Pentax SMC DA* Series 16-50mm f/2.8 ED AL IF SDM Wide Angle Zoom Lens for Pentax Digital SLR Cameras by Pentax
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Digital camera reviews of Pentax SMC DA* Series 16-50mm f/2.8 ED AL IF SDM Wide Angle Zoom Lens for Pentax Digital SLR Cameras
Digital camera Review: Fabulous Lens
Summary: 5 Stars
This lens produces excellent contrast and color rendition. The weather-resistant sealing really works, as the lens held up in wet (Colorado River) and dusty (Antelope Canyon, Arizona) conditions. There is, however, a QC issue as it took me a few returns before I got a keeper. This lens is so good, it was worth a little hassle.Digital camera Review: Faint praise, but I use it more than any other.
Summary: 4 Stars
I have an early serial number matched to a K10D. Although there are complaints about focusing issues with this lens I have not seen the problem. It is my most used lense of a dozen or more that I own. IT shows some color fringing to the blues along lines of sharp contrast, but overall it's a suitable lense to own.Digital camera Review: Bad QC
Summary: 1 Stars
I'm very disappointed with this lens. The subject of every picture I took on my K10D with this lens was out of focus when shot on auto. The focal point seemed to be 3m behind my subject. None of my other lens have this problem. My DA* 50~135 consistently hits focus on the target and is ridiculously crisp. I could manually focus on my subject and produce a reasonable image if the aperture was dialed down enough, but the point of this lens is the ultrasonic auto focus. At 50mm f2.8 everything was very soft. The image didn't start to sharpen up until f5.6. When shooting at 16mm nothing was sharp. The entire aperture range was blurry. At any range there was a 5mm purple fringe on any high contrast object. I have heard some people have gotten great copies of this lens. This wasn't one of them. For every great review of this lens I see, there are about 8 people complaining about it. Pentax, this is unacceptable. Think of your reputation!Digital camera Review: Great or not Great
Summary: 3 Stars
If you search the Pentax forums you will see that this lens has a return rate estimated to be 5%-10% to 50% to more. The issue is quality control. One major difficulty is front and rear focusing issues. Pop photography says the simga 18-50 is better optically and costs half as much. However, this lens seals your K10d or K20D against dust and rain water. It also has ultra smooth focusing. So after reading everything on the net and buying one here, the issue is "did you get a good one or not" I haven't had time to test mine, but I have some suspicions from some pictures I have taken that it front focuses. When Pentax gets is QC straight, this lens will be an exceptionally good deal in my opinionDigital camera Review: sharp and smooth
Summary: 4 Stars
The built quality is exceptional. sharp, smooth and fast AF. Be sure to update your k10D firmware to v 1.3 before using this lens, so you wont be like me at first scratching my head wondering why a lens this expensive is noisy and vibrates. The lens is made in vietnam-nothing wrong with that, for some reason I was under the impression it was made in Japan.