[Barso]

After a couple of months use I cannot fault my K-S1. The images are clean, the colours are good straight out of the camera. I took it to a windsurfing event a few days ago with a cheap Tamron 70-300 zoom. I was amazed at how quickly and accurately the autofocus worked on small figures at extreme distances. Delighted with it and the results.
Because mine is white, I am sure that some people think that it is a compact camera, which works with it (me) in the street photography area!

Glad you mentioned the 70 - 300 Tamron, I owned one 10 years ago which I used on my K100D, I found it very good between 70 - 250 after that things got a little too soft for my liking. I was thinking about getting a Pentax 55 - 300 but at the present £280 UK is beyond my reach, the Tamron is around £85 UK. The question would be is the Pentax £200 better than the Tamron ? or would I be taking a step back having got so used to the great images produced by this camera with my 16 - 85 attached.

[Barso]

I'll answer my own question from #16......
I took delivery of a Tamron 70-300 Di LD from SRS last Thursday, initial tests were how I remembered my old one....PF, not very contrasty and soft past 260mm, but I knew what to expect. I went out on Friday and encountered my first problem with it, when I turned it on it asked to input the focal length.......odd thing as the aperture ring was in the A position ! I started to point at this and that through various zoom lengths and encountered my second problem........the AF stopped working, the camera was set to AF on the body but MF was showing on the back of the camera and my F stop was showing as F - - and the aperture ring was still set at A, I pressed all the buttons on the camera but nothing happened, I had to pull the battery to reset the camera. This continued to happen over a dozen times over the weekend.

I sent an email to SRS explaining the situation, they replied by saying return it your own cost and we will check it for you.
It was then I noticed something else, i found out that found that the lens will not AF between 135mm and 160mm, if you half press the shutter and slowly turn the zoom ring AF.S is displayed until you reach 135mm it then changes to MF until you reach 160mm where it reverts back to AF.S. This happens no matter what AF mode you are in or whatever focus selection you have, I informed SRS of this and they said the will replace the lens if they can replicate the problem........my problem is what if they can't ?

Anybody out there had this kind of thing happen to them before with this lens or any kind of lens ?
* I did clean both camera and lens contacts with an alcohol pad to rule dirty contacts out.

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Update

Today I received a brand new replacement from SRS...........and guess what no AF between 135mm - 160mm also if you turn the camera on between these zoom ranges the camera asks to input the focal length, it seems as though the lens loses contact with the body in this range.
I wonder if this is a bad batch because the serial numbers were only 3 digits apart or is it camera specific to the K-S1 with FW 1.10, one thing of note is that the image quality at 300mm far exceeds the previous lens, so much for Tamron QC. I don't know whether to risk sending it back again or just put up with it hoping that it isn't an internal issue that might get worse.

[ChristianRock]

I have not tried my K-S1 with the Tamron 70-300 LD Di yet... mine is older, I bought it used almost 3 years ago, so it would probably not be from the same batch yours was, Barso...

I am really enjoying the nice bright viewfinder of the K-S1. The colors are nice but not quite as nice as my K10D. Perceived sharpness though, is in another league. My lenses look much sharper when I pixel peep the K-S1 at 20MP, than they do when I pixel peep the K10D's 10MP

Still, I don't like one over the other. For walking around shooting flowers and objects, the K10D to me is still unbeatable. The K-S1 will serve me well for family pictures, vacations, etc.

[Fotografer08]

Because of the above comments about the Tamron 70-300, I gave mine a few basic tests. The autofocus worked at all focal lengths, but it is quite slow with this compared with my other brand of camera using its own brand of zoom telephoto and its own Tamron 70-300.
The serial number of my Pentax fit Tamron is 611496.

[Barso]

Because of the above comments about the Tamron 70-300, I gave mine a few basic tests. The autofocus worked at all focal lengths, but it is quite slow with this compared with my other brand of camera using its own brand of zoom telephoto and its own Tamron 70-300.
The serial number of my Pentax fit Tamron is 611496.

Thanks for trying......
The two lenses that I have had, and I'm keeping the second one were/are 618945/618948. Both resort to MF between 133mm - 160mm and ask you to input the focal length if you turn the camera on in this range.
On the plus side, the first lens was good for clarity & sharpness on anything up to 10ft away up to 135mm after that everything went downhill fast, 300mm looked like a foggy oil painting, the replacement lens is good throughout except when on f4, the higher lengths of 180mm - 300mm are very usable and surprised me when used on a tripod.
All I have to remember now is the missing 133-160mm AF.

[ChristianRock]

I tested my Tamron 70-300 LD Di on the K-S1 and it behaves pretty much like it did on the K-r - not terribly slow but it hunts a lot at the 300mm end.

[Barso]

One from the Tamron @180mm in Macro mode: