Pentax SMC DA* Series 1650mm f/2.8 ED AL

Fantastic lens!!!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is very very nice lens!

I was little bit hesitant to buy it mainly because of the QC problem

However I’m so happy to get this one and want to encourage anyone to try it.

For this price tag of $650, this is a steal.

Very very sharp lens at the price of Nikon or Canon bundle.

Just get it, you will never gonna lose it.

Great Lens!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’ve been using the Sigma 18-50mm f2.8, and upgraded to the Pentax because of the SDM, the wider wide angle, and the Weather Resistance, and I don’t regret it. The Sigma isn’t a bad lens, considering it costs ~60% as much, but this lens is far superior.

Initially, I thought it was broken – when I pressed the shutter button I didn’t hear *anything*. Then I realized that it had focused, and was amazed. It’s much faster focusing than my other short zooms, nearly silent, and very precise. Contrast is great, bokeh is very nice. It also focuses closer than I expected – down to around four or six inches. Not a Macro, but definitely useable for lots of close-ups.

The images I’ve gotten from it in the days I have had it are extremely sharp and contrasty. The Sigma I have tended to underexpose by about half a stop; this one seems dead on.

This thing is huge, too. It’s probably 30% bigger than the Sigma, and much heavier. Prepare to spend money if you want to put filters on this baby. Make sure you have a good strong back before strapping this thing on your camera, too!

Pentax continues to amaze me with the quality they produce at such low prices. If you’re one of the people that just snorted when I said “Low prices”, I suggest you go check the price on the Nikkor or Canon equivalent of this lens (L series in Canon lenses). Then report back.

Better the Second Time
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This lens got a good review in the March 08 issue of Popular Photography and I was anxious to try it with my K10D. The first lens I received had a Jeckel/Hyde personality. At 50-35mm it was tack sharp with excellent contrast, especially when stopped down one or two stops. At 16mm I couldn’t get a single shot in focus at infinity in manual or auto focus modes. Wide open it was awful, but even stopped down several stops it was never sharp from about 28 through 16mm. I also noticed a lot of purple fringing, again, more noticeable at wider angles. I got much better overall results from my older Pentax DA 16-45 f4 lens. I rated it with 2 stars, returned it to Amazon and decided to wait a few months to see if the quality control improved.

I took a chance on a second lens about 7 months later. Big difference! This one was what it should have been the first time. Very sharp at all focal lengths especially when stopped down 1-2 stops. The build of the lens is great and the SDM focusing is virtually silent. Some purple fringing is also noticeable on the newer lens, especially at wider angles, around edges with higher contrasts. This is easy to correct in Adobe Lightroom software. Overall an excellent lens for the price and worthy of 4 stars.

Silky smooth but not quite perfect – UPDATE 1/4/10
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Update – Jan. 4, 2010: Below I noted the occasional balky response but had not determined whether this was a problem. Unfortunately, it is! I have had another significant episode where the focusing system simply refused to budge and this was in broad daylight. After doing a number of checks on settings, remounting the lens to insure there were no contact issues, the lens simply would not focus (i.e. the focus motor wasn’t even trying to focus). Pull out my trusty, but noisy, 18-250mm Pentax and . . . zip! All is well. So back to Amazon it goes. Still deciding on whether to stay with this lens and assume that I just got a bad copy or . . . ? The photos are wonderful from the lens so I cannot complain in that regard, but it would be nice to have confidence that it would handle most of the focusing chores for me!

———-

For reference, my original set-up was the K20d with the Pentax 18-250mm. Given my usage, the 18-250 is a remarkable walk around lens but I came to realize that its shortcomings can be visible when I printed up some photos from a recent trip to Big Bend National Park in Texas. Specifically, when I had to press things out to the full 250mm end, I wound up with images that were too soft to print at any reasonable size. I made the decision to improve my set-up by shifting to a two or three lens system and the first of the purchases was the 16-50mm. I purchased this because I needed a bit more width (I shoot some home interiors for my business use) and the difference between having 16mm vs. 18mm at the wide end is remarkably helpful! I also wanted the weather resistance of the DA* as well as the constant f2.8 so this was the logical choice. With that in mind, and with awareness of the many pros and cons that others have cited, here are my impressions after a few months of usage:

Pros:

> Build: The 18-250 is a very nice lens and feels solid, but the 16-50mm is soooo much nicer! The balance, the feel of the zoom and focus rings (as well as the fact that the focus ring is actually big enough to use!) – this is just a much more professional build overall.

