I use the Pentax 18-250 all the time shooting dogs at the parks. I
also use it as my walking around lens. I use the 50-200 when size or
weight gets in my way.
While many of my photos for the past 6 months were taken with this
lens, a great majority of them are not that sharp. I attribute this to
a couple of things. Most shots of the dogs are taken between
180-250mm, when the lens only is capable of ƒ5.6 - ƒ6.7, so the AF has
a hard time in any light other than bright sun. This also translates
into an inability to track moving objects with predictive AF. I'll let
you know if the firmware upgrade helps this after some time to test
it. After one day, it seems not, but that's only a half dozen shots on
a very overcast day.
My other nit is the zoom creep. If you do not keep a finger on the
zoom ring when you let the camera rest on it's strap, the weight of
the lens tips the camera forward, and the lens zooms to it's full
250mm. When you bring the camera back up to your eye, you must
simultaneously rack the zoom back to whatever setting you may intend
to shoot. There is a lock that keeps the lens at 18mm which I use some
times, but you then must unlock it to change zoom lengths, which takes
time and also delays a shot. I personally don't understand on a lens
that does not have power zoom the zooming helicoils cannot be made
stiff enough to prevent this creep.
But as you can tell from the first part of my tome here, I still find
the lens useful enough to use it most of the time. I've learned to
always keep my pinky on the zoom ring, and I don't expect really sharp
photos of moving things on cloudy days. My images are still fine for
4x6 prints, which is all I expect anyone downloading one will create.
For free, you don't get posters off my site, even though you can
download 1/2 capture res versions.
On Apr 12, 2009, at 03:55 , Brian Walters wrote:
I'm contemplating getting a wide to tele zoom as a "walk around lens",
when I just want to carry a camera and a single lens. I'd like
something that starts at around 18 mm and goes to at least 135 mm.
I'm aware of the Pentax, Tamron and Sigma 18-250 mm zooms but that
range
seems to be asking a lot of optical design. Does anyone have
experience
with any of these? Are the Pentax and Tamrons pretty much the same
thing
under the skin?
Are there any other affordable options?
Joseph McAllister
Lots of gear, not much time
http://gallery.me.com/jomac
http://web.me.com/jomac/show.me/Blog/Blog.html
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