I have both the 50-200 and 55-300, and they are both great lenses for the price. I would consider the 55-300 as an upgrade lens to the 50-200.
If you want to compare samples, these two links are my shots with each: 50-200: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alohadave/tags/smcpda50200mmf456ed/ 55-300: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alohadave/tags/smcpda55300mmf458ed/ To be honest, I stopped using the 50-200 after I got the 55-300, and I haven't used it in about a year and a half. I find that the 55-300 works great as a portrait lens, tack sharp. The only real drawback to the 55-300 is that the minimum focus distance is four feet, not a problem most of the time, but it can be an issue. The only reason I might recommend the 50-200 is size. It's about half the length and weight of the 55-300. The 55-300 is about $140 more, but both are bargain priced, IMO, for the quality. One interesting thing is that the 50-200 appears to be WR (plus the barrel is redesigned from the version I have) , while the 55-300 isn't. AFAICT, Pentax isn't offering the non-WR version anymore. On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 9:53 PM, Ed Keeney <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm in the market for a new lens and looking for sage advice from the list. > > I'm currently using a K100D with the following zoom's... > FA 70-200 4-5.6 > FA 100-300 4.5-5.6 > > I find that the longer 100-300 is a little heavy so I tend to lean to > the smaller 70-200. My problem is that the shorter lens decided to go > belly up with some internal mechanism problems and I fear it's beyond > repair (or can be repaired, but not sure it would be worth it). > > I shoot the kids playing sports. They're still young so I can get > pretty close to the action. I've attempted birding, but find even the > 300 to be a little short (another day will bring a discussion on > converters). > > I'm looking at replacing the broken lens (or both) with either the DA > 50-200 4-5.6 or the DA 55-300 4-5.8. Does anyone have real world > experience with these two lenses? I'm leaning to the shorter 50-200 > due to cost and equivalent replacement. > > Thanks! > Ed > http://picasaweb.google.com/ewkphoto > > -- > 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. > -- Aloha Photographer Photoblog http://alohaphotog.blogspot.com/ -- 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.
