As one of the original unhappy owners, it's nice to wipe a smudge or two from this lens' reputation. My early copy was unsatisfactory on my K-7, and having received it used I felt no comfort in sending it in for repairs without a purchase date or receipt. Since any copy would have been in warranty it probably would have been no problem
but I received a decent offer and the new owner kept it (as far as I know) so no real harm done.. except to my hurt feelings about what should have been a fine lens plus my handing out low marks on a fairly new lens.
Last week I won an auction copy from a new K30 owner. This one looks like new and feels better than I remember the other lens - very tight and smooth rings, for example. Images took more scrutiny before showing some off-axis issues, nothing as appalling as the first copy. And tonight while toying with it I set AF fine-tuning to -4 on my K-5 and now it
really looks nice. I look forward to trying this setting in daylight to see if results are even better than yesterday.
Anyway, just thought this note should go public. I do not regret disliking the old copy, as it wasn't a good match to my body
du jour - but I'm really happy to have a high-quality copy like most other owners. I expect more K30s will be parted from their 18-135s and soon others will enjoy copies of a very handy lens.
And away go some of the lenses in that kit I raved about less than two months ago...