K-1 was launched! Then it was 2 more years before I got one, for financial reasons. But now I can use the vintage glass, which I didn't find very rewarding on APS-C. Compromises all the way along...

[madbrain]

I've just done my first test.

I used a photo of a pilot in a Spitfire flying alongside the de Haviland Rapide that I was on. This was my original uncropped image, (downsized before uploading):
Air-to-air photos: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review
(If you view that image, and click on "!00% Zoom", you will get and insight into the capability of this lens).

I cropped the original 7360 x 4912 DNG version in Lightroom to 2574 x 1708, equivalent to using a 300mm lens from the same position.
Then I printed the result at A4 (on an uncalibrated printer), and also viewed it 1:1 on my 2560 x 1440 photo-monitor.

I'm astonished! I could hand the A4 print, from just 4.4 MP of the sensor, to another photographer, and not expect significant debate about image quality. The pilot's sunglasses are reasonably sharp. Every rivet and scratch on the Spitfire, inside and outside the cockpit, are sharp.
I would not enter the result into a competition! But for printing at A4 or A5 for handing around, for social media, and perhaps for a web gallery for aviation images (rather than a demonstration of image quality), I think it would be OK.

Thanks. Those are nice photos, but I can't really make sense of them. Would you mind pointing to both the original uncropped picture (36MP) and then the corresponding cropped picture ?

Perhaps I would also have got better results had I not been shooting through an optically-imperfect window of a vibrating plane!

Now that is impressive.

Conclusion so far: the D FA 28-105mm lens is a good walk-about lens on a K-1-series, even in cases where a focal length of 300mm would be ideal. Combined with Lightroom, it can validly be considered to be a superzoom-equivalent for casual use.

Well, it's equivalent unless you intended to shoot at 300mm in the first place and then crop the picture Then the 105mm really doesn't cut it. Think moon shots or things like that.

Care is required at capture time: use 105mm when longer focal lengths are prefered, preferably use f/8 or else f/11, keep ISO lowish, and obviously avoid camera shake as much as possible.
Lots of care is needed in Lightroom (or equivalent): use lens profile corrections, and pay careful attention to the Detail panel to optimise noise reduction and sharpening. I especially always use the Masking slider, to ensure that I don't sharpen noise. This enables me to use more sharpening than I could otherwise get away with.

Thanks for the LR tips.

If you are waiting Ricoh/Pentax to release an FF superzoom, you are making things impossible for yourself for years!

Well, I'm not really waiting. I ordered an APS-C superzoom in the meantime, which will be here thursday. Sigma 18-300 APS-C.
I'm still wishing for a full-frame lens, though. If I manage to find a working copy of the older 28-300 FF lenses (Tamron or Sigma) affordably, I will acquire one still, and report on how it compares with shooting in APS-C.
I'm generally not shooting in bright daylight like you are, though. I'm still a night owl and thus prefer night photography. Need to fix this at least temporarily by next week as my new job's orientation is at 7:30am 20 miles from home which will likely be an hour drive in Bay area traffic . I haven't waken up at 6am in years. It should be OK after that hopefully.

---------- Post added 07-03-18 at 02:03 PM ----------

But ... Perhaps Ricoh/Pentax could do a deal with Tamron to obtain access to their lens components and fit Pentax-specific features to it?
Tamron officially launches 28-300mm F3.5-6.3 full frame superzoom: Digital Photography Review

It wouldn't be the first time. But, unless they are already working on this, (in which case why isn't it on the roadmap?), I would still expect this to take years.

Yes, it's unfortunate that it's not on the roadmap already.

---------- Post added 07-03-18 at 02:14 PM ----------

Hmmm. OK, so I just did a little calculation to take a guess at the engineering. I'm of a technical disposition, but I'm not an optics expert so take all this with a big pinch of salt...

