Larry Colen wrote: >It seems that the longest macro currently produced for K-mount might be >about 100mm. I've heard mention of a 200mm, and I have an old manual >focus 135 1:2 macro.
Well, *I* have a Sigma EX180mm f/3.5 macro which I will *never* part with! Bwahahahaha! That aside, I think the lack of a full-frame camera to put it on has discouraged most lens makers from making anything longer than 100mm in a macro lens. In terms of filling the frame 100mm is pretty long in APS-C format, even though the magnification is no greater than it is on full-frame. Your main option is scouring the used market. The Pentax A*200 macro is reputed to be superb and the FA*200 even better. And there's the aforementioned Sigma 180 macro, which goes to 1:1 and is optically and mechanically superb. I think Sigma's 150mm macro is/was available in Pentax mount, too. You may also want to look into achromatic screw-in diopters. The good ones really are very good. And when shooting macro I often find myself working at very small apertures where diffraction is the main limitation on sharpness, so I think the small losses from the diopter is insignificant. -- Mark Roberts - Photography & Multimedia www.robertstech.com --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
