Originally posted by tjstimbo Never even thought of the 55-300! Will take a look at it.
Super fast and quiet AF, very good image quality, folds up small(ish), WR, shorter minimum focus distance than most xx-300 lenses (95cm), fairly light weight.
But .... unless and until Ricoh releases a firmware update, it won't work with any of the K-5 series.
The older screw-drive versions of the 55-300 are good lenses too. Just the AF is noisy. It's probably a bit faster to focus than the superzoom though, and it has about 1/2 stop-1 stop wider maximum aperture across the common range.
Two lens kit of 16-85 or 18-135 and 55-300 would be a big step up from the superzoom. (I had a superzoom for 6 years.)
If you can't persuade your wife to get used to changing lenses, and she wants to keep the same range, maybe consider the Sigma 18-300.