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03-23-2016, 11:25 PM - 1 Like   #46
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Nikon/Canon using 2x TC with 300 f2.8 , and it works well (both AF and image quality). 300 f2.8 is money saver as it can be used without TC for when fast shutter speed needed, with 2x TC for birding and 1.4x TC for larger wildlife animal.

QuoteOriginally posted by ogl Quote
Something longer 560 mm - I hope it will be 1.4x and 2x DFA TC.
If price is a problem, if you plan to use 2x TC on f5.6 lens, you may also consider a mirror lens as it will be a lot cheaper, manual focus as well, and likely deliver the same image quality.

You get what you pay for.


Last edited by biz-engineer; 03-23-2016 at 11:30 PM.
03-23-2016, 11:28 PM   #47
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QuoteOriginally posted by biz-engineer Quote
If you plan to use 2x TC on f5.6 lens, you may also consider a mirror lens as it will likely be a lot cheaper and deliver the same image quality and manual focus.

Nikon/Canon using 2x TC with 300 f2.8 , and it works well (both AF and image quality).
.
I have no any plans and interests to TC and super telephoto. 2xTC could be also used with DA200/2.8, 300/4 or 70-200 and 150-450.
03-24-2016, 12:49 AM   #48
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QuoteOriginally posted by ogl Quote
I have no any plans and interests to TC and super telephoto. 2xTC could be also used with DA200/2.8, 300/4 or 70-200 and 150-450.
I think using a 2x TC on the DFA150-450 would be problematic.
03-24-2016, 02:20 AM   #49
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QuoteOriginally posted by biz-engineer Quote
I think using a 2x TC on the DFA150-450 would be problematic.
With K-1? Why? Anyway, no 2x TC now...

03-24-2016, 04:32 AM   #50
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I do see room for a 300/2.8 due to its speed....
03-24-2016, 04:44 AM - 2 Likes   #51
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QuoteOriginally posted by biz-engineer Quote
With the latest lens designs from Ricoh (DFA15-30,DFA24-70,DFA28-105) I'd be very surprised if Ricoh would release a new 300 f2.8 or 400 f4. IMHO, they just think that the DFA150-450 covers up to 450 and the DFA560 cover the 600mm range, that's it, which is about right when considering that most amateur photogs won't spend $4000 into a lens. It's kinda self fulfilling prophecy as the category of people who'd buy a 400 f4 or 600 f5.6 most likely get those from Canon or Nikon already. If you consider a $4000 lens the camera mount compatibility isn't an issue, the cost of the camera body being cheap in comparison.
I am guessing you do not spend a lot of your photography time shooting wildlife. My interest in wildlife photography has overtaken my other photography interests and I am saddled with a relatively poor current telephoto offering from Pentax. I do have the Sigma 500 4.5 prime along with the Sigma 150-500 zoom. When I go out to shoot wildlife I will take the Sigma 500 95% of the time over zoom. I use the zoom where I may encounter tight situations like at zoos or photographing kids sports.
I did evaluate and even used the 560 for a brief time and found that the Pentax 560 had some drawbacks or I would have bought it in addition to the Sigma 500.
If Pentax wants to attract new photographers with an interest in wildlife , photographers who generally do spend a lot of money on lenses, they will need to provide good lenses for wildlife photography. If Pentax wants to keep their customers who spend a lot of time shooting wildlife and long for more capability they will need to provide better telephoto lenses and certainly better AF.C and tracking.
Annually I go to Conowingo Dam to photography eagles that migrate there in numbers every Novemeber. There is a section called the million dollar mile where photographers are lined up shoulder to shoulder with long lenses. Here my Sigma 500 looks like a point and shoot in comparison to the majority of rigs on the river. Out of the hundreds, maybe thousands of photographers I've seen at Conowingo over the years I have only met one other Pentax shooter and know of another one from the forum who goes there. Sure there are some professional photographers there but 99% are amateurs. Pentax could write off this group of amateur photographers who spend a lot of money on lenses. This is also a segment of photographers probably not thinking of replacing their gear with a smart phone, rather this is a segment of photographers who look for more. They look and spend more for more reach; they look and spend more for focus capability, and they spend more money to satisfy their interests.
My hope is Ricoh wants a piece of this high end action which I am guessing comes with high end margins and profit. If they feel the 150-450 and 560 address the needs here then Pentax will continue to be the very rare bird along the million dollar mile and the one or two Pentax birds there may indeed dwindle to maybe one from time to time.

