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300mm for EOS 5D, Olympus vs Pentax
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 15, 2016 2:48 pm    Post subject: 300mm for EOS 5D, Olympus vs Pentax Reply with quote
Hi guys!

Long time it's been.

I looking forward to a vacation in sweden this summer. For the trip, I would like to have an ultra wide and a long tele for my 5D. On the wide side, I'm deciding between the Tamron 17mm f3.5 and an AF 20mm f2.8 Canon but that is more me not sure if I want AF or not.

So the main point for me is at the moment, that the budget is tight and I want to have a longish tele, as we have a house at a lake in Lappland with an active Eagle population.

My local dealer has two options for me right now (I have some credit left with him, so I will buy there!). Option 1 is a Pentac SMC M 300mm f4 in pristine condition. The other one is an Olympus OM 300mm f4.5, converted to Nikon mount but looking very good also.

Which is the better tele option?

I used to own a Nikkor 300mm f4.5 Ai way back on my Nikon D200 which was heavily used, had low contrast but was sharp from wide open and a Minolta MC 300mm f4.5 on my NX11 which was ok wide open but much worse than the Nikon!

Cheers,

Karhallarn


PostPosted: Tue Mar 15, 2016 7:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Pentax smc M* 300mm f4 is very good. better than OM. go for this beauty.

http://www.pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/SMC-Pentax-M-Star-300mm-F4-Lens.html


PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2016 10:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I just saw, that it is not the M but the K version.

http://www.pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/SMC-Pentax-K-300mm-F4-Lens.html

That seems to be much worse! If it would have been the M version, I guess I would have taken it just because of the size advantage!


PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 10:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Just to update. Ich finally got a tremendous deal on a Tamron 70-300 VC. Wonderful lens.


PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 11:54 am    Post subject: Re: 300mm for EOS 5D, Olympus vs Pentax Reply with quote
Karhallarn wrote:
Option 1 is a Pentac SMC M 300mm f4 in pristine condition. The other one is an Olympus OM 300mm f4.5, converted to Nikon mount but looking very good also. Which is the better tele option?

For smaller (i.e., f/4 to f/4.5) Pentax 300's -

The SMC "K" 300/4 is very large and is not exactly stellar - it's a bit soft and low in contrast, compared to the following.

The SMC M* 300/4 and A* 300/4 (both identical except for the PKa functionality of the A*) are much smaller (although heavy) and much sharper than the SMC "K".

[For full-frame completeness, the best smaller Pentax 300's are the F* 300/4.5 and FA* 300/4.5 -- they are optically identical autofocus lenses that focus well manually, and are bitingly sharp -- the F* 300/4.5 is my absolute most favorite and most used lens.]

[Also, for possible full-frame completeness, the DA* 300/4 is very sharp -- it is an AF lens designed for the APS-C Pentax DSLR's, but is supposed to work fine (without vignetting) on FF K-mount bodies -- this is the only Pentax 300 I've mentioned here that I haven't owned at one time or another.]

Note that the " * " ("star") designation in several of the above lenses, used by Pentax to indicate high quality lenses.

I can't help you with any OM lenses - sorry.


PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 2:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Congrats on the Tamron.

As for the OM 300 f/4.5, excellent resolution and errors are well controlled. Also relatively small for a 300mm.
That would have been the choice over the SMC K.
I have the older S-M-C Takumar 300 f/4 in M42. This one is excellent as well, and quite light.


PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 10:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Karhallarn wrote:
Just to update. Ich finally got a tremendous deal on a Tamron 70-300 VC. Wonderful lens.

It scored average onto Photozone (2 1/2 to 3 out of 5 Stars for IQ), my AF is broken, but it seems to be a really nice lens. Wondering if the 70-300 VC is better than the Yashica ML 100-300/5.6 MF lens. Wink The Canon 75-300 USM Mk. II is worse, according to digicamclub here, check the samples: http://www.digicamclub.de/showthread.php?t=12492 But i've seen many very good shots from the 70-300 VC Tamron @flickr, would get my Tamron into repair (bought it this way, AF broken, therefore it was cheap)


PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 11:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
doomed-forever wrote:

Karhallarn wrote:
Just to update. Ich finally got a tremendous deal on a Tamron 70-300 VC. Wonderful lens.

It scored average onto Photozone (2 1/2 to 3 out of 5 Stars for IQ), my AF is broken, but it seems to be a really nice lens. Wondering if the 70-300 VC is better than the Yashica ML 100-300/5.6 MF lens. Wink The Canon 75-300 USM Mk. II is worse, according to digicamclub here, check the samples: http://www.digicamclub.de/showthread.php?t=12492 But i've seen many very good shots from the 70-300 VC Tamron @flickr, would get my Tamron into repair (bought it this way, AF broken, therefore it was cheap)


Here's a couple of pix from another fairly small (although heavy) MF 100-300 lens, the RMC Tokina 100-300/5.6 (very much like the "baby brother" of the Tokina AT-X 100-300/4, although slower and without any SD glass) -

300mm, f/8, straight out of the camera, no processing except resizing and slight compression -

Straight out of the camera, no processing except for 1:1 cropping from the original of the above "thumbnail" -
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