> This is probably one of the best areas in which to consider third > party lenses - and particularly the alternative of third-party > used fixed focal length lenses (especially if you were looking to > use the zoom lens at longer focal lengths where they are all > mediocre at best).
I am not sure if mentioning a manual focus lens here is OT or not, but I might suggest the older manual focus Tokina AT-X 100-300/4. It is an obvious exception to the above generalization (which is frequently true) that long telephoto zooms are often soft at the long end. There is also a newer autofocus AT-X 100-300/4, but it's a different lens optically, and I can't vouch for it (never having used the autofocus version); however, I can personally state that the manual focus one is great from 100mm all the way to 300mm. See: http://www.cetussoft.com/pentax/x1003004/ - and - http://www.cetussoft.com/pentax/x1003004/modphoto.htm Fred