> Quiet: At first I thought the focus was not set to auto! I was so used to hearing the rather loud focus noise from the 18-250mm that I kept manually putting the focus out of focus just to (not) hear the lens!

> Photo Quality: I have taken some nice photos with the 18-250mm but the 16-50mm has better color saturation and produces natural images with minimal need for post-processing. I recently shot almost 150 photos at a party indoors, most of them without flash. I was very pleasantly surprised how crisp, clean, saturated and properly white-balanced they came out without retouching!

Con:

> Occasional Balky Response: Then there is the rare, but always frustrating occasion when the lens seems to refuse to focus! I have not yet figured this out nor decided whether this necessitates a visit to Pentax service, but every once in a while, with decent lighting, the lens seems to freeze and not find a focus lock. Sometimes it is when everything seems fairly well focused in the viewfinder, but since the autofocus doesn’t agree you cannot take a picture. If I manually defocus the lens intentionally, it will usually do a normal focus and take the shot. If this happened often I would be more concerned, but it is very frustrating when it does because the ‘moment’ might be gone by the time the camera allows the shutter to release.

Regarding the various comments on focus accuracy, while I have not done a fully controlled test and ‘pixel peeped’ to find the more minute flaws, my experience so far has been very good. Other than those odd balky occasions noted above, the focus is crisp and edge to edge detail seems remarkably consistent. Vignetting is well controlled as is chromatic aberration even when shooting close to wide open.

Overall, I am very happy with the feel of the lens and the quality of the photos. A definite step up from the 18-250mm, but that is not a surprise! Four stars only because of my balky gremlin but even this has been so rare that it does not preclude me from recommending this lens highly. While I know that Nikon and Canon make excellent products, I am so happy that Pentax makes more affordable products that are capable of producing equally compelling photos! (Now, I wonder about that new 60-250mm DA* lens! Hey, Amazon, need a Vine tester for that?!)

Excellent!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I bought this lens shortly after buying my K10D, and I’ve been really impressed with it. Sharp with fast and quiet AF, it’s turned out to be an excellent lens. The price has dropped about $100 in the months since I bought mine, but I don’t care, this lens is just that good.

sharp and smooth
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
The built quality is exceptional. sharp, smooth and fast AF. Be sure to update your k10D firmware to v 1.3 before using this lens, so you wont be like me at first scratching my head wondering why a lens this expensive is noisy and vibrates. The lens is made in vietnam-nothing wrong with that, for some reason I was under the impression it was made in Japan.

Fabulous Lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This lens produces excellent contrast and color rendition. The weather-resistant sealing really works, as the lens held up in wet (Colorado River) and dusty (Antelope Canyon, Arizona) conditions. There is, however, a QC issue as it took me a few returns before I got a keeper. This lens is so good, it was worth a little hassle.

Solid Performer
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Excellent image quality across the entire zoom and aperture range that lives up to the DA* designation. The f/2.8 shutter speed provides for shooting in lower light conditions. Attached to the Pentax K20D, it results in very fast and very quiet focusing, and good color and sharpness characteristics. Only drawback is that this lens is a bit bulky (77 mm diameter opening)and heavy.

A bargain…just buy it!!!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
For Pentax K20D users:

(Older model owners: upgrade already, you’re missing all the fun, what are you waiting for?

I reviewed tons of sites before purchasing this lens. Here the lowdown after some extensive K20D (real world studio with people, not charts) testing:

-”Famous urban Internet legend” QA issues: Are done and over with. Blast from the (2008) past. All current lenses in stock do not have any issues anymore (in case you heard).

