Matt Kelch wrote: > Hello everyone, My name is Matt and have just recently gotten into > photography with the purchase of a Pentax *ist DL. I've been taking > lots of pictures around town, and having the camera for less than a > month I've taken over 1500 shots. Feel free to check my gallery at > http://vulc4n.com/v/Photo/ > > Now that I have had the camera for a month I have found that I really > need a lens with more reach than the 18-55mm kit lens. I don't have a > lot of money to spend (maybe around 100.00) Basically, I want something > thats reasonably fast (at least f4), is decent optically (something on > par with my 18-55 Pentax kit lens), and a zoom range somewhere within > the area of 50-220 mm. I have been doing a good bit of research and > have more or less settled on a few lenses. I have been successful i > finding two of them, but the third has proven rather hard to find. > > Here is my lens list: > 1. Vivitar Series One 70-210mm f/2.8-4.0 (v3 made by Komine) [with A > appature mode] > 2. Pentax SMC A 70-210mm f.4.0 > 3. Vivitar Series One 70-210mm f/2.8-4.0 (v4 made by Cosina) > > The last two lenses are relatively easy to come by, as is the first > without the A appature mode [can it be found with the A appature > mode?]. The question is, if the first cannot be found, which of them is > going to perform better? The primary use for the lens other than > shooting random stuff around town will be taking pictures at sporting > events. So, lots of use for high speed action in relatively bad > lighting. This makes me think that the Cosina made 70-210mm might be > the right way to go if the Komine made lens cannot be found. Has anyone > compared the Pentax lens to the Cosina lens? I'm curious how much worse > the Cosina lens is optically. For that matter, how much worse is the > Cosina than the Komine? > > Also, if anyone has another lens that fits the bill please let me know. > I'm a noob and know next to nothing about pentax lenses. > > Thanks, > Matt >
My recommendation is to spend the little bit extra for the 50-200 DA, which is superb, much smaller and lighter, and AF. Otherwise I'd get the SMC-A 70-210, which is optically on par with the Series 1 lenses, but features Pentax's better SMC coatings. The Cosina 70-210 would be my last choice, most of the Cosina-built Series 1 lenses were not up to the performance of the earlier ones, especially teh Komine and Kiron production. -Adam -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
