| Author: | | Showing Reviews 1-15 of 22 | | Site Supporter Registered: July, 2010 Location: New York Posts: 365 | | Lens Review Date: April 27, 2012 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: N/A
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | Good zoom range for telephoto use, including wildlife | | Cons: | Soft with high chromatic aberration and vignetting at long end, slow autofocus with long minimum focus distance | | Sharpness: 6
Aberrations: 6
Bokeh: 7
Autofocus: 6
Handling: 7
Value: 8
New or Used: New
Camera Used: Pentax K-5, Pentax K-r
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Part of K-r kit. This lens has a versatile zoom range for a variety of subjects, especially wildlife, but I find that the AF speed is relatively slow (and noisy) and that the lens shows significant optical problems including softness, chromatic aberration, and vignetting at the long end of the zoom range. The optical performance is reasonable at less than about 200mm, however. Flare resistance is very good. I would recommend this lens as part of kits, but there is considerable room for improvement. Perhaps another sample would be better?
| | | | | Site Supporter Registered: March, 2011 Location: Virginia Posts: 1,356 | | Lens Review Date: February 10, 2012 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: $200.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Sharp even wide open, lightweight, cost, excellent focal range | | Cons: | no lens hood included, slow autofocus, minimum focus distance | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 9
Autofocus: 8
Handling: 9
Value: 10
New or Used: New
Camera Used: Pentax K-r
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The DA L 55-300 was the first lens I bought for my K-r after purchasing it in March of 2011. I wanted the extra length beyond the 18-55 kit lens. This lens was a no-brainer purchase since the cost is so relatively low.
I primarily use the 55-300 for birding and wildlife shots, but it is good at other things as well. For instance, if you stick a Raynox 150 macro adapter on the end of it, it can take some very nice close-up macro shots. Also, because of the long focal lengths, you can get some nice subject isolation even at smaller apertures. I think the bokeh this lens produces can be very nice and creamy, given the right background.
The lens is very sharp, even "wide open". Unfortunately, wide open is at best F4, but I haven't found that to be much of a hindrance for my uses as this is really primarily an outdoors lens. Once you purchase a lens hood for it, contrast is very good and flare is well controlled. It produces typical warm Pentax colors, which I enjoy very much.
The autofocus on this lens is quite accurate, however it is slow. It can take a full second go from one end to the other while it hunts for the subject. You can miss shots waiting for it to focus. For this reason, you might consider the DA version of the lens, which comes with Quick Shift, allowing you to make quick manual focus adjustments if necessary. I haven't personally missed very many shots because of this, but it has happened.
Chromatic aberrations are problematic in high contrast areas. They are fairly easy to correct but I have seen them even at f6.3.
Overall, I am very pleased with this lens. It's a lens I often wonder why I don't use it more often! For the price you pay and the versatility you get as well as the long focal range, it's really an excellent value.
Some samples follow.
rainshower leaf by loco's photos, on Flickr
egret in flight over lake by loco's photos, on Flickr
cardinal - Explored by loco's photos, on Flickr
Snickers in tree b&w by loco's photos, on Flickr
With Raynox DCR-150 macro adapter attachment
praying mantis head by loco's photos, on Flickr
| | | | | Senior Member Registered: April, 2010 Location: California Posts: 206 | | Lens Review Date: January 10, 2012 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: N/A
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharp, color rendering, relatively small and lightweight, price | | Cons: | a little slow, AF hunts sometimes | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 8
Autofocus: 7
Handling: 9
Value: 10
New or Used: New
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When I bought my K-x kit, it was just 80$ more with the 55-300, which made getting it a complete no-brainer, but even for three times as much, it would still be an unbelievable bargain with zero competition anywhere near this price range. This baby is going to be considered a kit lens classic. Well done, Pentax!
Here's Looking at You by Ludger Solbach, on Flickr
Lakeside by Ludger Solbach, on Flickr
| | | | | Forum Member Registered: February, 2011 Location: San Francisco Posts: 96 | | Lens Review Date: September 28, 2011 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: $199.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharp, lightweight, cheap, excellent zoom range | | Cons: | SLOW! | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 8
Autofocus: 9
Handling: 9
Value: 10
New or Used: New
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I echo the other opinions about this lens. I realized soon after I acquired my K-r with the 18-55mm lens that I should have gotten the kit with both lenses. So I had to buy this separately (gray market - it's not supposed to be sold separately, from what I understand).
