[Biro]

Would anyone else be interested in some form of a superzoom lens for the Pentax Q? Now, given the size of the camera and most Pentaxians' concern about image quality, my idea of a super zoom wouldn't be anything nearly as long as most compact travel zooms. But what about a reasonably fast 28-200mm equivalent? Given how fast both the Q's kit prime and short tele are, could a "super zoom" with that kind of focal length manage f/2.8-4.5? How about f/3.5-4.5? Panasonic has a fixed f/2.8 in its new FZ200. And most small travel zooms offer something like f/3.1-5.6 in a focal range of 25-600+mm. But, of course, we'd want better optical qualities and, again, it wouldn't have to be that small or collapse as much. Just thinking aloud.

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Last edited by Biro; 08-20-2012 at 01:20 PM.

[Docrwm]

Why? With a converter and the crop factor of the Q there is all that old Pentax glass out there that become Mega-Zoom or Mega-Telephoto lenses. Is it size? because a zoom that long, even in the Q form factor, would start to make the combination pretty large.

[Anvh]

A longer zoom to compliment the kit-zoom is confirmed and coming!
Just dont ask when, most likely end this year.

[Docrwm]

A longer zoom to compliment the kit-zoom is confirmed and coming!
Just dont ask when, most likely end this year.

When was that confirmed and by whom?

[pinholecam]

A telephoto and zoom is supposed to be on the roadmap.

My problem with all this is that pentaxians mostly want this to be cheap.
Good lenses will never be cheap.
So a 70-200/2.8 equivalent costing say US$600.
Would enough people fork out the money?
Just look at the m4/3 offerings.
The new fast zooms and even the new 75/1.8 is not cheap.

Personally, having seen what the Q can do with good lenses in the 80-300mm range I'd not blink an eye to fork out ~$1300 for a Q sized real optical 70-200mm f2.8 or f4 (but needs to be near to the Prime 01 in sharpness) ;
Equivalent to 385-1100mm, going where other cameras have not gone before and a handy add on to the enthusiasts DSLR in the bag.
With AF, auto-exposure and 1/250 flash sync it can be the birder/wildlife shooters dream come true.
This sort of lens will play to the Q's strength rather than a 'me-too' offering of 70-200 equivalent, which many cameras easily replicate.

[barondla]

Think a super zoom 18-200 equivalent lens would be tough to do. It needs a max aperture of 4-4.5 or it will be soft due to diffraction. Then it will be like every other pns.

Pinholecam has a great idea with the 80-200. It would need a leaf shutter in the lens. think that limits max speed of lens. Hasselblad leaf shutter lenses never were as bright as their shutterless counterparts. A leaf shutter would take away that 1/250 max flash sync limitation.
thanks
barondla

[Anvh]

When was that confirmed and by whom?

By pentax about 4 or 6 months ago, that it will come this year.

The lens will have an equivalent 35mm off "80mm to about 250~300mm" to compliment the other zoom lens so most likely it will have an leaf shutter and maybe even a ND filter.

[snostorm]

A telephoto and zoom is supposed to be on the roadmap.

My problem with all this is that pentaxians mostly want this to be cheap.
Good lenses will never be cheap.
So a 70-200/2.8 equivalent costing say US$600.
Would enough people fork out the money?
Just look at the m4/3 offerings.
The new fast zooms and even the new 75/1.8 is not cheap.

Personally, having seen what the Q can do with good lenses in the 80-300mm range I'd not blink an eye to fork out ~$1300 for a Q sized real optical 70-200mm f2.8 or f4 (but needs to be near to the Prime 01 in sharpness) ;
Equivalent to 385-1100mm, going where other cameras have not gone before and a handy add on to the enthusiasts DSLR in the bag.
With AF, auto-exposure and 1/250 flash sync it can be the birder/wildlife shooters dream come true.
This sort of lens will play to the Q's strength rather than a 'me-too' offering of 70-200 equivalent, which many cameras easily replicate.

I'll agree with this concept, but I doubt that we'd see it. Pentax seems to be unable to break out of the paradigm of Q=small in the very literal physical sense, so they look to make the "telephoto" physically small, limiting FL and probably speed to keep the size down. What they fail to see is that small can also work in relative terms. Even a large 200mm f2.8 lens is small in a relative sense when compared to it's 1100mm f2.8 equivalent in terms of 135 format, 720mm f2.8 in APS-C, or even 550mm f2.8 in µ4/3. -- Even at $1300 for the lens alone, very affordable in the context of ultra tele DSLR shooters, and they could bundle it with their own Red Dot sight with a simple lens or flash shoe mount, and an LCD loupe which should not be too much of a challenge for them to make.

There might be a practical engineering challenge with such a lens in the context of the Q system -- the focusing elements might be relatively heavy, and moving them could cause a significant drain on the Q's small capacity battery.