I took the Q 06 15-45, DA* 50-135 and D FA* 70-200 as my reference points, and aimed for scaling factors from one to the other that I could then apply to the DA 18-270 to see what a FF version might be like. That may not be a super enough zoom for our OP, but it's the best I can do for now. It appears that "equivalent focal lengths" scale with crop factor (quotation marks to keep normhead off his hobby horse - please!), diameter scales as square root of CF, length scales as CF to the power of 0.85, and weight to CF squared; the first two probably make sense, the latter two just seem to be what happens... It's not perfect, but it's close.

Scaling up the DA 18-270 to FF would apparently give us a 28-400 lens weighing in at 1kg, with a diameter of 93mm (similar to the 70-200). The length would be 126mm, but presumably if it behaved like the 18-270 it would grow to 252mm as you zoomed (similar to the D FA 150-450). This doesn't sound like a totally outrageous lens to me - when I started I was envisaging an 8kg behemoth 200mm in diameter, but turns out it's just a 24-70 on steroids.

The trouble is, as others have pointed out, that with the limited design resources that Ricoh have, it doesn't look like a very marketable proposition. I'd imagine most FF owners use them for one specific purpose at a time, and choose the lens accordingly; the superzoom walkabout market is typically fulfilled by APS-C bodies, or even bridge cameras, so they wouldn't sell enough to justify designing it. This actually probably makes economic sense, as well - it'd be cheaper to buy a K-70 + 18-270 for just over $1100 than the never-likely-to-happen-even-in-2019 28-400 FF for your K-1.

Cheers

Jonathan

I think no one has produced a 28-400mm lens in full frame format yet, so we don't really know what such a lens actually would be like.
Astute readers of this thread may have noticed that I didn't cite weight as one of my primary concerns. My K-1 II + grip + 70-300 is 4.4 lbs . Maybe 0.25 lbs less with the 28-105 . I regularly carry a bunch of lenses in my bag.
Volume does bother me a little bit more than weight, as I don't want to be forced to carry a backpack, I want to stick to shoulder bag style and neck strap.
I use a Tamrac Adventure Messenger 4 bag with one extra side pocket attached. It weighs 10.5 lbs containing the camera, battery grip, 12 eneloops (6 inside, 6 spare), D FA 28-105 attached, Sigma 70-300, FA50/1.4, DA35, and a Shanny 600 flash (that I normally don't carry, have never really used it yet).
Once I get the superzoom, I would probably swap the flash for the Sigma 18-300, or the 70-300 for the 18-300, depending on what I might be shooting that day.

My issue with needing a superzoom really isn't about weight at all, but rather, about situations that make it inconvenient to switch lens.

---------- Post added 07-03-18 at 02:20 PM ----------

If you want a superzoom, try a Lumix 1000. Small sensor super zooms, can go as high as 30-1. My Pentax XG-1 is close to that. Then by the time you see APS-c sensors 18-300 is about 17:1. So the larger the sensor, the more difficult it is to make a super zoom. I have a Pentax 28-200 FF (Tamron design) and it's not that good a lens. The preferred model for full frames seems to be 4:1 or less.

For posting on the forum at 2560 x 21600 that 28-200 is fine. But that's a 3:1 reduction in size. If I pixel peep the images are not very good. So if that's good enough for you , find one of those. If you want a razor sharp lens for FF though, look 4: or under. I have no comment on the theory behind it. Those are just my oveservations.

My DA * 60-260 at about 4:1 is as good as any Pentax prime through out it's range.My DA 18-135 is really only top shelf at around 22-32mm. But, most of the time top shelf is wasted, and the time taken for a lens change isn't worth it. And the fact that an image isn't top shelf technically, doesn't mean it isn't top shelf as an artistic image. People worry way too much about gear and way to little about setting up their images.

I have shots taken with my old FA 35-80 on the K-1 I absolutely treasure. It cost me $75. Sometimes I think there should be a operate site for folks who want to solve their photographic issue in other ways besides owning the latest greatest gear. But that is not a popular approach. Everyone wants to shoot the things they are interested in and there are 1000 different perspectives, the only thing we all have in common is the gear.