-Sharpness/Focus: Much, much better then lower grade zooms, especially if you stop down an f-stop or two (which you really should anyhow). It really shows all the (detailed) glory of your sensor. Do not settle for a third party lens (Sigma, Tamron, etc.) if you can have the real thing.

-AF: Way more accurate then kit/consumer lenses. Dead-on 95% of the time (versus non * lenses: More like 50%-70%). And in case you’re comparing: Yes, it’s better then the 17-70mm Pentax.

-A real bargain compared to Nikon/Canon glass: you would have to pay over a grand for the same quality.

-Bottom line: the best zoom glass you can get other then the (new digital) * primes. Even there, I think you would have a hard time to see a difference.

And yes, I do this for a living (shooting, not reviewing, that is).

I’m just flabbergasted how professional Pentax has become: The Nikon D300 with any glass shoots like a Coolpix in comparison (yes, I own an entire Nikon outfit).

Great or not Great
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
If you search the Pentax forums you will see that this lens has a return rate estimated to be 5%-10% to 50% to more. The issue is quality control. One major difficulty is front and rear focusing issues. Pop photography says the simga 18-50 is better optically and costs half as much. However, this lens seals your K10d or K20D against dust and rain water. It also has ultra smooth focusing. So after reading everything on the net and buying one here, the issue is “did you get a good one or not” I haven’t had time to test mine, but I have some suspicions from some pictures I have taken that it front focuses. When Pentax gets is QC straight, this lens will be an exceptionally good deal in my opinion

Fantastic for the travel/outdoor photographer
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Had this lens for a good 3 months now with the K20D and could not be happier!

The build quality is excellent, and it’s a real bargain for the price! I used it in pouring rain at my trips to the islands, beaches, and mountains without problems! I sure love the weathersealing of this lens!

Focusing is virtually silent. I literally had to stick my ear to it to check if it was working haha. It could be faster though. Not as fast as the AF-S and USM.

Very sharp and good contrast wide open! No hesitation shooting wide open for sharpness and contrast. The bokeh isn’t SUPER buttery smooth, a bit “busier” than I would like but happy with it. I can’t compare the bokeh to the fast primes. There’s a teeny bit of vignette wide open but I actually love vignettes.

I really like that it has a little window in the lens hood for filters. Very thoughtful and it’s great for CPLs.

The zoom ring has a good feel, smooth and dampened. The feel of the zoom ring is about 4/5 for me, as it could be just a teeny bit smoother. The focusing ring isn’t dampened much but very smooth. It doesn’t have much travel though, which I would have liked for manual focusing. The manual focusing override is very convenient.

Be a bit careful of the quality control. I’m not sure if it has been resolved but I was much happier with my second copy of this lens.

All in all, a great purchase! Great product, great value and a great bargain/price!

Bad quality control
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
After buying this lens I noticed that most pictures were “soft” on the right side. Not on the left. I then did some more specific testing at all focal lengths and aperture values, and found out that the lens was decentered. This lens has had a very big quality control problem that you can read about all over the net. I thought I might get lucky, but I was wrong. Luckily I bought it from Amazon. They have such a great return policy.

As of 1/25/10 quality control problems for this lens have NOT been fixed. SDM failure is quite common. In fact, there is now an online petition to Pentax about this with over 400 signatures. I went through 3 of these lenses (one SDM failure, two with decentering) before I gave up.

I sent the first two back
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
They are still having problems with quality assurance. This lens arrived and it looked great. I took several test images of a large 2 foot square black-on-white ink line drawing. It had sharply defined ink pen lines all over it, all the way to the edges. The images showed that the focus was unacceptably out of alignment from left to right and also a bit out from bottom to top. Looking at the test images over all, it seems like it might be a good lens if they can get me one with the alignment right.

