Thanks for all comments. I am even more confused now :-) Pentax - Sigma - Tamron ? To my surprise, Tamron is even slightly more expensive than Pentax here.
Actually, I already have macro lens - Pentax-A 100mm/4 (with apochromatic close-up lens Hoya HMC +5D); I really like it (metal construction, huge focusing ring, nice results), however, there are two "however"s: First, when shooting small beasts, I found that I too frequently need to switch between plain lens (that can go only up to 1:2) and close-up lens (that is 1:2 to 1:1). The faster the animal I shoot, the higher the probability that I have the wrong combination on my camera. Hence I really want/need macro lens that can go directly to 1:1. (200/4 Macro would be ideal, but it is too expensive for me) Second, I would really like to make some portraits, or similar pictures with relatively narrow depth of field. My current equipment do not allow it. 100/4 has too wide DOF, 80-320 zoom gives nice results (for its price) when stopped down (i.e. with wide DOF), however it is unusable wide open. So, my next questions are: - Are all (Pentax-Sigma-Tamron) lenses good enough wide open (2.8) ? - Is there some other possiblity ?, e.g. instead of having everything solved by single macro lens (and thus saving space in bag), can I use some combination of lightweight macro lens (e.g. 100/4, but 1:1) and portrait lens (something like 135/2.8, or 85/1.4) that would not be considerably more expensive than Pentax 100/2.8 Macro ? (The quality of Macro lens is much more important for me than Portrait lens) Thanks. Ivan