Lumix 100 has a small sensor. I have a GX85. I have already explained why I don't like it . Takes good picture in daytime, but hard to use in sunlight. Takes bad pictures at nighttime. I will not invest in a superzoom in micro 4/3 format. My GX85 is mainly a video camera and will likely stay home forever until I get a proper FF 4K video camera with no recording time limit to replace it (one can dream).

I rarely post photos on forums so that's not a very relevant use case. My monitor is 4K though, so that's about 8MP. Actually I have 3 monitors totaling 18MP (two UHD 4K, one HD portrait). Printing is more relevant. Have a 4K projector too in my home theater and might showcase pics there. Again 8MP of real resolution would be nice to have.

I was fairly satisfied with my old Pentax DA 18-250 in APS-C, except for night time shots where it fell short.

AFAIK the DA* 60-260 isn't FF. Neither is the DA 18-135. The FA 35-80 is FF, but I have the D FA 28-105 so really don't need a 35-80 .
The whole point of the thread is to find a single lens for situations when changing lens is undesirable.

---------- Post added 07-03-18 at 02:25 PM ----------

I am not aware of any zoom with over a 7:1 zoom ration that is known for it's excellence on either APS_c or full frame. And as the trend towards high IQ continues, zoom ranges are getting smaller if anything. The 18=55 kit has become 18-50. The 16-85 is 5:1 compared to the 7:1 of the 18-135. Same lens designer, but needed to make higher specs, so he had to reduce the zoom ranges. To go to full frame and step it up once again, for even higher IQ, the 28-105 is 3.75:1. There's theme here. It's would seem to be impossible to increase IQ without lowering the zoom ratio. And the wider the lens gets to be it's even worse. The 15-30 is 2:1. The 24-70 and 70-200 are not even 3:1. There's a theme here. Do you want IQ or do you want a high zoom ratio. Someone find me a lens that does both high zoom ratio and great IQ and I'll change my mind.

My Tamron/Pentax 28-200 isn't excellent anywhere in ti's range, and that's FF 7:1. ( But it was good enough for Pentax to license the design ). But I guess there could be a good one somewhere that I just haven't heard about. Current observation would argue 7:1 in APS_c can be excellent, as is my 18-135, but still better to go 5:1 like the 16-85. But in full frame with the an images circle covering twice the area, it's clearly harder to make a good quality lens. Or someone would have done it.

By this way of thinking, even imagining you can have a 15:1 zoom anywhere near close to the IQ of a 3:1 zoom is pretty crazy.

I think it is pretty much a given that a superzoom will always have IQ compromises vs primes or shorter range zoom. And they would not be fast lenses or they would be way too huge.

What may be acceptable in terms of IQ to one person may not be to another. Knowing this I'm just looking for the "least bad" compromise.
There really are no sharpness metrics available for any K-1 FF lenses, not even native lenses, so very little data to compare anything with. In particular, I would really like the sharpness data on the old FF Tamron/Sigma 28-300 zooms on K-1 / K-1 II.
They may well beat 18-200 APS-C lenses in crop mode (or 18-250, 18-300, though those have more range).

---------- Post added 07-03-18 at 02:28 PM ----------

My thoughts exactly!

I used to cover the range adequately on APS-C with 3 lenses: DA 12-24. DA 17-70, (later DA 16-85), DA* 60-250.

Now with FF it takes 4 .(You identified them).

(I don't include the D FA 28-105 in that 4. That is an unexpected bonus!)

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem covering the ranges I want in FF with multiple lenses.
D-FA 28-105 and Sigma 70-300 cover almost all the ranges I need, except ultrawide.

But the thread is for situations when changing lenses is too inconvenient. Thus, suggesting a 3rd, 4th, 5th lens to add to the bag doesn't really help, but just makes the problem worse - more lenses to change, in situations when one doesn't want to change lens.

