I'll admit it. I'm a lens snob. But lately I've been trying to travel with just my iPhone as my camera and while it is quite good for what it is, ultimately such a setup doesn't cut it for me. I was toying with the idea of purchasing a "travel zoom" such as the Sony RX10 m4 but recently I scored a Sigma 18-300mm macro contemporary from B&H for $349. I also picked up the matching closeup filter on Amazon for $16. Both are mint condition. I figured I would give it a try on my old Pentax K3ii. So everything arrived today and I thought I try out the closeup capabilities, particularly at 300mm. Well, I'm more than pleased so far. I'll be doing some more tests soon but I think I have found my lightweight travel camera! Honestly, this might just push me to upgrade to a K3iii.

Note: images shot in RAW and processed in DXO PhotoLab5.

[C_Jones]

I once had one of those. It took very nice pictures, but I decided to return it and purchased the Pentax 16-85 for the wider capability when shooting landscape.

[MikeNArk]

Good images. I've been tempted to purchase that lens many times, and now they are difficult to find. Having that range is great and the quality of captures is quite good.

[MJSfoto1956]

Well call me surprised. At 18mm the lens is pretty damn sharp. And the DxO PhotoLab5 profile for my K3ii + Sigma 18-300mm lens fixes any distortions. So after a bit of fiddling I was able to determine the entrance pupil for this lens @ 18mm. I then set up a quick multi-level pano rig to test, being sure to have both close and long distance objects in the panorama. Without much fuss I arrived at this 90° image. Pretty much perfectly aligned and very easy to render using Affinity Photo.

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[MJSfoto1956]

Definitely a capable lens in good light. I'm sold.