I haven't been enabled yet, not until Monday. But I do have bad friends. So today I was able to lay my hands on the DA* 300/4
It is dead solid. Even the plastic hood looks pretty solid. But I do wish Pentax would offer metal hoods as spare parts for all their good lenses. Sealing is very convincing too. The focus ring is the smoothest I have experienced from Pentax. It turns about 2/3, and is geared down with about 2:1 factor. The scale turns about 1/3. If you loosen the tripod mount ring, and turns the lens, you will experience distinct clicks. It is heavy, but not front heavy. So it is no problem finding a good balance. The only negative remark I have from a mechanical point of view is the MF/AF switch. No distinct click. It just slides from one end to the other. It was just a brief meeting. So I can't conclude on how it performs. But here's my first impressions. Focus is quick and silent. I gave it a hard time, focusing at the structure in some wood in normal light. It locked. I believe it will be a pleasure to compose and focus manually with it. I compared it with the Tamron 300/2,8 looking in the viewfinder. Off course, it is darker. But the contrast was better. I also did a few quick test shots. Just some registration signs, so there is no point in showing them. But it looks promising. I also tested it with the 1,7x with same subject. The unprocessed files looked soft. But after boosting the contrast, it was obvious that there are more infractions preserved in the files. My premature conclusion is that this is a classic. An excellent lens if you want reach, but don't want to kill you back. . MaritimTim -- 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.
