On Tue, May 04, 2010 at 03:43:05PM -0400, Miserere wrote: > On 3 May 2010 13:45, Larry Colen <[email protected]> wrote: > > I really shouldn't peruse craigslist when I don't have excess money. > > > > I found a Tamron 300/2.8 on CL today for $650. ?That seems like it might be > > a pretty good price, depending on the quality of the lens. > > >From everything I've read, it's a very good lens, although as already > noted there are different versions and they might vary. > > I know many people have bought them to use with the F 1.7x TC to > "make" an auto-focus 510mm f/4.7 for well under $1,000.
I used to have one of these (together with the matched 1.4x & 2x TCs). I only sold it because I got a pretty good deal on a Pentax A* 300/2.8, That was probably ten years ago, and I got $1000 for the Tamron kit. For what I was doing (shooting mostly on a monopod) there was hardly any noticeable difference between the performance of the Tamron and the Pentax. If you looked really hard at images captured with the lenses wide open, and with a TC attached (the 'L' TCs, for the Pentax) you could perhaps see some differences at the edge of the frame. But central image quality (or with the lens stopped down) was good enough that I couldn't tell the difference. Perhaps if I were using the lenses on a good heavy tripod there might be more of a difference. Or there might not. In any case, it's well worth $650. As others have pointed out, the Pentax KA Adaptall adapter can be a problem on occasion - some people prefer to use the non-A version. It's possible that I've still got mine lying around somewhere; I sold my kit to a Nikon shooter, so I might have kept the adapter. If you do end up going for the lens I'll take a rummage through the old equipment pile to see if anything turns up. -- 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.
