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03-18-2020, 10:02 AM   #16
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QuoteOriginally posted by normhead Quote
It's funny, years ago I bought the Sigma 70 macro 2.8 which is a very good lens (and my favourite portrait lens on FF.) So I was never tempted by either the 77 or the 85, so I'm in the same boat. Why duplicate capabilities you already have when there are capabilities you don't have?
I would have to agree with Normhead.

I've got a DF A Pentax WR Macro 100 F 2.8 and I find that it is pretty good as a portrait lens as well as being a macro lens. I've used it a lot in taking inside, available light pics of my very young grandson who whips around very quickly. To me the pics are very good with the 100 macro. I focus on his eyes, track him until he has a particularly endearing 'look' on his face and hit the shutter button.

Works well with my K1 and macro 100. One of the great things about the K1 is the resolution. I don't think twice about using 1600 ISO or higher. What a difference from the old film days when I was using Tri-X 400 .

03-18-2020, 11:07 AM   #17
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QuoteOriginally posted by lesmore49 Quote
I would have to agree with Normhead.

I've got a DF A Pentax WR Macro 100 F 2.8 and I find that it is pretty good as a portrait lens as well as being a macro lens. I've used it a lot in taking inside, available light pics of my very young grandson who whips around very quickly. To me the pics are very good with the 100 macro. I focus on his eyes, track him until he has a particularly endearing 'look' on his face and hit the shutter button.

Works well with my K1 and macro 100. One of the great things about the K1 is the resolution. I don't think twice about using 1600 ISO or higher. What a difference from the old film days when I was using Tri-X 400 .
Actually, considering the OP subject, if doing the kind of shots were what the OP was interested in, i.e., indoors and motion, the f4 value of the DFA 70-210 makes it a bit difficult to use indoors. Haven't actually tried mine indoors but when I've shot action like birds in flight, it's not super fast (or really reliable) in capturing such motion.
03-18-2020, 12:30 PM   #18
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Thanks guy for your advice. Sorry my typo, I can only afford either one lens, cant get both.

It is make sense to choose the DFA 70-210 instead of FA85. For 70-200 f2.8, it is way too heavy and expensive.

I mostly using 50mm to take photos for my kids, sometimes FA 77, but 50mm is my walk around lens. I want to buy the 70-210 but not sure i will really use it. Dont wanna waste money for the thing i dont really use.

---------- Post added 03-18-2020 at 12:43 PM ----------

Also I have FA 100 macro too (old version), i barely use this lens may be one or two times in my Pentax life.
03-18-2020, 01:33 PM   #19
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QuoteOriginally posted by kinkindoll Quote
Thanks guy for your advice. Sorry my typo, I can only afford either one lens, cant get both.

It is make sense to choose the DFA 70-210 instead of FA85. For 70-200 f2.8, it is way too heavy and expensive.

I mostly using 50mm to take photos for my kids, sometimes FA 77, but 50mm is my walk around lens. I want to buy the 70-210 but not sure i will really use it. Dont wanna waste money for the thing i dont really use.

---------- Post added 03-18-2020 at 12:43 PM ----------

Also I have FA 100 macro too (old version), i barely use this lens may be one or two times in my Pentax life.
You may have to forgo the long lens thing then.
I've always had preference for longer focal lengths so I'm not best to be advising you. But at least give the DA 55-300 PLM a look. It's the perfect, "I don't really need a telephoto but I might use one sometimes" telephoto. It doesn't surprise me you don't use your 100 macro, it's too short to be long and too long to be short. Most of the time I use mine for macro and small flowers.

But the big question before buying anything between is where do you currently miss out, not wide enough, or not long enough.

WIth the widest being a 31, a DFA 24-70 LSO sounds like a good option.

If I were you I'd recreating smart folders for different focal lengths so I could see at what focal lengths I'm currently using. That's hard for you because you don't have telephoto option so the number of images you're going to have would be 0. But your lack of use of the 100 says, telephoto is not a good idea. Another option would be turning your 100 into a 140 with the 1.4 TC.

If you're shooting a lot with the 31, the 24-70 will increase your range.
If you're shooting with the 50, the 24-70 also will be useful.
If a lot of your use is between your 77 and 100 then the 70-210 makes sense.
A see things heavily weighted towards the 24-70, just from what you've said.

