I never really had an opportunity to get out and shoot with this lens over the dreary and cold winter, so I didn't have much in the way of sample pics. I had just a few minutes after work yesterday before it got dark, so I grabbed the lens and hurried to a little park close to my house to see what it can do.
The sun was just about to slip below the horizon when I got to the park, so I didn't have much time and I had to use a higher ISO than I would have preferred for sample lens shots. Anyway, I was very pleased with how the lens performed. Accuracy was pretty much spot-on on my K-30, and the sharpness looks very good to me.
This is a new park with very little in the way of nature features or trees, and everything was still brown from the winter, so the shots I got aren't supposed to be anything special. But I think they still show that the lens is a good performer.
You can click on each image to download the 100% un-cropped version. Please keep in mind that all pictures were shot hand-held with my (probably) less-than-perfect technique!
So the lens works perfectly on my camera in terms of AF, and the original owner also never had a problem with it. So I don't know if my first buyer was just unlucky with the calibration of his camera, or if he was doing something wrong, or if he had other reasons for returning the lens. But regardless, I'm not going to sell it a third time, so if you decide to bid on it, please be aware that
with any fast telephoto lens there is a possibility of calibration issues, since you are dealing with such thin focal planes. If that turns out to be the case with your camera body, then it is definitely worth it to have the lens calibrated since it's such a great lens. But I'm not Costco or Amazon.com, so I'm not going to accept endless returns on a lens that has nothing wrong with it!