John, What to do??? 1) Is the lens really dirty of just soft? Put it on a tripod and take some shots at f8 & high speed. (I might even try flask.) Can you get good results, or is it just your technique? Sometimes old lenses are just not so sharp. 2) If you cant get satisfactory results, sell/trade it off or buy a hide and take up bird photography. You could get it cleaned, but you'll still end up with a big/heavy lens. 3) I'm a packrat who never sellls anything (just ask my wife.), but... You have too much capital tied up in a lens you can't/don't use.
My DA60-250/4 is really expensive, but really nice and my favorite. I think Paul S. would say the same. Regards, Bob S. On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 1:08 PM, John Celio <[email protected]> wrote: > So I've got this SMC K 500mm f4.5 lens that I use roughly twice a > year. Most years, I would lug it over to San Francisco to shoot the > Fleet Week airshow. Last year I shot the airshow with my M* 300, > because I figured the K-5 has enough resolution now that I could crop > to make up for the shorter focal length. This year I shot with the 500 > again. > > It turns out the 300mm is quite a bit better for this. It's a lot > sharper than the 500, has less purple fringing on highlights, weighs a > lot less and is quite a bit smaller. > > I'm beginning to think I don't really need this lens. The only other > things I've used the 500 for is shooting the moon and the (very > infrequent) bird shot. I have come up with three courses of action I > could take, and I'm hoping you guys can help me decide. > > 1. Find a company that can clean the lens inside & out, to see if that > improves sharpness. > - I kinda doubt this would help much, plus it would be super > expensive to ship such a big & heavy lens. > > 2. Sell or trade it for something I'd use more often. > - Maybe I could afford a used DA 12-24mm or something else more useful. > > 3. Keep it "just in case." > > My packrat tendencies are making me lean towards #3, but I'm really > conflicted about this. What would you do? > > Thanks, > John > > -- > 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. -- 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.
