Pentax FA 100-300/4.7-5.8

[William]

I bought this lens yesterday because it's very useful to have an AF tele-zoom and the only 300mm I have is the Tair-3 which is so impractically huge that I never take it outside the house. It came down to this or the 50-200 which really wasn't long enough. This also has the benefit of an aperture ring and is therefore usable with any K-mount camera.

It was very cheap for a modern lens and so far has been really surprisingly good. Probably falls into being not current yet not a classic. The colour rendition is beautiful and there is plenty of contrast, the CA isn't terrible although none of these show it. I'd take this over a new budget Sigma or Tamron any day. Granted, it is a little bulky (yet light) and so slow that it'll probably be unusable on overcast days without a tripod but then it's f2.8 equivalent would cost at least 20x as much.

It's making me wonder which other FA zooms are worth trying out...