My most severe, and really inappropriate use, of this lens was at a Roger Waters concert earlier this summer. Severe, because I had to be very quick to compose and focus, and inappropriate because it's so damned slow for indoor use in general. Oh, and I'd never used the K-r before this time to shoot a concert indoors - I was in learning mode and made major mistakes (i.e. I left it in Av mode! Bad move). The K-r, of course, let me shoot at ISO 1600 or ISO 3200 so that helped (then Lightroom to smooth out the noise helped too). But this lens - under these conditions - turned out some spectacular shots (if I do say so myself  ). Under more typical outdoor, well-lit conditions it's great as well.
Again, sharpness is not comparable to primes in the range between 55 and 300mm but that's to be expected, at this level anyway.
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: April, 2010 Location: Sydney NSW Posts: 511 | | Lens Review Date: September 28, 2011 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: $290.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Range, colour, price, size | | Cons: | minimum focus distance, no hood. | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 8
Autofocus: 8
Handling: 8
Value: 10
New or Used: New
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Firstly price for this image quality! Yet still relatively small and light!
One of the bargins on the pentax lens range and pretty much any K mount owner should have this lens.
Range is great for portrait on APSC , will do F4 right up to 100mm so often go out with just this and my FA31
-ves, I got the DAL for the cheaper $$$ (grey import) and have to admit if you want to Bird with this lens you do need the quickshift of the DA model, it makes all the difference in the world. Also due to the excellent FL range often take this lens on naturewalks but get frustrated with the minimum focus distance. This isn't really a big fault of the lense as it is a Tele but I think could be rectified with a future closeup filter.
GET IT!  | | | | | Site Supporter Registered: May, 2010 Location: Oregon Posts: 585 | | Lens Review Date: September 3, 2011 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: $160.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | range, IQ, price | | Cons: | it's a DAL so lacks DA features | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 7
Autofocus: 8
Handling: 8
Value: 10
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I confess up front: this is my 3rd copy of the 55-300 design  and the 2nd DAL. I've retrenched a time or two, most notably to go WR with the K-7 body. The price and quality of this 'used' copy renders my 50-200WR and Quantaray 100-300 both obsolete! 
This is a lens that can take amazingly good images for its price. The fact that is has the 55-70 range makes it far more versatile to me than the 3rd-party 70-300 models (although if close focus is big for you those lenses make sense). The DAL is optically a match for the DA, so only a few extras are lacking, most notably the quick-shift feature.
If you're torn between the 50-200 and 55-300 just recall that this lens gives you a faster 55-200 lens plus more range if you need it! I prefer the tiny size of the 50-200 and its use of 52mm filters, which matches most of my lens set.
On past 55-300s, shots occasionally showed bokeh where the background became a distraction. Because of this I've marked the lens down a notch for bokeh. Since I picked up this copy very recently I will reconsider in a month - perhaps my other copies were less talented than this one, since many owners find its bokeh to be quite nice.
| | | | | Pentaxian Registered: December, 2007 Location: Prague Posts: 1,088 | | Lens Review Date: September 1, 2011 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: N/A
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | very sharp, light weight | | Cons: | AF speed, noisy | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 7
Autofocus: 3
Handling: 6
Value: 9
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I had this lens borrowed for testing for few weeks from a friend. I was very surprised by the sharpness. I expected it to exceed my 50-200 but I didn't expect it to outperform the "Bigma", which it did as well. It even has wider aperture than bigma for some zoom ranges. Astonishing. All that with quarter of its weigth.
The cheap construction is notable by lack of QSF. I do not use QSF system a lot since most of my lenses are very accurate and quick to focus. This one is not fast at AF at all. It is even slower than the F70-210, and extremely noisy on top of that. I quickly learned that I need to push lens relese button to disengage the screw drive and refocus manually. I can't remenber slower and noisier lens than this. Not even the horrible Canon EF 75-300 was so noisy and slow.
I also dislike the plastic mount, but thats a minor compared to AF.
The bokeh could be fine with more aperture blades, but at least there are not too many aberrations spoiling it.
