| Author: | | New Member Registered: February, 2020 Location: Copenhagen Posts: 20 | | Lens Review Date: November 3, 2020 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: $50.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Sharp | | Cons: | Screw drive | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Autofocus: 8
Handling: 10
Value: 10
New or Used: Used
Camera Used: K-70
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I was thinking to try the AL II version because I heard many positive about it.
For a kit lens this is incredible sharp, very satisfied with the performance. My copy sharp at even f4. Reading a lot of forums and looking many photos seems this version is the sharpest among all the Pentax kit lenses. I took some indoor and outdoor photos. The pictures are simply amazing. It has good contrast and pleasing color rendering. I can highly recommend it.
 | | | | | | | Pentaxian Registered: December, 2016 Location: London Posts: 853 | | Lens Review Date: July 25, 2018 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: $46.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Lightweight | | Cons: | Poor depth of focus for macro work | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 7
Autofocus: 9
Handling: 8
Value: 8
New or Used: Used
Camera Used: K200D
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This came with a K200D body I bought second-hand, and seems VERY similar to 18-55 kit lenses I've used on Nikon and Canon. The price I've given for it is half the cost of the body and the lens together. There were no real surprises; it's an adequate performer, but focus seemed a little unreliable at close distances, and I had to discard several shots. Some of that is probably down to the camera's autofocus rather than the lens itself.
There's an album of test shots here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/150868539@N02/albums/72157699002825284
 | | | | | Pentaxian Registered: August, 2012 Posts: 633 | | Lens Review Date: July 12, 2017 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: N/A
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Lightweight, reasonably sharp at higher f-stops, useful focal range | | Cons: | not so sharp at lower f-stops | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 7
Autofocus: 9
Handling: 9
Value: 9
New or Used: Used
Camera Used: K200D
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I find it interesting that this lens is rated better than its predecessor, the DA 18-55, because I find little difference between the two. My initial impression of the lens was that it felt a little more plastic and lightweight than my DA 18-55s, but weighing the two on my digital postal scale showed they were within 0.02 ounces of one another. Testing this lens against one of my DA 18-55 lenses on my Samsung GX-20, they were equally sharp but this lens had a little lower color saturation. This lens came to me with a K200D I recently acquired so it's hard to say exactly what it cost.
All that said, I generally like all three variants of Pentax DA 18-55mm lenses (although I'm less than thrilled with the DA-L variant's plastic base) and think every Pentax owner should own at least one. They're a very useful focal range and doesn't add significant bulk to the camera, making them great 'walking around' lenses for street photography. Although not a true macro lens, they do fairly decent closeup work and have a pleasant enough bokeh for casual portrait shots.
| | | | | New Member Registered: October, 2014 Posts: 14 | | Lens Review Date: July 26, 2015 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: $100.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Tamaņo, terminacion, colores | | Cons: | poca apertura, ruidoso, construccion | | Sharpness: 7
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 7
Autofocus: 7
Handling: 9
Value: 8
New or Used: New
Camera Used: k50, k5, k200
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Buen lente de kit, colores y contraste muy Pentax. Calidad de construccion basica, pero solida. La apertura de diafragma es pobre, pero suficiente. El enfoque es correcto y bien combinado con el iso puede dar muy buenos resultados. El parasol cumple muy bien con su funcion. La definicion es correcta, pero en focales cortas distorsiona muchisimo.
