Ok, so here's the run down...over the holidays, I picked up a Tamron 28-300mm telephoto/maco lens at a VERY good deal. I say VERY good deal, because I bought the lens from an individual that had a bulk of Pentax K-mount lens and had no way of testing them, so he was selling them super cheap. For what I paid for the lens, I figured it was worth a shot just to upgrade form the 18-55mm kit lens that my K110d came with. After recieving the lens, I went over it with a fine tooth comb (well to the best of my limited knowledge, lol) and it apears to be just fine...aside from a few cosmetic scratchs and blemishes. Yesterday, I shot a roll of film through my ZX-50 with it and after having the film developed, noticed that some shots were super clear and sharp and some were well...not. This morning, I fired up the K110d and shot some photos of some birds and a small white-tail deer that has become a fairly good friend (mostly because I have been feeding her cracked corn, lol) and most of the shots I took came out very nice, but once again, some didn't. I'm pretty sure that there isn't an issue with the lens, but rather the person using the lens, lol.
I'm hoping some others on this site has had experience with this lens or can just get me some tips and pointers on shooting with this lens. So far, I'm pretty happy with it, and I guess that's the biggest point, but any help will great be appreciated. I have several books on shooting with a D-SLR, but sadly none help out with shooting macro shots which is what I'm really looking forward to.
I know that aparture and shutter speed is where I'm going to get my "sharpness" from and what I can't get from there, I can easily make up in PP. But like I said, I'm mainly looking for any advice and/or tips.
Here's a few of the shots with the K110d, just to give everyone an idea of what I'm talking about. I played with the contrast a little on these, but nothing major in the way of anything else.
Sharp shots:
and the not sharp ones:
and a little shot at some macro: