Earlier this year I spent a lot of time on Ebay trying to buy one of every SMC Pentax M Series lens I did not already have. I never finished that project as some of them rarely ever come up for sale (the 20mm for example) or the specifications of a particular lens are too close to one I already have (28mm F2.8 vs 28mm F3.5).
After buying several of them, I became enamored with the 40mm Pancake lens and never bothered using anything else for months on end. I still love that pancake lens but its time to move on! I put the SMC Pentax 200mm F4 on the camera yesterday and took a few shots in the backyard. Pretty remarkable.
The lens is fairly light and compact for a 200mm telephoto lens. Combined with the K10D's image stabilization feature, I was able to shoot some decent photos without a tripod. The flower pictured above is one such shot. Keep in mind, this is a low resolution version of the original. The original was a jpeg (not Raw). ISO 100, F4 at 1/45th of a second handheld. From what I've read, this lens is very sharp and conrasty once you start stopping down.