Why doesn't the lens hood from FAJ75-300 fit this lens? I could have used a lens hood if it did.
Overall a good value if you are not going to shoot sports or impatient people.
| | | | | New Member Registered: May, 2011 Posts: 1 | | Lens Review Date: August 8, 2011 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: N/A
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | Price, Performance at the long end, good CA control | | Cons: | Plastic mounting, picture quality at the edges | | Sharpness: 6
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 8
Autofocus: 5
Handling: 8
Value: 10
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Compared to the other cheap lenses it is surprisingly sharp in the centre of the frame at the long focal lengths. If you have Sigma or Tamron, usually x-300 mm lens means that x-250 is a useful range. Here the 300 mm is pretty good while it is rather performance at the short focal length what is lacking. The other kit lens 18-55 mm is doing much better job at 55 mm then this one. However I don't complain as I tend to take most pictures with this one at 100-300 mm range. Still one must remember that this is a cheap lens, so the edges of the picture are distorted both with CA and vignetting.
| | | | | Site Supporter Registered: May, 2010 Location: Hong Kong / Irvine, CA Posts: 256 | | Lens Review Date: July 24, 2011 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: N/A
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | cheap, good price and decent pic | | Cons: | doesn't come with a hood | |
Not the best IQ but it does its work.
It takes good portrait pic @55mm.
It takes good sport pic @ 300mm too.
| | | | | Junior Member Registered: March, 2011 Posts: 32 | | Lens Review Date: April 23, 2011 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: N/A
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | price, image quality is ok for price | | Cons: | speed, image quality could be better | |
At 300mm I get noticeable vignetting. I have to get used to stopping down to get sharper pictures. The vignetting isn't much of a negative to me and if it was, the KR has corrections built in (if you enable them) for this lens.
I use this lens mostly for wildlife at a distance and usually at the beach.
It does do 450mm 35mm equivalent which is great.
I have to bring up prosumer super zooms since they are what I was using prior to this setup (I apologize)...
I have a Panasonic FZ30 which is an 8mp prosumer camera with a tiny little CCD, but has a Leica lens on it that does 420mm 35mm equivalent. The FZ30 almost takes as good a picture as my Pentax Kr with this lens, but of course is limited by the sensor (noise, no dynamic range and slightly less detail).
On the other hand, I had a 14mp prosumer Canon SX 30 IS with a 840mm 35mm equivalent which delivers much less detail (and tons of distortion/CA/PF) at 840mm equiv than this Pentax lens at 450mm equiv.
However, this lens does take some great pictures..
Cropped and resized:
(elephant seals at point reyes)
edit: added another photo.
this is also my portrait lens (resize, not a crop)
 taken at a zoo at 300mm.
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: October, 2010 Location: Illinois Posts: 362 | | Lens Review Date: April 6, 2011 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: N/A
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharp, cheap and small for the range you get | | Cons: | AF can sometimes hunt | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 9
Autofocus: 8
Handling: 8
Value: 10
New or Used: New
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This is a very good lens for the money and if you are wondering if you should get this lens with a K-x or K-r kit, then I recommend that you do. Even wide open, the pictures turn out pretty sharp. Sometimes the autofocus can hunt a little a bit, but that's the only con I can think of. If you want to buy a faster telephoto lens, or get more reach then you are going to have to spend $700+. So you might as well get this lens, since it is the best you can get without spending a ton of money.
| | | | | Junior Member Registered: January, 2011 Location: San Francisco Posts: 37 | | Lens Review Date: March 19, 2011 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: $199.99
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Image Quality, Price, Clarity, Size | | Cons: | Lack of Lens Hood, No Quick Focus | |
I bought a 'grey market' version from Adorama recently and I have been very pleased with the picture quality, which is the most important factor for me. I am not worried about a plastic mount; my kit lens DA L 18-55 is the same, and I haven't had any problems with that in over 3 months. I take care when removing and replacing my lenses.
I took a number of shots with the DA L 18-55 and the DA L 55-300 to compare color, sharpness, and quality, and it would probably take an extremely good eye to tell them apart at the same focal length. Zooming out to full length, I was amazed at the color and clarity as well as how far it actually zooms. One shot at the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, I zoomed out full and picked up a couple of huge container ships that weren't even visible to the naked eye. And they were extremely clear, focused and had nice color considering the haze of distance.