Last edited by RockvilleBob; 03-24-2016 at 06:12 AM.
03-24-2016, 06:08 AM   #52
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QuoteOriginally posted by RockvilleBob Quote
Annually I go to Conowingo Dam to photography eagles that migrate there in numbers every Novemeber. There is a section called the million dollar mile where photographers are lined up shoulder to shoulder with long lenses.
I sure can relate to that with my "lowly" DA*300/4 when I go to a similar place at the Parc du Bic in Québec where photographers line up to occupy the entire site where one can see the yearly birds of prey migration along the St Lawrence River.
Are you kidding me ?
Those photogs sport huge long lenses such as those you describe and most of them are certainly not pro's.

I agree that Pentax is coming short with the types of long lenses you mentioned earlier.
Maybe they (Ricoh/Pentax) will one day build something "prime" again in that range .... hopefully ?

03-24-2016, 06:29 AM   #53
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QuoteQuote:
I am guessing you do not spend a lot of your photography time shooting wildlife. My interest in wildlife photography has overtaken my other photography interests and I am saddled with a relatively poor current telephoto offering from Pentax. I do have the Sigma 400 4.5 prime along with the Sigma 150-500 zoom. When I go out to shoot wildlife I will take the Sigma 500 95% of the time over zoom. I use the zoom where I may encounter tight situations like at zoos or photographing kids sports.
I did evaluate and even used the 560 for a brief time and found that the Pentax 560 had some drawbacks or I would have bought it in addition to the Sigma 500.
If Pentax wants to attract new photographers with an interest in wildlife , photographers who generally do spend a lot of money on lenses, they will need to provide good lenses for wildlife photography. If Pentax wants to keep their customers who spend a lot of time shooting wildlife and long for more capability they will need to provide better telephoto lenses and certainly better AF.C and tracking.
Annually I go to Conowingo Dam to photography eagles that migrate there in numbers every Novemeber. There is a section called the million dollar mile where photographers are lined up shoulder to shoulder with long lenses. Here my Sigma 500 looks like a point and shoot in comparison to the majority of rigs on the river. Out of the hundreds, maybe thousands of photographers I've seen at Conowingo over the years I have only met one other Pentax shooter and know of another on the forum who goes there. Sure there are some professional photographers there but 99% are amateurs. Pentax could write off this group of amateur photographers who spend a lot of money on lenses. This is also a segment of photographers probably not thinking of replacing their gear with a smart phone, rather this is a segment of photographers who look for more. They look and spend more reach; they look and spend more for focus capability, and they spend more money to satisfy their interests.
My hope is Ricoh wants a piece of this high end action which I am guessing comes with high end margins and profit. If they feel the 150-450 and 560 address the needs here then Pentax will continue to be the very rare bird along the million dollar mile and the one or two Pentax birds there may indeed dwindle to maybe one from time to time.
QuoteQuote:
I sure can relate to that with my "lowly" DA*300/4 when I go to a similar place at the Parc du Bic in Québec where photographers line up to occupy the entire site where one can see the yearly birds of prey migration along the St Lawrence River.
Are you kidding me ?
Those photogs sport huge long lenses such as those you describe and most of them are certainly not pro's.
+1 !! Same here at the Le Teich bird park. Last time a hide was full of photographers. The smallest lens was the DA* 300 I gave to my girlfriend, the average were 500 f/4, and the biggest were two Sigma 300-800 f/5.6...
Long lenses are not that rare, but obviously if you do for instance street photography you won't see them often. Doing wildlife photography, for me a 500 f/4 is a lot more common than a 50mm.
03-24-2016, 01:32 PM   #54
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QuoteOriginally posted by RockvilleBob Quote
am guessing you do not spend a lot of your photography time shooting wildlife.
I do some but not specialized yet. Still learning.

