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View Poll Results: Is this DA*16-50mm good or bad?
Keep it -- it's good. 2388.46%
Return it or send it in for repair. 311.54%
Voters: 26. You may not vote on this poll

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03-05-2008, 10:51 PM   #466
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Congrats!

I've yet to test my second copy. I've been to busy. hopefully I'll have a chance tomorrow or Friday.

I'd love to fall into the happy category with you

03-05-2008, 11:06 PM   #467
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From that picture, yeah I can see your cause for concern, that lens is horribly flawed. The green of the grass has brown patches in it, the right side of the picture is very clowdy, the sky is totally blown out with white spots, man, what a bummer. Sorry to tell you man, but you got a dud.

Has anyone ever thought to consider how much money we are costing Pentax to have to 'replace' all of these 'defective' lenses and in turn where that cost is going to get filtered back to... yeah, you guesse it, US!

I am not saying that you need to eat it on a truely defective lens, but c'mon, if you are willing to drop $700 on a lens and are unable to tell wether or not the thing works properly...

Quite the contrary, I am almost certain that you know wether or not your lens is working properly, and it is by the way, but all of the fear and skepticism that has been drawn up about this lens has put the buyer into panic mode where they can no longer reason for themselves and require outside reassurance for what they already know.

Selar, I am by no means picking on you, for you are not alone. I was skeptical at first before making the purchase, I openly admit it, but to the same degree, I posted my good fortunes of getting a lens that lives up to my expectations to counter all the negative ones out there about faulty equipment being sent out.

I understand there are people out there with genuine defective equipment, but I dont want all of the bad press to filter down into a 'Red Scare' if you would. There are plenty of DA* owners on this board that have great success with the lens, and you are included with this statement.

So as I said earlier
QuoteOriginally posted by Buddha Jones:
You have minimal vignetting and almost no barrel distortion. You are free to go and start shooting. Do us proud.
03-06-2008, 03:39 AM   #468
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Maybe that wasn't the best shot to post as it was taken at f5.6, by which aperture both centre and corners are sharp.

At 2.8 centre is so-so and corners are poor.
at 4 centre is good and corners so-so

I would expect more from a *lens that I dropped a grand on.
03-06-2008, 05:49 AM   #469
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QuoteOriginally posted by Buddha Jones Quote
There is my problem with the whole brick wall test, it is somewhat visually revealing but not very real world proven. Unless you are in a museum taking pictures of art, I cant see another reason why this would be much of a consideration, but that just me. I never focus on a full frame, DOF and bokeh covers up almost all lens flaws, so I hope. But it is what it is.
Makes me almost want to ask for a calibrated Brick


QuoteOriginally posted by Buddha Jones Quote
From that picture, yeah I can see your cause for concern, that lens is horribly flawed. The green of the grass has brown patches in it, the right side of the picture is very clowdy, the sky is totally blown out with white spots, man, what a bummer. Sorry to tell you man, but you got a dud.

Has anyone ever thought to consider how much money we are costing Pentax to have to 'replace' all of these 'defective' lenses and in turn where that cost is going to get filtered back to... yeah, you guesse it, US!

I am not saying that you need to eat it on a truely defective lens, but c'mon, if you are willing to drop $700 on a lens and are unable to tell wether or not the thing works properly...

Quite the contrary, I am almost certain that you know wether or not your lens is working properly, and it is by the way, but all of the fear and skepticism that has been drawn up about this lens has put the buyer into panic mode where they can no longer reason for themselves and require outside reassurance for what they already know.

Selar, I am by no means picking on you, for you are not alone. I was skeptical at first before making the purchase, I openly admit it, but to the same degree, I posted my good fortunes of getting a lens that lives up to my expectations to counter all the negative ones out there about faulty equipment being sent out.

I understand there are people out there with genuine defective equipment, but I dont want all of the bad press to filter down into a 'Red Scare' if you would. There are plenty of DA* owners on this board that have great success with the lens, and you are included with this statement.
Well said.

No offence to selar, but we need to cut back on the bashing of product, before we understand whether there is a problem or not. I noted in the posted photo there was no EXIF data, so we don't know anything about the shot to even help selar with what ever happened

03-06-2008, 07:39 AM   #470
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QuoteOriginally posted by drivel Quote
Congrats!

I've yet to test my second copy. I've been to busy. hopefully I'll have a chance tomorrow or Friday.

