| Review of: SMC Pentax-DA* 50-135mm F2.8 ED [IF] SDM by labidas on Wed December 19, 2018 | Rating: 9 | View more reviews | |
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| Pentax DA*50-135 F2,8
My thoughts after 18months of use.
(not a review, I don't have the necessary know-how and equipment to review a lens.)
Ergonomics and design - Very good size and weight. You can definitely carry it around all day, even shoot one handed on the wider end.
- The weathersealing is tight. It will even survive underwater for some time. (don't ask me, just know it's not completely watertight :P) In rain, no question.
- The grips are from rubber and real tight. The rubber hasn't slipped once even after I've removed it from the zoom ring various times. (why? Keep reading)
- The resistance on both the zoom and focusing rings are good. No complaints there.
- The hood is long and tough. It might seem sometimes it doesn't attach properly, but in real use it has never come loose so no lost points there. I'm actually glad it's big. Makes you feel bigger ;) and helps keep the contrast.
- This lens has an dedicated MF/AF switch. I don't use it much at all because in addition it has quickshift: you can use manual focus in AF.
- Mounted on a tripod (a rather cheap one ~50$) it doesn't move in landscape orientation. When I turn my ballhead 90 to the side (portrait orientation) it has a hard time keeping steady and sometimes starts sliding. So a tripod collar would have been nice with this lens :/
- The housing is made from metal and the paint hasn't started coming off from any parts. My copy is almost 8 years old and it still looks like a mint one from the outside.
Optics - It's okay. The bokeh is smooth (no onion rings etc) and keeps it's round shape throughout it's apertures.
- There is some aberration, but very minor and mostly goes unnoticed.
- Haze is under control when shooting into a bright light source. Don't expect anything exceptional though. You'll still lose a lot of detail in the shadows as with most lenses.
- Sharpness at f2,8 isn't the best, but from f3,5 it's tack sharp until f11~f13 where it gets soft again.
Compared to Tamron 17-50/f2.8 and Pentax-M 50/1.4 all at f5.6, I'd say the 50-135 takes a close second behind the 50/1.4, but well ahead of the Tamron (which is a very sharp zoom lens).
*When I started photography, I noticed many people telling something like "shoot with a kit lens at f8 and it's as sharp as premium glass wide open". I have to disagree :) Even though it's a bit hazy at 2,8 there's a lot more fine detail visible. So don't trust that misbelief.
Autofocus - It's slow. There's no point in sugarcoating it. Not ideal for close range fast paced action @f2,8.
- For everything else, it's more than enough. Goes from infinity to close focus in just over a second.
- Sometimes it feels a bit laggy and has trouble locking focus.
- More rarely, the lens might start and take the first couple of shots a little out of focus. Usually this issue goes away with a few seconds of focusing(AF).
*People have also pointed out it's not precise. I have to disagree. Having used a K30, K500, K50 and now a K3, the issue lies inherently within Pentax's own AF system. I can never be 100% sure I'll get pixel perfect focus. There's always a small room within which the AF system misses and catches focus and it has done so with all my cameras and different lenses. With fast glass these tiny errors show up more.
**My copy of this lens needed AF microadjustment. More on the older bodies, less on the K3.
Problems and FIXES
Let's start with the big one:
SDM failure
The good news is that in most cases the SDM doesn't die, it simply gets stuck. If you can't fix it via warranty and don't want to convert this lens into a screwdrive one, there is a simple fix available. I've made a separate blog post about it here: LINK *this happened to me once and I fixed it focus locks up
Turning the screwdrive screw on the back of your lens should do the trick.
*this happened to me once Misses focus on some focal length, but not others
This indicates the zoom ring pins are bent or broken. See my link above, I also talked about this in my post. Again, it's an easy fix that doesn't require any mayor lens disassembly.
*never happened to me Doesn't find any focus at all, only focuses inside a narrow range and doesn't respond to manual focus
I don't know why this happened, but I've read once or twice about it online too so I'm not the only one.
I just took the lens off and afterwards it worked perfectly again.
*this happened to me once You might think this lens comes with a fair share of potential problems, but I assure you, all of them are rather rare and every lens regardless of manufacturer has problems like that. Newer copies of this lens have a better SDM that doesn't get stuck so easily. After doing a lot of research and meddling with the interior of my lens I'm convinced this lens won't magically break. For everything that happens there's a reason and most of the time the fixes are rather easy.
I recommend this lens. It's probably the best APS-C zoom lens for Pentax.
*I also tested it on the K1. The lenshood produces a good chunk of the vignette. Without the lenshood you can shoot @50mm and do a 1,1~1,2x crop to get rid of the dark edges. 1:1 crop has no vignette. Really, the vignette is not that bad without the hood. Works as a FF lens in the higher mm range. AND it remains sharp. So, no need to sell it just because you upgraded to a K1.
2022 Update
I've been shooting with Sony A7III + Tamron 28-75 & Sigma 85/1.4 for a few years now. At the time the 50-135 was a major jump from my kit lenses. I really loved that lens and I remembered it being good. This lens is at its best as sharp as the Tamron 28-75 RXD. However the AF on Pentax bodies is so bad, you'll mostly not see it unless you like shooting at f8.
Updated scores on the logic: 0 being the worst possible pinhole lens, 10 being something like my Sigma 85/1.4 dg dn:
Sharpness: 7
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 7
AF: 4
Handling: 10
Value: 5? Depends on the price.
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