QuoteOriginally posted by RockvilleBob Quote
My hope is Ricoh wants a piece of this high end action which I am guessing comes with high end margins and profit. If they feel the 150-450 and 560 address the needs here then Pentax will continue to be the very rare bird along the million dollar mile and the one or two Pentax birds there may indeed dwindle to maybe one from time to time.
It is a self fulfilling prophecy that already took place. Pentax did not believe in FF and was very late to propose lenses for digital beyond 300mm. Pentax sure achieved short term savings by not doing those products targeted at specific photography segments, but what happened was that the Pentax folks having enough buying power and the desire to go big had not choice but to invest into another system, they dropped their money into canikon pockets and they are not here anymore, and given to price of long lenses, those guys are no going to switch back to Pentax. Long lenses make customer very sticky to a brand, if you make someone spend $5K or more into a lens, he/she is not going to jump ship easily. I bet if Ricoh would do now a couple of long DFA prime lenses, they would not even reach breakeven because Pentax filtered out a large portion of big budget customers.Today, if you can spend $8K into a lens, then you don't save anything by waiting for Ricoh, get a camera body that mount on the lens of your choice at Canon or Nikon because the camera body will represent less than 20% of the system cost. I see a lot of folks who say they wanted a full frame camera, long lenses etc... but then when Ricoh do it, they realize it is more expensive than they imagined so that final don't buy and Ricoh get stuck by have some market research data that does not materialize.

---------- Post added 24-03-16 at 21:38 ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by ogl Quote
With K-1? Why? Anyway, no 2x TC now...
You have to look into the viewfinder of a lens with f11 max aperture opening at 450mm and try focusing it. Then you'll understand.
03-24-2016, 04:03 PM   #55
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QuoteOriginally posted by biz-engineer Quote
It is a self fulfilling prophecy that already took place. Pentax did not believe in FF and was very late to propose lenses for digital beyond 300mm. Pentax sure achieved short term savings by not doing those products targeted at specific photography segments, but what happened was that the Pentax folks having enough buying power and the desire to go big had not choice but to invest into another system, they dropped their money into canikon pockets and they are not here anymore, and given to price of long lenses, those guys are no going to switch back to Pentax. .
But how many are they? Extremely few. Pentax did have a complete set of telephoto lenses but they sold extremely few copies; barely a handful. What percentage of users buy super telephotos in the $8000+ range? My guess is no more than one in 100 000. You can make much better case for fish-eye lenses.

When that is said, Pentax long telephoto offering isn't bad and in my opinion quite compelling. The 150-450 will cover most peoples need for lenses in this range and the 560 is both cheaper and lighter than many alternatives. I'd rather have the 560 than the 600/4 (I own this one); it is half the weight and probably less than half the price in todays money.
03-24-2016, 04:32 PM - 1 Like   #56
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The images in the first post is probably just prototypes of the DA560, but I love to dream about hypothetical lenses so here we go..
QuoteOriginally posted by timautin Quote
I'd love to see a D-FA* 400 f/4 !
Me too, but thinking of Canons 200-400mm f/4 with built in 1,4x TC I would love to see a Pentax prime tele lens with one or more built in TCs. Possibly based on a 200mm f/2,0 or 300mm f/2,8. The advantage of doing a design like this is to get a larger line up of long tele primes just by offering a single model. I'm sure that flexibility will be appreciated by many sports and wildlife photographers. The weight of the TC hump is a small price to pay for getting several long primes in one.