I'd love to fall into the happy category with you
Thanks! Let me know how your lens turns out.
03-06-2008, 09:41 AM   #471
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Wanna sell it Ted?
I'll be first in line

PS: On a serious note, I'm glad the trouble is over for you. Congrats.
03-06-2008, 09:57 AM   #472
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Mazel Tov!

I probably would have ended up with the 16-50mm had I stayed with Pentax. The 50-135mm was AWESOME! I just picked up the Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS and it's very simlar to the "lowly" Pentax, except I think the DA* rendered things a bit better (purely subjective)

03-06-2008, 02:24 PM   #473
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New DA* 16-50mm...survey says....STINKER

On reports of more and more good copies I decided to pull the trigger on the 16-50mm and try my luck, I got it yesterday and 1st swing is a miss....

Back focus by about 18-20mm, big time sharpness issues on the left side of every image at 16/2.8 and still noticable at 4, and the right side was nothing to write home about. The kit lens trumped it in all tests. Must say I am a little bummed...I had high hopes. I tried every test, brick wall, newspaper, 45* focus test, and a bunch of "real world" shots wide open. What a hunk of expensive sh..... paperweight.

Luckily Amazon pays for return shipping, so I may have to try again. But still I must say the whole affair is totally unacceptable for a $700 item.

The SN was 9018018, since I know some are keeping track....

Wish me luck on #2.
03-06-2008, 03:00 PM   #474
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QuoteOriginally posted by bigben91682 Quote
On reports of more and more good copies I decided to pull the trigger on the 16-50mm and try my luck, I got it yesterday and 1st swing is a miss....

Back focus by about 18-20mm, big time sharpness issues on the left side of every image at 16/2.8 and still noticable at 4, and the right side was nothing to write home about. The kit lens trumped it in all tests. Must say I am a little bummed...I had high hopes. I tried every test, brick wall, newspaper, 45* focus test, and a bunch of "real world" shots wide open. What a hunk of expensive sh..... paperweight.

Luckily Amazon pays for return shipping, so I may have to try again. But still I must say the whole affair is totally unacceptable for a $700 item.

The SN was 9018018, since I know some are keeping track....

Wish me luck on #2.
That's a bummer. When you get a good one, they are superb.
03-06-2008, 04:35 PM   #475
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I agree, I took the 50-135mm to work with me to do some testing and it is very very nice. Colors are just awesome and the bokeh is very nice as well. And it is soo dang quiet, I just cannot get over that.

Last edited by Buddha Jones; 03-06-2008 at 08:25 PM.
03-06-2008, 04:47 PM   #476
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Photo taken this morning of the scene from my driveway at f2.8, 16mm, Autofocus:

100% crops of the same image, linked back to flickr, which used to leave exif intact (unlike Picasa):

Top left corner



Center:



Bottom Right:



Hopefully, someone will offer some constructive advice now.
03-06-2008, 06:34 PM   #477
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QuoteOriginally posted by selar Quote
Photo taken this morning of the scene from my driveway at f2.8, 16mm, Autofocus:

100% crops of the same image, linked back to flickr, which used to leave exif intact (unlike Picasa):

Top left corner
Center:

Bottom Right:
Hopefully, someone will offer some constructive advice now.
These are crops out of something bigger, can we see the whole photos?
03-06-2008, 06:42 PM   #478
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The whole picture (resized down to 800x600 before uploading):

03-06-2008, 06:49 PM   #479
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What you are seeing is the equivelent of a very long telephoto lens, you cannot zoom infinitely and expect things to be clear and sharp.

The sharpness is relitive. to the amount you will blow things up.

In addition you have extreme foreground with the near curb, and background. depth of field is not that good.

I still believe you are expecting more than what can be reasonably expected.

If you want to try a test, from the same view point. use a telephoto lens and take a similar picture of the car, and the car only to match your crop. I would bet you need something like a 200-300 mm lens, hand hold that at 1/200 and F2.8 and see hat you get.

Also, are you using shake reduction?
03-06-2008, 07:04 PM   #480
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QuoteOriginally posted by Lowell Goudge Quote



Also, are you using shake reduction?
Yes, I used Shake reduction. Hand held. Do you think thats camera shake?

With the test you suggested - I don't understand this bit:

QuoteOriginally posted by Lowell Goudge Quote
take a similar picture of the car, and the car only to match your crop
I also don't have a 200 or 300 f2.8, best I can come up with is F*300 at f4.5. I also would like to mount on tripod and use remote release with mirror lock up for the test. And reshoot with DA*16-50 using same setup.

Last edited by selar; 03-06-2008 at 07:12 PM.
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