Re: DG lenses

[Herb Chong]

i'm not sure. i figure it will be around $4K or so given that the 300-800 is 
$5K. this is bargain territory for a lens of that type, given that the 
Pentax near equivalents cost nearly twice as much, at least when new. one 
thing i discovered moderately early on in seriously taking up bird 
photography is that if i wanted professional, publishable results 
consistently, there are no shortcuts. sticking any extender on a 400/5.6 
doesn't cut it. too slow because you need the shutter speed to freeze 
action. a 400 alone is too short for the small birds. a 400/2.8 with a 1.4X 
or a 2X extender gets you in the right focal length range but costs about 
the same or more as getting that 600 or 800 in the first place, and usually 
with lower quality. the A* 400/2.8 with the Pentax 1.7X AF extender works, 
but i know i'm giving up sharpness. nonetheless, having an effective f4.5 
maximum aperture is worth having. besides which, it's a tad longer than the 
FA* 600/4.

yes it is possible to get an occasional publishable shot with a bare 300 or 
even shorter if you specialize in feeder and acclimatized birds, but then so 
will lots of other people. to consistently get shots without spooking birds, 
you need to be able to work 30 to 40 feet away and sometimes more, with lots 
of patience, knowledge of the bird's habits, planning, and luck. a sparrow 
at 30 or 40 feet is a very small object to fill a frame with. try an 
experiment on your lawn with a small plush toy and see what it's like.

i'm not accomplished enough on the patience and stalking and so i tend to do 
a crop that gives me an extra 2X effective magnification. for those kind of 
images i will never be able to go larger than 8x10 with acceptable quality, 
but it does let me work from farther away. that is an effective FOV of about 
2000mm on a film body with my normal working combination.

my experience is not all that unusual. Art Morris's book on bird photography 
says about the same. all things being equal, an 800/5.6 gave him about 4 
times as many publishable shots as his 500/4.5 did for the same amount of 
effort.

Herb...
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Sanderson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <pentax-discuss@pdml.net>
Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 7:53 PM
Subject: RE: DG lenses


I'm afraid to ask but what does one have to pay
for an 800/5.6?