Regarding the time schedule I agree with ogl that 2019-2020 may be the time to expand to fast long tele primes.
03-24-2016, 04:57 PM - 2 Likes   #57
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I feel your very few is not correct. I feel there is a fairly large market in terms of numbers and dollars for telephotos lenses.
Let's pull some numbers out of the air - just a SWAG:
The only number I can relate is that during the eagle migration there is about a mile of shooters every day for at least six weeks at Conowingo . It does draw people from NJ to Maryland, maybe Virginia and NY. At three shooters every 10 feet that would be roughly 1500 photographers daily for 45 days. Let's say 10 percent are repeats - I usually go there twice, that would mean a total of 1400 times 45 or about 63,000 photographers. I estimate that 60% have 500mm lenses or more and about 5% of the shooters have two bodies. that means there are 63,000 times 60% times 1.05 or there are roughly 40,000 lenses of 500mm or greater that visit Conwingo dam from say 5 states (NJ, PA, MD, VA, NY). I'll assume that anyone worth their salt who shoots wildlife in those 5 states visits Conowingo.
If we say that that region due to population has roughly a third more shooters than the remaining 45 states. Just a guess would then put the number of 500mm or longer lenses at 40,000 plus .66 times 40,000 times 9 or 250,000 500 mm or longer lenses in the US.
Let's look at some real numbers on
Granted a minuscule number of the long lenses are Pentax long lenses. If the number is 250,000 then at $8,000 a lens that amounts to $2Billion. Lets say my guess is off by a factor of 4 then it would be $500,000 in telephoto lenses.
Now for some real numbers from a small town, Lewes DE
My camera club has 200 members from point and shoot to view cameras. There are at least 10 lenses of 500mm or more represented in our wildlife special interest group. Only one is a Pentax shooter using a Sigma 500 4.5 lens. That number is not a guess - out of 200 camera club members ranging from point and shoot to medium format shooters there is probably $80,000 in telephoto lenses with $0 dollars Pentax glass and one Pentax K3 shooter.
If Pentax wants to change those numbers the Pentax will have to belly up to the bar. Maybe not today. The K1 is a nice step forward. Some solid telephoto lenses would also be a nice step.
Don't compare film era manual lens era with today's digital camera market.
Pentax's best telephoto days were from the film era when shooting wildlife with its inherent low keeper rate was very expensive just due to film costs. In addition to digital technology in today's cameras auto focus has greatly improved meaning more photographers can get results shooting wildlife. Since the introduction of digital technology to photography Pentax has so far missed what I feel is a good market of people who spend a lot of money - photographers shooting wildlife. Pentax today doesn't have the lenses to compete and Pentax lags in autofocus for wildlife shooting. So I feel digital cameras and computer technology has led to a perhaps larger wildlife photography market than you would surmise looking at film era lenses and the markets that existed then using far lower technology cameras. with poor autofocus. Digital cameras and ever improving autofocus has opened wildlife shooting to the masses. Look no farther than the the 300mm or longer lens forum - one of the largest on the forum to get a sense of how many Pentax wildlife shooters exist. Then remember that if you watch wildlife shooters ... spotting a Pentax shooter will be like spotting an albino elephant.
03-24-2016, 06:57 PM   #58
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QuoteOriginally posted by ogl Quote
Sigma 800/5.6 is made only by special order 6600 USD


Pentax 560/5.6 is 5000 USD
I know which would be the one I would get in that price range if both were in Pentax mount.

800 f/5.6 would be sweet.
03-24-2016, 07:02 PM   #59
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+1

QuoteOriginally posted by RockvilleBob Quote
Then remember that if you watch wildlife shooters ... spotting a Pentax shooter will be like spotting an albino elephant.
First time I am being compared to that ! LOL!
03-24-2016, 08:34 PM   #60
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QuoteOriginally posted by biz-engineer Quote
I do some but not specialized yet. Still learning.



It is a self fulfilling prophecy that already took place. Pentax did not believe in FF and was very late to propose lenses for digital beyond 300mm. Pentax sure achieved short term savings by not doing those products targeted at specific photography segments, but what happened was that the Pentax folks having enough buying power and the desire to go big had not choice but to invest into another system, they dropped their money into canikon pockets and they are not here anymore, and given to price of long lenses, those guys are no going to switch back to Pentax. Long lenses make customer very sticky to a brand, if you make someone spend $5K or more into a lens, he/she is not going to jump ship easily. I bet if Ricoh would do now a couple of long DFA prime lenses, they would not even reach breakeven because Pentax filtered out a large portion of big budget customers.Today, if you can spend $8K into a lens, then you don't save anything by waiting for Ricoh, get a camera body that mount on the lens of your choice at Canon or Nikon because the camera body will represent less than 20% of the system cost. I see a lot of folks who say they wanted a full frame camera, long lenses etc... but then when Ricoh do it, they realize it is more expensive than they imagined so that final don't buy and Ricoh get stuck by have some market research data that does not materialize.

---------- Post added 24-03-16 at 21:38 ----------


You have to look into the viewfinder of a lens with f11 max aperture opening at 450mm and try focusing it. Then you'll understand.
QuoteOriginally posted by biz-engineer Quote
You have to look into the viewfinder of a lens with f11 max aperture opening at 450mm and try focusing it. Then you'll understand.
I don't think that it's too serious problem. There is tripod for such shooting.
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