Ammended 9/24 2009

The replacement arrived I tested it today using the same method and the alignment on this replacement lens was out of alignment in roughly the opposite direction by a similar amount, making the left edge significantly less sharp focused than the right. I returned it for replacement. We shall see what we get on the next try. I really would like to to get a properly aligned example of this lens that can provide images with a consistent focus left and right and top and bottom.

Ammended 9/29/2009

Amazon declined to send a third lens, offering simultaneously that getting two defective examples was very unusual, and strangely that, were they to ship a third, it would likely suffer the same defect. They volunteered to refund my shipping cost and purchase price, and recommended I contact Pentax. I will post clips from the center and each of the two extreme edges of the test image on this site.

It was very easy to alert Amazon and initiate a return. I really would still like to get a good one of these lenses. Apparently you do need some amount of luck to accomplish that.

My advice to anyone wanting one of these is, be prepared to test what you get, and do not order it a week before your big vacation trip expecting to have one arrive at the last minute that is good enough to use.

Great all-around lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Pros:

- Build quality is excellent

- Weather sealed

- Very sharp from F/4 across the entire zoom range

- Great colour rendition

- SDM works as advertised: fast and quiet

Cons:

- A tad soft at 16mm F/2.8

Stunning lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
It’s too bad there are bad copies out there because the only thing thing I can say about my copy is “stunning.” Well, there are other adjectives but you get the idea;)

I’ve had mine for a little over a month now and it’s by far my favorite lens. Crystal clear sharpness, incredible colors, great bokeh, and wonderful contrast. For me it’s the perfect walkaround lens–although I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on a 31mm Limited!

My copy does have very, very slight vignetting at 16mm at 2.8 but it’s never been annoying, but it can be easily PP’d out if need be. I didn’t mark it down for this because it is so slight and is actually pleasing to the eye, imo.

One thing, however, is you should buy it from a reputable dealer with a good return policy so if you do get a bad one it won’t be a hassle to return it. I have to say, though, that this lens is so good it’s worth taking the risk.

Tremendous lens, a bargin compared to…
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
If you’ve read my previous reviews, you know that I’m a retail camera salesperson. I get to use a wide variety of equipment, but I’m a bit picky on what I buy myself. I own this lens.

I couldn’t be more pleased with this lens for my K10D. The images are crisp at all focal lengths and apertures. The focusing is both fast and smooth. (Note: it will require updating to firmware version 1.3 for the K10D to autofocus properly.) Build quality is top-notch, and the weather-proofing is nice, although I doubt I’ll test that often.

Pentax has also equiped this lens with the older drive system, so that it can be used on older digital cameras, but the noise level goes up, and the AF performance, while decent, goes down.

This is an amazingly good deal compared to either the Canon or Nikon lenses in the same range. The Nikon has about the same build quality, but costs considerably more. The Canon has the IS system built into the lens (not necessary with Pentax); therefore, it costs about the same as the Nikon. A very good lens, it still doesn’t have the build quality “feel” of the Pentax nor Nikon. Additionally, the 16mm makes the Pentax a bit wider, a big advantage for my type of shooting.

Simply put, without this lens, I’d be shooting Nikon.

Great Lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Super Sharp, Super fast focus. It takes a little getting used to the super quiet focus mechanism though. A must for wedding photographers.

Great lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
A great wide to standard zoom lens. It is fast, sharp, and has an extremely rugged build. It is definitely a large, heavy lens compared to the DA 18-55MM, for example. On the other hand, the weather sealing is evident and the focusing ring is large. The SDM is virtually silent, quick, and silky smooth. Overall this lens is well worth the investment.

EXCELLENT LENS TO OWN
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Best walk around lens to own. With a K10D, you can have a weather proof combo for around $1,350. Where else can you find this kind of deal? If you add on a DA 50~135 with them, you can have an award winning camera with lenses range from 16~135 f2.8 for $2,100.

Both of these lenses have EXCELLENT SHARPNESS and BOKEH. DA 50~135 has “cleaner” picture though.

These are my 2 favorite lenses now. period.

If you want to buy something that is worth every penny, the combo I have listed above will do!!!

