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Alright I think I made a bad purchase. I went ahead and bought a k20d (body only) and ordered the Pentax DA 10-17mm fisheye ($400) and the Pentax DA 18-250mm zoom lens ($450).
And now just as I was about to consider a fast prime I thought maybe I should just return the fisheye and 18-250mm and get two fast lenses and still spend less than $1000. I don't really want to sacrifice image quality for convenience, as I am trying to build up a sort of semi-pro lens kit and actually do this
seriously.
So I decided that since fish eye isn't really a big thing and that 18-250mm would be bad overall (too slow, poor bokah, blah contrast), I would rather spend it on less on focal length and more on higher quality--to match the quality of the k20d.
I have The DA 18-55mm kit lens From my *ist DS and most people are right--it's lackluster. There's no real "pop" to it.
So $1000 is my limit for a decent set of lenses.
Ok, what do you think of this combination.
Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di-II LD ($419.95)
or Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 EX DC Macro ($369)
AND
Pentax SMCP-DA 55-300mm f/4-5.8 ED ($319.95) How much better is this lense than the Tamron 70-300mm which I already have? If the Tamron OK, then I would rather spend my money more on a super quality prime than on the Zoom. Being that the 17-50 is already 2.8 I don't think I need another prime in that range.
And if I have some $$$ left over
Pentax Normal SMCP-FA 50mm f/1.4 ($200)
Or a Pentax 70mm f/2.4 DA Limited ($474)
Both would give the same focal length but the 50mm gets very good reviews and would be a good "fill in" for the 50-80mm gap and would be mainly for portraits.
Can you think of any other combination for around $1000
Last edited by aweir; 04-02-2009 at 12:59 AM.