| | | | | | | New Member Registered: December, 2014 Posts: 6 | | Lens Review Date: December 19, 2014 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: $195.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Good all-round lense for this price | | Cons: | none for this cathegory | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 8
Autofocus: 8
Handling: 8
Value: 8
New or Used: New
Camera Used: K-200
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I started using my girlfriends camera with this lense 5 years ago - knowing nothing about it. But i didnt consider it to be great. Soon I realized I am having a great basic lense usefull for almost everything, and I still have it today. I did many travels with it - Madeira, England, Province, Sri Lanka, Tyrollia - and everywhere i was taking DA 18-55 II with me, and I was sure i will have great pictures from my holiday. Especially with nice polarizating filter! Also it is quite small and light. So for travelling it is perfect. The only situation I couldnt really use it is for indoor shooting with low light, since K-200 has very bad sensitivity for light and maximum aperture value of 18-55 is only 3,5. But in this cathegory aperture 3,5 is very common, so I am not putting this into CONS. I try to put aperture at least 7,1, then i am sure the picture will go out great. I never shoot pictures with maximum aperture (3,5) - its nonsense.
| | | | | New Member Registered: April, 2014 Posts: 15 | | | | | Veteran Member Registered: October, 2008 Location: Greensboro,NC Posts: 503 | | Lens Review Date: March 27, 2014 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: N/A
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | light, cheap, fairly sharp | | Cons: | slow, have stomp down to get sharp pictures | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 7
Autofocus: 8
Handling: 9
Value: 9
New or Used: New
Camera Used: K200D, K100D
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This lens is surprisingly good for a kit lens, much better than the offerings from canon or nikon.
This lens is very sharp at f8 and beyond. This isn't a low light lens but most of you all probably knew that. At 18mm and 55mm it isn't the best but anywhere in the middle is good. I've done some landscape images at 18mm at f11 with pretty good results. I don't use this lens much any more since buying the DA 50mm f1.8, but it's nice to have for wider focal lengths.
Over all I would recommend this lens for the price.
This picture is at 28mm at f11:
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3832/10316368195_6017235206_b_d.jpg | | | | | New Member Registered: December, 2013 Posts: 9
2 users found this helpful
| | Lens Review Date: March 14, 2014 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: $130.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | sharp from 24-55, light, compact, very useful focal range | | Cons: | wide end very bad (CA, blurry at corners), slow but expected at this price, build quality can be better | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 6
Autofocus: 8
Handling: 9
Value: 10
New or Used: New
Camera Used: k5ii
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I would say cons first:
1, never depend on the wide end, especially 18mm, not really usable because of CA and you will see blur just not far away from the center. I suggest buy a sigma 10-20 to make up the wide end if you also want a super wide lens. If you don't want super wide focus, I suggest using 18-55ii for one year and then upgrade to another zoom lens or prime lens.
2, another con is that the lens is rather slow. Don't think about taking bokeh image except you are taking picture of a very near object. I suggest again using this lens for one year and take enough pictures then you know which focus you use most, then you can consider buying a much faster prime lens.
Pros:
1, 24,35,55 are all very usable, you can take sharp image with these three focus from F7.1-10. I suggest only using the three focus, so you can have an sense of three focus which helps improve your photography skills and let you know which prime you need in the future.
2, it's light and compact throughout the focus range. Some other normal range lens like 16-45 and 18-135 are also very good lens, but they can be double weight and much much longer.
Anything I don't talk about like AF and other things you may care, I would say they are OK to use, no problem.
Hope this review helps. | | | | | New Member Registered: November, 2013 Posts: 8
1 user found this helpful
| | Lens Review Date: February 19, 2014 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: N/A
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | no CA's after changing program, very sharp 24-35mm | | Cons: | 18mm not so sharp in the corners | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 9
Autofocus: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 10
New or Used: New
Camera Used: k-x
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what a nice kit lens. I 've changed program in k-x to "eliminate CA's" - none more-
sharpness for a kit zoom: nearly excellent when stopping down to f 8-11
color and contrast transmission: excellent
very satisfying results, so that for me no other wide angle lens is needed, perhaps 4/15
I've tested corners on 55mm: excellent sharp, still better than 1,4/50 single lens with f 8.
| | | | | New Member Registered: February, 2013 Posts: 20
2 users found this helpful
| | Lens Review Date: January 6, 2014 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: $50.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | great at 35mm, Quick Shift Focus, size/weight, build quality, price | | Cons: | corner aberrations at the wide end, "dullness" at the long end, six-bladed iris | | Autofocus: 8
Handling: 10
Value: 10
New or Used: New
Camera Used: K10D, K-01
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Sharpness, aberrations and bokeh vary according to the focal length, so no numeric evaluations from me this time. At 35mm my copy rivals the 35Ltd for sharpness, has less distortion (none at all!) and chromatic aberrations (also none).* It gets worse at the wide and especially at the long end, but for the price it's a genuine bargain...
