I saw the A70-210/4 vs DA* 60-250 thread I have an A70-210/4 that I bought off of eBay a couple of years ago for around $120. It's in practically new condition, came with the original Pentax hard case, etc.
Physical Characteristics: It has a full metal body with a built-in slide-out hood. It is long and heavy and has the classic one-touch control that you push-pull to zoom and twist to focus. Optical Characteristics: I haven't done "formal" tests, but I have shot detailed stuff at distance. At 200mm, it is quite sharp (even wide open) on my K10D. It has a nice close-focus macro mode. It does show some purple fringing in strong backlight situations. Usability: I tip my hat to everyone who ever did action/sports photography with manual focus zooms back in the day. It is difficult. The one-touch focus/zoom doesn't help me much, either. Without a focus aid like a split-prism screen, I find it hard to nail focus down exactly on my K10D (and *ist-Ds). My bottom line: For "deliberate" photography such as landscape, scenic, macro, posed portraits, and such, I think it is a great lens. The results are good and it's a stop faster than anything else short of $1000+ lenses. It doesn't work for me for fast-response photography (sports, chasing my kids around, "action" weddings, wildlife, etc.). So, depending on the application, I think that the 10x cost premium of the DA* 60-250 may not be worth it, or may be totally necessary. --Mark -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
