| Latest Review Posted | SMC Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED AL [IF] SDM
I have had a love-hate relationship with this lens. After nearly 4 years of use and two repair jobs done on the SDM motor I can finally say I love it now. It seems the two trips to the repair bench really improved the lens. They must have upgraded to a newer SDM motor and did some realigning of the optics. It now serves up much better images with respect to focus accuracy and edge sharpness. People on this forum are likely aware that the SDM focus motor is something of a lemon. First generation SDM motors will fail sooner or later. Yet, I have to give credit to Pentax for a long warranty period and honoring that policy.
Now that I have switched from a K-5 to a K-3 I have grown to really appreciate this lens. First, the K-3 nails the focus perfectly every time and the resolution is excellent in the center. When stopped down past f4 it is actually quite sharp overall. I also appreciate the weather sealing as there is little point in having a weatherproof body without a matching lens.
If one wants to evaluate this lens purely on technical terms like resolution, sharpness, chromatic aberration, curvature distortion and focus speed, it will not win any awards. However, it does all these things well enough and is perfectly usable. IMHO the DA* 16-50mm surpasses the kit lenses against these metrics.
Where I find it excels is the quality of its rendering and the rich colors it can produce. Its SMC coatings produce an image which I find much more appealing and pleasing t... |
