Originally posted by leheath8 I have a K-3 with a DA 55-300 lens that is my primary lens for travel wildlife photography. I do not generally travel with a tripod so while I am generally OK with the 300mm length, I find the speed too slow at that range. I generally shoot at f8.0 as that is the sharpest range for my camera, so the speed is the limiting factor. I upgraded from the K-r to the K-3 to get better performance at higher ISO, so I'm happy with the IQ up to 800 ISO, but it's still not as good as I'd like in dimmer situations.
Originally posted by leheath8 I have the original/older DA 55-300. It's actually faster at 300mm than the PLM, so I don't think it would really benefit me in any way.
Originally posted by leheath8 Upgrading to the KP sounded interesting, but I don't like the smaller buffer and single card capacity.
If you are restricting yourself to f8 and 800 ISO because of the limitations of camera and lens, you are at least 3 stops behind where you could reliably get good images with the KP and 55-300 PLM at 300mm. The KP does 3200 comfortably - which is why I sold my K-3 in the end. Yes the smaller buffer is a limitation if you are shooting a lot of bursts, but the trade off was well worth it. I never understood why you need two SD card slots for general use, but maybe that's just me. The PLM is only f6.3 (if you want f5.6, back off to about 260mm) but it's very good wide open. I use this combination a lot for wildlife now.
Even 6400 is viable with the KP when you need it.
If a KP is not in consideration, I think you need to seriously look at pushing the ISO on the K-3 a bit more - 1600 is acceptable if you shoot RAW and use a good de-noise program (Topaz has been mentioned; I use DxO PhotoLab 4 with DeepPrime which is excellent too). Otherwise you might really want to think about using flash to get another stop or so.
Getting a 300mm f4 lens and using it on the K-3 gains you one (or 1.3) of those three stops plus a welcome increase in resolution (at the cost of more bulk, weight and money). With the 1.4x TC the prime also gives you an effective 420mm f5.6 - unless you can get very close to the birds, you will really want the extra reach.
The real world experience of @jacamar and @ramseybuckeye shows the value of the prime + TC combination. For travel a 2kg+ zoom like the 150-500 would be a pain to carry, and really you would probably just use it almost entirely at the long end anyway.
I would still suggest upgrading the 55-300 to the PLM though - the images are nicer than you get with the old screwdriven AF versions. It's a very good landscape lens too.
You will find a lot of landscapes in the PLM thread:
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/10-pentax-slr-lens-discussion/365761-hd-...what-cant.html
Last edited by Des; 03-01-2021 at 03:59 PM.