I will be happy to make IQ comparisons between my lenses (including the APS-C superzoom when I get it). Not sure what an ideal test subject would be.

[Barry Pearson]

Thanks. Those are nice photos, but I can't really make sense of them. Would you mind pointing to both the original uncropped picture (36MP) and then the corresponding cropped picture ?.

I'm preparing a whole set of such images, of various subjects, in the pairs that you suggest. The uncropped photos will show the whole image, but I'll downsize them, because they aren't intended for pixel peeping. The cropped version will not be downsized, and will be about 2576 by 1719, suitable for downloading and/or pixel peeping.

I'll provide a link here, hopefully in a few days.

My personal judgment so far is that their acceptability depends on what they are to be used for. They should typically print at A4, and print well at A5. But I wouldn't put them in front of a judge. I'm not sure whether they would be good enough for a web gallery intended to be looked at by photographers, but they should be OK for viewing by colleagues and family. They would be OK for social media. I'm wondering about entry into international exhibitions. For example, one for which I've recently received an invitation wants 1920 pixels by 1200 pixels, which would provide a bit of contingency.

Although I started this as a response to you,it has become a project for my own sake! I've improved my knowledge of the lens, and tweaked my Lightroom skills.

Also, I did an investigation into the results I was getting with my 6 MP (3K by 2K) Pentax *istD in 2004, 2005, and 2006. After all, there isn't a lot of difference between a slight cropped *istD photo and what I'm talking about here. I've posted that particular investigation (with plenty of not-downsized photos) at:
Some old photos taken with a *istD: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

Click on any image to enter gallery mode, where the images can be downloaded. I did put some of those in front of judges, printed at A3! And that was pre Photoshop CS3 and pre Lightroom.

[TwoUptons]

I think if I was really itching for a large-sensor superzoom, I would either suffer with APS-C and an 18-300 (which is close to a -400 in full frame) or get a Nikon 810 with theirs.

If nothing else, resale probably wouldn’t be horrible if you got them used...

-Eric

[madbrain]

I think if I was really itching for a large-sensor superzoom, I would either suffer with APS-C and an 18-300 (which is close to a -400 in full frame)

The 18-300 APS-C would be 28-450 in full frame actually. Not that this extreme end is really necessary. 18-250 provided a very decent range and would be 28-375 equivalent in FF.

or get a Nikon 810 with theirs.

If nothing else, resale probably wouldn’t be horrible if you got them used...

-Eric

I don't really wish to learn/own yet another system at this point, though I have one for stills (Pentax) and one for video (Panasonic). I would hope that should be enough. And I really only do stills when I travel.
I don't have a desire to carry multiple bodies as previously indicated. It would be a bit silly to carry a second body just for the superzoom, IMO. I can't fit two FF bodies in my shoulder bag. Even one APS-C (K-30) + one FF (K-1 II) wouldn't fit unless maybe I removed all the dividers and didn't bring any extra lenses. But I don't really see the point of bringing along the K-30. If I'm going to shoot with an 18-300 APS-C superzoom, it may as well be mounted on the K-1 II . It won't perform any worse on that body in crop mode. Same number pixels, more AF points, better ISO.

---------- Post added 07-03-18 at 06:11 PM ----------

I'm preparing a whole set of such images, of various subjects, in the pairs that you suggest. The uncropped photos will show the whole image, but I'll downsize them, because they aren't intended for pixel peeping. The cropped version will not be downsized, and will be about 2576 by 1719, suitable for downloading and/or pixel peeping.

I'll provide a link here, hopefully in a few days.

My personal judgment so far is that their acceptability depends on what they are to be used for. They should typically print at A4, and print well at A5. But I wouldn't put them in front of a judge. I'm not sure whether they would be good enough for a web gallery intended to be looked at by photographers, but they should be OK for viewing by colleagues and family. They would be OK for social media. I'm wondering about entry into international exhibitions. For example, one for which I've recently received an invitation wants 1920 pixels by 1200 pixels, which would provide a bit of contingency.