*of course, 35Ltd excels in different virtues, such as microcontrast, "snap", close focusing etc. so they're not really comparable...
Some samples (click for bigger versions):
 | | | | | Senior Member Registered: December, 2012 Location: Kristiansand S Posts: 247 | | Lens Review Date: August 18, 2013 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: N/A
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Good as travel/all round lens, solid, quick shift | | Cons: | a litle slow | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 7
Autofocus: 8
Handling: 10
Value: 10
New or Used: New
Camera Used: K200D/K30
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Good value. Underestimated lens. One of the best kit lenses (AL II version). A very good starter lens. | | | | | Pentaxian Registered: January, 2010 Posts: 290 | | Lens Review Date: July 3, 2013 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: N/A
| Rating: 6 |
| Pros: | focal length | | Cons: | softness | | Sharpness: 6
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 8
Autofocus: 9
Handling: 9
Value: 9
New or Used: New
Camera Used: K200D, K5
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For ladnscape you have to rise а to 11-13 to get sharp images.
http://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/9252/27105245.2/0_eb9ae_bf5bc383_XXXL.jpg | | | | | New Member Registered: April, 2013 Location: Lakeland, FL Posts: 6
1 user found this helpful
| | Lens Review Date: April 25, 2013 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: N/A
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Great color, sharp at all focal lengths, small and lightweight | | Cons: | Some chromatic aberation, particuarly at wide focal lengths | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 6
Bokeh: 8
Autofocus: 9
Handling: 10
Value: 10
New or Used: New
Camera Used: K200D, K-30
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This lens has traveled everywhere and has never let me down. Great colors, sharp, perfect contrast, lightweight, small for a zoom.
There are some chromatic aberrations at 18mm, but it is corrected by k-30 or by software.
I want to get the WR version of this lens. I wouldn't purchase any other zoom other than this model. It's better than the kit zooms from Nikon and Canon. The only real upgrade would be to just shoot one or two primes.
The modern Pentax SLRs handle noise so well, that the slow speed of this lens is insignificant.
| | | | | Senior Member Registered: October, 2011 Location: San Jose Del Monte Posts: 198
1 user found this helpful
| | Lens Review Date: February 15, 2013 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: N/A
| Rating: N/A |
| Pros: | Reasonably sharp | | Cons: | | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 9
Autofocus: 9
Handling: 9
Value: 10
New or Used: Used
Camera Used: K-01
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 | | | | | Veteran Member Registered: February, 2012 Location: Albuquerque, NM Posts: 450
2 users found this helpful
| | Lens Review Date: October 26, 2012 | I can recommend this lens: Yes |
Price: $49.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Price; Handling, and IQ | | Cons: | some CA and aberrations | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 7
Autofocus: 9
Handling: 10
Value: 10
New or Used: Used
Camera Used: K5/K7/K10D
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Excellent lens.
Actually I sold out my K7 kit WR like two years ago. However after using the alternative 16-45 for a while I regretted....SO I got this as used (9/10) from KEH at a low price: $49.
What can I and what should I complain? NOTHING. EVEN with some soft wide-open and CA, this is still a superb lens with stupidly low price.
Handling: That's the main reason why I abandoned the 16-45. This one is smaller, however there is no $200 difference on IQ between the two lenses. Even the wide-open is kind soft, however it is still good and very usable.
And with 25cm min focus distance, this one does a good job.
Rembmer: There is no "bad lens" when step down to F8.
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