Hi Larry, Welcome out of lurker's shadows. :-)
The Pentax lens is getting very hard to find these days, and is hideously expensive new. It's gone out of production. I have little experience with shooting at sports arenas, so take my thoughts on this with a suitable measure of salt. When photographing my kids playing soccer, I find that *istD AF can be too slow on moving targets. Especially when set to automatic selection of focus point. What I usually do is to manually select focus point depending on which team has the ball, or which direction the game is going. It kinda pre-determines the composition a bit, so I'm not sure if it is the best way to get good shots, but it has increased the percentage of in-focus shots for me...:-) best, Jostein ----- Original Message ----- From: "Larry Cook" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 2:07 PM Subject: Opinions about 80-200 f2.8 zooms > I have been following the list for the past couple of months and have > found it to be both interesting and informative about Pentax, cameras > and lenses, photography in general and other subjects. As my initial > foray into the list I would like to solicit opinions about 80-200 f2.8 > AF zooms. Specifically I am wondering if procuring an 80-200 AF lens > is worthwhile for taking pictures of my son's soccer. Currently I have > a Tokina 100-300 f4 ATX (manual focus) and a Tokina 80-200 f2.8 ATX > (manual focus) that I like a lot and both can take very good pictures > with my *istD. However, there are times when my ability to > focus is insufficient because of the quick action involved and I > wondered if an AF model would be significantly better. Since all of my > lenses save one (16-45 DA) are MF I have no good way to judge whether > I would see a significant improvement focusing in the fast pace and > questionable night lighting found at high school soccer games. So what > is the opinion of people that have used both? Is it worth buying an AF > lens to get improved focusing? And if it is, is there any reason not > to get the Tokina 80-200 ATX Pro? Or is the Pentax 80-200 FA* > superior enough to justify the added expense assuming one could be found? > > I have searched the archives for this information and haven't yet been > able to answer my questions adequately. > > Thanks, > > Larry Cook > www.cook-imaging.com <http://www.cook-imaging.com> > >