Lack of a lens hood isn't a big problem, I can always pick up a DA hood; Quick Focus is something I wouldn't mind having, but it is just as easy and sometimes preferable, to me, to switch to Manual Focus.
I highly recommend this lens to anyone with a Pentax that has a low budget and is looking for an exceptional quality lens. While some of the Sigma and Tamron lenses may offer more options like Macro, and even longer zoom lengths, what sold me on the DA L 55-300 was the picture quality.
Below are two photos, one shot with the kit DA L 18-55, and the other w/ the DA L 55-300 both at 55mm. Can you tell which is which?? :-)
 | | | | | Senior Member Registered: January, 2011 Location: Bangalore, India Posts: 160 | | Lens Review Date: February 25, 2011 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: N/A
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Good IQ, sharp even at 300mm, light weight | | Cons: | slow at focusing from one extreme to another, loud focusing | |
I bought the Pentax K-x and got the DA L 55-300 lens along with it as part of the kit. I must say I'm impressed with the lens.
The IQ throwout the focal length is very very good. It is very sharp even at 300mm. The lens is light weight. Doesn't feel very cheap. It doesn't come with a lens hood but I bought an aftermarket hood from ebay for 5 bucks.
On the negative side, the focusing is pretty loud. It sometimes keeps hunting for focus. The focusing is slightly slow when going from one extreme to another (from near to infinity).
I couldn't have asked for more from a kit zoom.
Here are few of my favorite photos taken using this lens -
The ferocious by RonakG, on Flickr
Look at my feathers, ain't it pretty? by RonakG, on Flickr
Big daddy with the look by RonakG, on Flickr
Seagull in flight... by RonakG, on Flickr
| | | | | New Member Registered: October, 2010 Location: Acworth, GA Posts: 7 | | Lens Review Date: December 10, 2010 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: N/A
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Wonderful range, good color and sharpness, relatively speedy focus, cheap | | Cons: | No lens hood included, can hunt and be a little loud | |
This kit far exceeds the standard 55-200 that most brands put out there, and is optically identical to the non-L version of the lens that Pentax sells for hundred’s more than its added cost in the kit package.
It is sharp, focuses quickly, has good color, good bokeh, a sturdy feel and a very useful range... for the cost of the kit, what isn't to like?
Other more professional reviews have detailed this lens' technical abilities... which generally far surpass its cost class.
I find myself using this lens for candid portraits in group settings most often, but it obviously has many more uses than that. Zoos, wildlife, flowers, children... anything that you need some extra reach for, this is a great lens to start with. It accepts an easy-to-find 58mm filter size. While I mentioned that it has good bokeh, some of that is from the fact that when using it at longer distances, the bokeh is assisted by the natural separation between the subject and background. It has 6 blades, which usually does not lend itself to fantastic bokeh, but the lens actually does quite well all things considered.
As mentioned by other reviewers, the AF can hunt at times and is not silent, and the kit does not include a lens hood… something that can be solved for about $20, though it would be nice for Pentax to spend the pennies it would likely cost them to include a hood.
One thing to remember that can make a big difference in addressing some of the lens’ shortfalls is the fact that the K-x, K-r, K-7 and K-5 can all correct for this lens’ specific characteristics when shooting, though it does bring down the camera’s performance and speed.
Still, the excellent performance to cost ratio, this can't really be beat. I anticipate replacing the 18-55 kit long before this one. Highly recommended!
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: March, 2010 Location: Alabama Posts: 642 | | Lens Review Date: December 6, 2010 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: N/A
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Price, lightweight, versatility, IQ | | Cons: | Noisy AF, some hunting, CA | |
Got this as part of a K-x kit. I really like the lens. I use it for portraits, wildlife, and even a some "almost macro" shots. I'm impressed with the image quality and colors, although I do see some significant CA fringing with many of my photos. The AF can hunt sometimes and is pretty loud. Don't expect to sneak up on anyone. But really, for the price I think this lens is a gem. It's always in the bag with me.
f/5.6, 260mm
f/4.5, 135mm
f/5.6, 230mm
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