| Latest Review Posted | SMC Pentax-DA* 50-135mm F2.8 ED [IF] SDM
I bought this lens secondhand. It is mainly used for landscape as well as indoor/outdoor events. Occasionally, I will use it for portraiture.
Overall, the lens delivers great optical performance. Its sharpness is good wide-open and great from f/3.5 to f/8 throughout the zoom range. I cannot remember any issue with CA using this lens. Further, it produces the smooth and pleasing out of focus area.
In term of lens construction and handling, the lens is well-built. Its zoom ring is in an adequate size for my hand. The focus ring offers a large area to grip on when a manual focus is needed, which requires about 135 degrees of turn to change from its minimum focusing distance at 1m to infinity or vice versa. This long focus throw allows a high degree of accurancy when focus manually. The AF switch on the lens allows catch-in-focus. I have not yet brought the lens through any harsh condition, but it can withstand light rain many times without any issue.
The only problem I find in this lens is its auto-focus. Although silent in sound, its auto-focus is slow and somewhat inconsistent (especially in case of a contrast-based auto-focus in live view). If the lens has not been used for a very long time, it may need a bit of warm-up period, where an auto-focus is slower than usual, before it can operate at the normal speed. Sometimes, auto-focus with this lens does not give an accurate result. Also, the lens may miss the focus from time to time, which is really annoying. When the... |