Is suspect a good 20 or 24 would also be of interest... but we are waiting for those lenses to be even put on the road map.


Last edited by normhead; 03-18-2020 at 01:38 PM.
03-18-2020, 02:20 PM   #20
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QuoteOriginally posted by normhead Quote
You may have to forgo the long lens thing then.
I've always had preference for longer focal lengths so I'm not best to be advising you. But at least give the DA 55-300 PLM a look. It's the perfect, "I don't really need a telephoto but I might use one sometimes" telephoto. It doesn't surprise me you don't use your 100 macro, it's too short to be long and too long to be short. Most of the time I use mine for macro and small flowers.

But the big question before buying anything between is where do you currently miss out, not wide enough, or not long enough.

WIth the widest being a 31, a DFA 24-70 LSO sounds like a good option.

If I were you I'd recreating smart folders for different focal lengths so I could see at what focal lengths I'm currently using. That's hard for you because you don't have telephoto option so the number of images you're going to have would be 0. But your lack of use of the 100 says, telephoto is not a good idea. Another option would be turning your 100 into a 140 with the 1.4 TC.

If you're shooting a lot with the 31, the 24-70 will increase your range.
If you're shooting with the 50, the 24-70 also will be useful.
If a lot of your use is between your 77 and 100 then the 70-210 makes sense.
A see things heavily weighted towards the 24-70, just from what you've said.

Is suspect a good 20 or 24 would also be of interest... but we are waiting for those lenses to be even put on the road map.
I have only K-1, sold my K3II to fund my full frame when it came out. The old goodies are K10 and ist L. I was thinking 55-300 but is on APS-C body, i dont wanna use the crop mode on my K-1.

Thank you for your suggestion to evaluate the lens i currently have, for the wide lens, i have 24-70mm to me i think is enough in this range, it is difficult to me to shoot wider than 24mm, hard to do the composition personally.

For tele lens, i have FA 100mm only (the max focal lengths), that is the reason I want to purchase 70-210mm.

I used to shoot birds but I have kids now and dont have time to go out myself to do the shooting, now mostly taking photos for my kids.

Thanks anyway
03-18-2020, 02:29 PM - 1 Like   #21
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I guess I haven't posted my examples in this thread. There's no reason to use the lens in "crop mode."
IMHO the DA 55-300 PLM is fine for the K-1, as long as you plan to corp. If you think you need every pixel of 36 MP then avoid it. But if a 30 MP crop is good enough......

I've posted this so many times I just assumed I'd posted it here.

The amount of resolution increase from a K-5 will be rather acute even with APS-c lenses. My DA 55-300 gave me cropped 24 MP field that would have been 11 MP on a K-5.

DA 55-300 on K-1

Still a 26 MP file, even better than I could do with a k-3.Twice the resolution of a K-5 file, even using a crop lens.

If you shoot in FF mode and do the cropping yourself, many APS-c lenses will still give you much better than APs-c performance.

In this case, using the same crop I would have used anyway, twice as much.

I did a 19 day canoe trip with nothing but the DFA 28-105, and DA 55-300 PLM... the 28-105 covers most of the focal lengths where the DA 55-300 PLM vignettes badly.

Note: Cropping to 16:9 I can crop to both edges of the frame and get a 30 MP file, that would be absolutely no different using an "FF" lens. But then I crop most of my work to 16:9. I have a DA*60-250, DA*200, Tamron 300 SP AF 2.8, and F 70-210, and I chose the DA 55-300 for my trip, because it performs well enough to ignore its deficiencies as an FF lens.

But hey, that's just me. If you want to carry a 2 pound lens for casual "I probably won't need it use" then go for it.

Last edited by normhead; 03-18-2020 at 02:34 PM.
03-18-2020, 02:31 PM   #22
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QuoteOriginally posted by kinkindoll Quote
Dont wanna waste money for the thing i dont really use.
You certainly won't use it if you don't have it

Seriously, 210mm is a lot longer than 100mm. You might discover a new way of looking at things, which is one of the attractions of photography for me.

But Norm's suggestion of the 55-300 is very sound.

