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Forum: Lens Clubs
06-07-2021, 01:07 PM
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Longtime lurker... Finally bit the bullet and bought a DA 300 off the PF marketplace. So here's a couple favs from the DA 55-300 non-PLM. I was often frustrated by the rendition of light and focusing capabilities, but the little lens was a trusty companion through some awful rain, snow, desert heat, and mountain roads. Hopefully I can get more keepers and not have to so often resort to manual focus - although in Arizona, shooting through palo verde or mesquite branches is a recipe for failure anyway.
Thanks all for so many insights into lens selection and use cases, I figure portable and sealed will serve me well. Then one day maybe I can get a Sigma 500 4.5 to compliment it...
A heavy crop, this Lesser Nighthawk has been part of my inspiration this last Covid year of getting out and finding birds. Once I started recognizing the outline of nighthawks under trees and napping on branches, it was like a whole hidden world of treasure potentially under every corner, and made 100+ F weather bearable knowing I might see another of these beauties. It also helps that they nap until an hour or so before sundown so they just watch instead of spooking like tinier birds. I also only could get this close since I was in a vehicle on a service road, and it was literally beside the road. Thanks for the reminders to turn off the vehicle to avoid shake! I would normally give more space to avoid stressing my subject. 300mm at F8
 Lesser Nighthawk by Ian Sandoe, on Flickr
This Green Heron was too busy fishing to notice me. But city parks also have much less perturbed wildlife since it's hard to disguise my 6"3" self tromping around. I should have raised the ISO but wasn't sure how much the early morning light could handle. 300 mm at F 5.8
 Green Heron by Ian Sandoe, on Flickr
The Great Blue Heron is my best attempt at BIF. It shows my unwillingness to figure out post-processing - I pull up a file in Darktable and just find myself going "well, the exposure is bright enough and that will do for now" and leave it at that. It's really daunting approaching RAW files. The K3 ii has been lovely though, and I'm pushing myself to shoot everything in RAW so that down the road I can come back to favorites and clean them up a bit.
 Great Blue by Ian Sandoe, on Flickr
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Forum: Sold Items
04-13-2017, 10:37 AM
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Looking for a functional SMC (not HD) 15mm limited to round out my starting lenses for a K-3 ii. Both the wide angle and and the pretty starbursts are of interest to me, and should uniquely help fill out my range options.
Alternatively, I'm interested in acquiring a DA 55-300 PLM WR version for a zoom since I'd rather invest in the more expensive version the first time around - I can live with the auto-shop sounds of the non-PLM version but the speed seems really compelling.
Obviously these are at extremes of the spectrum but at present I can't afford both: I'm keeping my eye out for either for a good deal on the 15 Limited (ugly or pristine, it seems an inevitable part of my collection) or any deal on the 55-300 PLM since it's WR and will eventually be obtained to give me some range. In magical Christmasland either of these would be under $300 but your idea of a fair price is worth considering.
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