> have got this one lately. it really is gorgeous. and fast. and > heavy.
Welcome to the club. It's a nice lens, and you will enjoy using it. As for it being "gorgeous", it (my copy, anyway) has the most beautiful bluish SMC treatment - it's not just a "gorgeous" lens to use, but it's "gorgeous" looking, too. > since it has max aperture of 2.5, it is naturally tempting to turn > it into 400/5.0 there's been quite a bit of discussion of > teleconverters lately, and IIRC, vivitar 2x macro has been > mentioned as one of the best ones. otoh, i have seen someone > mentioned that it really designed for 50mm or so lenses and it > performs poorely on 200mm. is it so? The Vivitar Macro-Focusing 2X TC will work fine with it, I would think. Although I do have both the K 200/2.6 and the Vivitar TC, I don't think I've actually used them much together, but the Vivitar TC does work well with longer lenses (much as the A 2X-S). I think that the "designed for 50mm or so" confusion may have to do with its macro function - it is designed to go to 1:1 mounted on just about any 50mm lens (at an effective FL of 100mm, of course), but it doesn't seem to focus to 1:1 with longer lenses (although it still does provide useful macro functionality with longer lenses). > and if yes, will something like 2x-L fit 200/2.5? Neither the A 2X-L nor the A 1.4X-L will fit on the K 200/2.5. > on a different topic, i thing i will miss badly a tripod collar > with this lens. are there any good solution to this? i saw the > bogen gizmo for long lens support. anything else useful out there? I've never used this particular lens with a tripod before, but I have used it with a monopod a few times. Although it is a fairly heavy lens, most of the manual-focus Pentax bodies can handle the load when mounted (by the baseplate tripod socket) on a tripod, I would think. Fred
