Should I stay with Pentax?

JeremieB wrote:

xmeda wrote:

If your copy produce dreamy look, you need service.

Nope I'll skip the servicing. At f/4.5 it's ok, not a big deal. Sometimes at f/4 it's ok but I don't yet clearly understand when it happens or not. I'm not used to the lens and its focusing either, so there's that. If I'm not lazy I'll shoot a chart some day.

I see you shared a photo taken at f/4.5. Any reason ?

Unless light is horrible, I tend to stop any lens a bit. F5.6-6.3 being best compromise for that lens. But even F4 is far from FA50/1.4 that is F1.4, but usable at F2 on low-res body and F2.8+ on hi-res body. So in reality I replaced FA*24/2, FA35/2 and FA50/1.4 with Sigma 17-50/2.8 that usually does better. Especially if there is some light source or color lights like on concert. Those are deathtrap for FA35/2 and FA50/1.4 But I still keep those to play with them time to time

Had one like that. Sold it and replaced. That is the problem of 2nd hand market in general. Only few guys do sell good lenses. Because these are keepers So the chance of buying lemon is quite high.

Yeah, that's another reason maybe to buy it "with caution"

It applies for all lenses. I was lucky that the guy selling 100-300/4 was pensioner who selected that lens from multiple copies for animal shooting and then retired, got older ditched Pentax and switched to small Olympus. In general many bad lenses are still around changing owner quite often, while good lenses tend to stay with somebody until he dies or somebody significant happens.

Concerning sealing... yes HD DA55-300PLM WR is "sealed", but it extends and if you zoom few times with wet barrel, guess what happens

Never happened to me, I may be lucky. First time I used it it was under heavy rain, and I zoomed in and out a lot.

I read that a lot of time about that lens, but I've never read about anyone damaging his lens doing so. Usually, people do like to complain when there's a reason (the opposite is not true).

It is similar like with DA18-55WR, DA18-135WR, DA55-300/4-5.8WR and others. You can use them in some light rain, if possible wipe raindrops with some rug before closing that zoom. But in general there are limits and moisture gets in. It might be less visible, but gets in. It is good to put such lens after such shooting into box with decissant overnight to dry it properly.

Definitely not lens comparable with single barrel IF/IZ lens. Unfortunately Penstax only has few longer lenses built like that. DA*50-135/2.8, DA*200/2.8, DA*300/4 etc

Yes, but similarly with the DFA 150-450, I never had any trace if water inside the lens (I didn't use it under heavy rain though).

What's for sure is that it's very difficult to get water on the front element of the sigma with such a hood

In fact there are not many options to use long telephoto lens in pouring rain anyway And some light spring drops or early snow has no chance. There are no openings on that tube.

I would like to see some more single tube internal zoom internal focusing lenses from Ricoh being introduced. It is much more robust than things like

:)))