Pentax shooters have been waiting a long time for this lens: with precious little other high-grade glass available in this focal length (especially with AF), and basically no other widely available primes, if you're wanting a new fixed focal length lens in this range with auto focus, this is your choice. The fact that it's a pretty good one is probably icing on the cake if you're a diehard Pentax shooter, and for birding, general nature photography, or even sports work, the DA* 300mm is competent and reasonably compact.
If it's a pretty good lens, though, the latest DA* certainly didn't make the impact around here that it's smaller brother did. Whereas we came away feeling that the DA* 200mm f/2.8 was a superior lens for its price, size and weight, the DA* 300mm f/4 is merely a good one, all things considered. A slightly slow maximum aperture (by pro-glass standards) combined with some visible softness across the frame at f/4 will be a thorn in the side of persnickety users (though I rarely found myself unsatisfied with the sharpness in even 8x10 prints at maximum aperture).
While it may not be the near-perfect tool that the DA* 200mm proved to be, the 300mm variant largely lives up to the hype � filling an important niche for Pentax and doing so in a nice package for a fair price.
David Rasnake
more : digitalcamerareview
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