03-18-2020, 02:38 PM   #23
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Thanks Norm for your suggestion, appreciated

---------- Post added 03-18-2020 at 02:41 PM ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by Sandy Hancock Quote
You certainly won't use it if you don't have it

Seriously, 210mm is a lot longer than 100mm. You might discover a new way of looking at things, which is one of the attractions of photography for me.

But Norm's suggestion of the 55-300 is very sound.
Hi Sandy, known from the other posts you have the DFA 70-210, may I ask how do to find the lens so far ? fast AF and good image quality, what is your overall comments, thanks
03-18-2020, 03:36 PM   #24
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It's much lighter than I expected - it almost feels trivial on the K-1.
Its narrow profile and parallel-sided hood makes it easy to get in and out of a bag. I have the DFA* 70-200/2.8 and the difference is shocking.
Focus is plenty quick enough, but can be finicky in low light.
It zooms internally, which is a feature I value greatly.
My copy's image quality seems really excellent. Album HERE

For what it's worth, I also have the DA* 50-135/2.8, DA* 60-250/4.0 and DA 55-300/4.5-6.3 PLM. The DFA 70-210/4.0 is rapidly becoming my favourite telezoom. Apart from the DFA 150-450/4.5-5.6 of course, but that's a different beast entirely.
03-18-2020, 06:07 PM   #25
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QuoteOriginally posted by Sandy Hancock Quote
It's much lighter than I expected - it almost feels trivial on the K-1.
Its narrow profile and parallel-sided hood makes it easy to get in and out of a bag. I have the DFA* 70-200/2.8 and the difference is shocking.
Focus is plenty quick enough, but can be finicky in low light.
It zooms internally, which is a feature I value greatly.
My copy's image quality seems really excellent. Album HERE

For what it's worth, I also have the DA* 50-135/2.8, DA* 60-250/4.0 and DA 55-300/4.5-6.3 PLM. The DFA 70-210/4.0 is rapidly becoming my favourite telezoom. Apart from the DFA 150-450/4.5-5.6 of course, but that's a different beast entirely.
Thanks Sandy, i think i will pull the trigger today
03-19-2020, 03:08 AM   #26
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I think the DFA 70-210 is a good choice. As others have said, I don't know that the FA *85 would give that much benefit over the FA 77 (although Le Rolls did like it quite a bit better). I would start to save though, for the DFA *85 as I think that will be the real deal and offer sealing, fast auto focus, and less purple fringing than the FA 77 (albeit in a much bigger package). However I doubt that it will come out before the end of the year and probably with COVID 19, next year some time.
03-19-2020, 05:06 AM   #27
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QuoteOriginally posted by kinkindoll Quote
Thanks Sandy, i think i will pull the trigger today
It's very unlikely you'll be disappointed.
03-19-2020, 11:34 AM   #28
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QuoteOriginally posted by normhead Quote
It's very unlikely you'll be disappointed.
hope the size of the new DFA 85 will be as same as FA 85.

Back in the old day, most fast lenses are small even though F1.4 or F1.2, now maybe the manufacturers want to improve the overall optical performance and made the size bigger, but Leica's lenses are very small with excellent quality
03-19-2020, 11:54 AM   #29
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QuoteOriginally posted by Sandy Hancock Quote
It's much lighter than I expected - it almost feels trivial on the K-1.
Its narrow profile and parallel-sided hood makes it easy to get in and out of a bag. I have the DFA* 70-200/2.8 and the difference is shocking.
Focus is plenty quick enough, but can be finicky in low light.
It zooms internally, which is a feature I value greatly.
My copy's image quality seems really excellent. Album HERE

For what it's worth, I also have the DA* 50-135/2.8, DA* 60-250/4.0 and DA 55-300/4.5-6.3 PLM. The DFA 70-210/4.0 is rapidly becoming my favourite telezoom. Apart from the DFA 150-450/4.5-5.6 of course, but that's a different beast entirely.
Sandy, I looked at your album, I had no idea that lens was so sharp.
03-19-2020, 01:54 PM   #30
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QuoteOriginally posted by TerryL Quote
Sandy, I looked at your album, I had no idea that lens was so sharp.
Thanks. It really is quite impressive
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