As an alternative, how about a Q version of the F 1.7x Autofocusing Adapter. It would have an internal motor, small and light focusing elements, limited focusing range, and its own shutter. Used with any lens mount adapter, it would add automatic critical focus and a mechanical shutter to any adapted lens. You would have to manually prefocus the lens, but that's easy -- just get it close manually -- and the AFA takes over to give you critical focus in an instant. Even with CD focus, a full rack lock to lock hunt would be very quick since the AFA will only have a limited focusing range -- essentially a focus limiter. Loss of speed would be an issue, but if used with f2.8 max aperture lenses, a 1.7x would yield a max aperture of f4.8 which should not lead to diffraction problems. The cost would be pretty high, but considering the benefits, I'd pop $500-600 for one without blinking. This idea was first proposed by Ron Brandon ("brandrx") on DPR.

My D FA 100 f2.8 would become a 935mm f4.8 (100 x 1.7 x 5.5) AF lens on the Q, my A*200 f2.8 would become an 1870 f4.8 AF, my Tamron SP 180 f2.5 would become a 1683mm f4.3 AF, and any of my 300 f2.8 lenses would give me 2805mm f4.8 AF -- all with lenses that I could actually carry. Heck, my FA 50 f1.4 would become a 468mm f 2.4. A no brainer for me. . .

And then there would be the possible macro applications -- the 1.7x adds almost 2x to the magnification, or gives you additional working distance at the same mag. At macro distances, AF can become a viable technique since the AFA would limit the focusing range to a few mm lock to lock. I use my F 1.7x AFA in AF-C mode with my DSLRs handheld with flash, and get better results than MF.

and . . . because it could be used with any lens adapter, it could attract ultra tele shooters from any platform to the Q system. . .

Scott

[Anvh]

Here is the ~80 to 250/300 mm equivalent zoom lens on CP+

[Docrwm]

By pentax about 4 or 6 months ago, that it will come this year.

The lens will have an equivalent 35mm off "80mm to about 250~300mm" to compliment the other zoom lens so most likely it will have an leaf shutter and maybe even a ND filter.

Missed that one, thanks.

[barondla]

The 01 prime takes a 40.5 filter. Much larger than needed. If Pentax planned the system for all lenses to take the same filter size, where does that leave the tele zoom? Would a 200-300 f2.8 be possible? Wish the pic with tele prototype had 01 prime on body to help gauge size.
thanks
barondla

[Anvh]

200-300 f2.8 equivalent might be really doable but as prime but 70-200 f/2.8 equivalent might work as well.
The shorter register is really helping in that regards.

[snostorm]

The 01 prime takes a 40.5 filter. Much larger than needed. If Pentax planned the system for all lenses to take the same filter size, where does that leave the tele zoom? Would a 200-300 f2.8 be possible? Wish the pic with tele prototype had 01 prime on body to help gauge size.

A 300mm EQ lens for the Q is @ 54mm actual FL, and a 54mm f2.8 only needs about a 20mm front element diameter, so it's very possible, even using the same filter size.

Scott

[Anvh]

But 54mm f/2.8 is very different with DOF compared to 300mm f/2.8. You actually need something around 54mm f/0.5.

[snostorm]

But 54mm f/2.8 is very different with DOF compared to 300mm f/2.8. You actually need something around 54mm f/0.5.

You are correct, it's different, but instead of this being a negative as you seem to imply, it's actually a positive, IMO. At this FOV, the deeper DOF of the Q with a 54mm f2.8 wide open is more useful since the very thin DOF of an actual 300mm f2.8 on an APS-C or 135mm format body is something of a handicap. At MFD (6 feet for a typical 300/2.8) wide open, the DOF is about 1/4". Even at 20 feet, the DOF is under 2", and that's with the deeper DOF of an APS-C sensor compared to a 135mm format body. For a small bird facing me, I try to get everything from the beak to the feet in reasonable focus. This takes at least 2" of DOF, and at 10-12 feet, even f11 gives you only about 2.5", and getting the 4 stops back with high ISO usually isn't possible because of detail loss to noise. Also at f11, APS-C is getting into the area where diffraction starts to become noticeable.

Here's an example with the K20 with my Sigma EX 300 f2.8 APO at @ 8 feet. f4.5, 1/200. I was shooting handheld, so needed as high a shutter speed as possible, and i was already at ISO 1000, my limit for that camera. Only the plane including the eyes and chest are reasonably in focus.


Here's one that illustrates the feet OOF, which is something of a pet peeve for me. This one was shot from about 12 feet with my DS and Tamron SP 300 f2.8 with the F 1.7x AFA. f8, 1/80 ISO 400.


It's not unusual to come across situations where the wide apertures are needed for bird photography. Shooting at Ev 12 (heavy overcast or open shadow on a clear day) at ISO 100, f2.8 requires a 1/125 shutter speed. For me, this is about as slow as I'd want to go for birds or wildlife since they don't seem to realize that they should stand still for the photographer.

The Q at 54mm and f2.8 gives about 4" DOF at about 6 feet -- allowing shooting wide open with some DOF room to spare. Even at 10 feet, it's about 11", which still allows for good subject isolation unless the bird is standing right in front of a wall.

Here's a Q shot with the FA* 300 f4.5 wide open from @ 20 feet. Notice how the whole bird is in focus, yet there's decent subject isolation from the background, and the small Sparrow still more than fills the frame despite the distance.


For fast ultra tele (300mm and longer) and macro work, deeper DOF can result in significantly better images. For these, I'll trade some detail loss from the smaller sensor for subjects that are more completely in reasonable focus anytime.

Scott