Looks and feels solid. Nice bokeh. Wish it had faster AF and better QC.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This lens looks great and feels very solid. Taking into account the professional specs and the price of the lens, it seems to be a real bargain. Well, it is almost true… but not exactly so.

But firstly, the positive:

- Image quality is very good, especially when stepping down by at least one f/stop

- It has good bokeh

- Works with the old “screwdriver” bodies, as well as has SDM

Now, the negatives:

- The quality of this lens is very inconsistent. I knew about this before buying my copy, so it did not come as a surprise when I discovered that my lens was a bit “off”. In my case one corner is slightly softer than the rest of the image, but it is only noticeable on test shots wide open and is not field relevant. So I decided to keep it and not to go into a gamble with exchange for another copy.

- You may have a strange effect when this lens is focusing spot on in the daylight and is a complete disaster in incandecent or lower light situations. You may even experience this problem to some extent in all light conditions, depending on you copy of the lens. This happens sometimes with my lens set at 16 mm zoom position. My lens shows in some cases FF, and in some – BF, which may be a problem when shooting at large apertures. My SMCP 35 f/2.0, 77 f/1.8 or 50 f/1.4 do not have this problem on my both cameras (K10D and *ist DS), so I explain this phenomena by lens behavior.

- The focusing is quite slow – both with SDM and with the screwdriver. This is not what you would expect from the professional-grade lens. Perhaps this is a price to pay for supporting the SDM-enabled and the legacy “screwdriver” bodies in one lens.

Excellent lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The Pentax DA* 16-50mm is a lens that I have wanted for sometimes, but have avoided getting because of numerous comments about Quality Control issues in its manufacture. Finally, I could resist no longer and purchased the lens.

It is a solidly built lens. While it is nearly the same weight as its big brother, the DA* 50-135, it handles a lot better due to being much shorter. The zoom action is very smooth and the auto focus is quite rapid.

From a photo stand point, the lens seems quite sharp. At 16 mm and f2.8, it is less sharp at the edges, but still has good center sharpness. Others have commented about vignetting at 16 mm and wide open as well, but I have not noticed any issues with my copy.

The most amazing thing about this lens is the contrast and color rendition. I feel as though this lens is able to render scenes in ways that make them ‘pop,’ even when there isn’t anything particularly special about the scene. If you don’t need f2.8, then probably go for the 16-45 f4.0; otherwise I highly recommend this lens.

Faint praise, but I use it more than any other.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I have an early serial number matched to a K10D. Although there are complaints about focusing issues with this lens I have not seen the problem. It is my most used lense of a dozen or more that I own. IT shows some color fringing to the blues along lines of sharp contrast, but overall it’s a suitable lense to own.

This is the lens to buy
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Stellar! If you’re buying a new camera, don’t buy the “throw away” lens that comes with the camera for a hundred bucks (you get what you pay for), save the money and apply it towards this lens. If you have the camera body already and are looking for a top notch lens, this is it. The 16mm-50mm f2.8 is great for shooting indoors and outdoors. It is excellent in low light situations, especially where you don’t want to use a flash. One of the best lenses I’ve seen in a long time. Well worth the price at full price through Pentax, Amazon has been giving this lens away, so even better.

Bad QC
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I’m very disappointed with this lens. The subject of every picture I took on my K10D with this lens was out of focus when shot on auto. The focal point seemed to be 3m behind my subject. None of my other lens have this problem. My DA* 50~135 consistently hits focus on the target and is ridiculously crisp. I could manually focus on my subject and produce a reasonable image if the aperture was dialed down enough, but the point of this lens is the ultrasonic auto focus. At 50mm f2.8 everything was very soft. The image didn’t start to sharpen up until f5.6. When shooting at 16mm nothing was sharp. The entire aperture range was blurry. At any range there was a 5mm purple fringe on any high contrast object. I have heard some people have gotten great copies of this lens. This wasn’t one of them. For every great review of this lens I see, there are about 8 people complaining about it. Pentax, this is unacceptable. Think of your reputation!