Originally posted by Des I agree that the discussion of affordable wildlife photography options - including options other than Pentax - is relevant, since the OP clarified what they were really looking for. (I've been part of that discussion myself.) But you are going down another path which is not, and which risks hijacking the thread, or bringing it to a premature end.
I'm not looking for another brand or going mirror less. My first camera that I had was a Sears K1000 (Pentax Film camera) and I still have it, along with a full lens kit for it. I'm a die hard Pentax fan, it's not all about megapixels you know. It's about the optics too. I haven't had the need to upgrade, my most modern Pentax camera is the K3-II, pixel shift mode is insane. it's not ideal for high speed photography but for portraits and landscape shots it's unbelievable. 60 mega pixels in raw mode, and great optics. My K-x is my goto camera for taking pictures of wildlife, the moon, aircraft in the air, etc. I started this thread because I was looking to build up an affordable lens kit for it.
I don't think Pentax is going to fade away in 10 years. They will stay around. The hardware may become more expensive, but there's still a need for a DSLR.
Did you know that a DSLR out performs a mirror less camera with astrophotography ? I'm waiting for a cool night and I will take a shot with my 50mm f/1.8 lens, mount the camera on my tripod in Astrophotography mode and take a shot of the southern sky for you and post it here.
I've been building up Pentax Astrophotography gear. The K-x lacks a wired SNAP port so I "Jerry rigged" and SNAP control cable by figuring out what wires would open/close with a wired intervelometer and basically bough at small JJC infra red remote, split it open and soldered the trigger wires from a 2.5mm barrel connector to the remote. I can trigger the shutter. The goal is to control the camera with a Skytracker Star Adventurer mini. When building up this gear it's too expensive to go for the best of everything. I just want to build something up that's light and portable. Older manual 200-600mm telephoto lenses yeild and additional benefit on a APS-C camera, the 1.5x crop factor. 600mm becomes 900mm and with a doubler it becomes 1800mm. When using a tracker the photos are stacked so an fstop hit of 2 won't be too bad.
Also while I'm building the rig up I would like the lenses to be multipurpose. I like to go hiking with my wife and take photos of the wildlife too.
I was just windering why Tamron and other budget lense manufacturers no longer support Pentax. Maybe with the failure of Minolta and Sony cameras they will circle back and support Pentax.
There's no denying that Pentax lenses are superior. Since this isn't going to change anytime soon I've followed the advice on this thread and bough several good DSLR lenses, and a DSLR 2x teleconverter.
There's a red tail hawk that likes to hunt in the area where my house is.Also when Snowy Owls migrate they hunt in the woodlands behind my house. I'm hoping to get a good shot of it in flight and when I do I'll post it here.
Thanks everybody for the help