Although I started this as a response to you,it has become a project for my own sake! I've improved my knowledge of the lens, and tweaked my Lightroom skills.

Also, I did an investigation into the results I was getting with my 6 MP (3K by 2K) Pentax *istD in 2004, 2005, and 2006. After all, there isn't a lot of difference between a slight cropped *istD photo and what I'm talking about here. I've posted that particular investigation (with plenty of not-downsized photos) at:
Some old photos taken with a *istD: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

Click on any image to enter gallery mode, where the images can be downloaded. I did put some of those in front of judges, printed at A3! And that was pre Photoshop CS3 and pre Lightroom.

I'm certainly not worried about judges as I have never put a photo in front of one, and don't really envision that I would. But if I ever did, I might not choose pics taken with the superzoom for that purpose. I take enough pictures with other lenses (about 2/3 of them) that are supposed to be optically better.

I had a K200D for the longest time. A lot of the pics shot with it and superzoom (DA 18-250 mostly) are fairly decent. For daytime, they are certainly good. It's when it gets to evening and night time that things get more difficult. The K-30 with its higher ISO made things much better, but still not ideal. I went to FF (K-1 II) mainly for night time. More light with FF sensor, and better ISO performance. The use cases I mentioned for superzoom before (like zoo) don't usually overlap with night-time too much, though.

[Barry Pearson]

Thanks. Those are nice photos, but I can't really make sense of them. Would you mind pointing to both the original uncropped picture (36MP) and then the corresponding cropped picture ?.

I thought I had responded to this with my results, but apparently not. See:

Using the D FA 28-105mm lens as a superzoom-equivalent

There are 11 pairs of photos there: the uncropped original at 105mm, and the cropped version equivalent to the field of view of of a 300mm lens. The latter versions are not downsized, so they can be used for pixel-peeping.

Click on any photo to enter gallery-mode.

There are also some comments from others about the trial.

I've included a post on changing lenses safely in bad conditions:
Changing and using lenses in bad conditions

[madbrain]

I thought I had responded to this with my results, but apparently not. See:

Using the D FA 28-105mm lens as a superzoom-equivalent

There are 11 pairs of photos there: the uncropped original at 105mm, and the cropped version equivalent to the field of view of of a 300mm lens. The latter versions are not downsized, so they can be used for pixel-peeping.

Click on any photo to enter gallery-mode.

There are also some comments from others about the trial.

I've included a post on changing lenses safely in bad conditions:
Changing and using lenses in bad conditions

Thanks. I will take a look more in detail at your shots. Just received my Sigma 18-300 an hour ago and have been taking a few shots with it on my K-1 II. I have been using the inside of my grand piano for test shots so far. The lens seems very good in its native APS-C mode (crop mode).

But it is only f6.3 at 300mm and the ISO is ramping up to 8000-25600 (I have my ISO set to AUTO 100-25,600). This is with all ceiling lights on and daylight through the windows as well. The piano lid is obstructing a fair amount of light (shade). I will have to mount my Shanny 600 flash to get proper lighting.

Tried with the Tamron 1.4x TC as well. The autofocus definitely hunts in those conditions. There is vignetting visible even in the viewfinder. Lightroom cannot fully correct it even with the max vignetting correction (200) . In APS-C shots (without TC), LR can fully correct the vignetting (it automatically detected the correct lens profile for the Sigma 18-300).

Not sure yet if the TC is hurting the sharpness or not, it's not obvious from the few shots I looked at so far, and really hard to tell with the very high ISO value. Definitely need to retake the shots with flash to get a better sense and will post them then.

Now, it's time for me to get the our three cats in their kennel for vaccinations. Wish me luck ! One of them got so scared on tuesday that I gave up. Second attempt, now with my husband's help.