So here I am again, asking the good people of the forums on advice about how to wreck my finances
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The thing is, I'm slightly short (hah) on lens options - my longest lens reaches 210mm. However, I've been finding myself in situations where I want to have giant sun disks (or just take some photos of distant landscape) and I
might start dabbling in astrophotography in the near future. So I'm in the market for a long telephoto. It's not something that I would consider a walkaround lens or even something that's going to get super frequent use, so I don't want to spend an arm and a leg*. I also have no real interest in wildlife so I'm pretty sure I can manage manual focus, it's hard to miss a mountain
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The only camera is the K-1 so FF-compatible lenses are preferred. Ideally in K-mount but I suppose I could work with M42.
Options I have considered so far:
-Super Cosina 100-500mm f/5.6-8 macro (I found a cheap one). Looks fairly competent but I haven't seen any into-the-sun samples and flare is typically a problem with such old designs...
-Pentax FA 80-320. I think it would mostly overlap with my Tokina 70-210/4.5 and the image quality seems to drop quite sharply at the long end which is where I'd like to use, but how bad would it be? Otherwise it's actually light and f/4.5 until 200mm, which is great in theory...
-Pentax DA 55-300 PLM. Might as well get a one-size-fits-all for hiking, but it's already about as much as I'm willing to spend right now
because the 21 Limited won't be cheap.
-One of those generic 400mm f/5.6 or f/6.3 telescope types with 4 or 5 elements. The obvious pro is that they're dirt cheap but, well, I won't exactly get stellar IQ out of them. Flare is another big concern.
Any ideas? I'm of course open to any and all other suggestions, please go ahead
EDIT: for reference, expected viewing size is ~A4 print at maximum or, say, 24" computer screen.
*I know that the only correct options are the 150-450 or some of the FA* super teles, but it's what it is
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Last edited by Serkevan; 06-30-2020 at 10:51 AM.