Customer Reviews

Pentax SMC DA* Series 16-50mm f/2.8 ED AL IF SDM Wide Angle Zoom Lens for Pentax Digital SLR Cameras

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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).

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!!!

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

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.
7/16/11 Update
This lens did not last, been repaired/replaced twice already because it quit autofocusing. Used it from k10 to K5. Changed my star rating from 4 to 2

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.

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.

This is a great lens. I bought it for $750. The images a great. The lens is a bit heavy. The AF is near silent but not really any faster than the kit 18-55mm. I love the 2.8 fixed aperture. Great replacement for the kit lens. Check the ShutterSight Photography Review on YouTube for more detailed information.


UPDATE:

After using this lens for a few months, I have to say that I am very pleased with the lens but there are a few things I noticed:


Pros:
1) The close focus on this lens is pretty good...about 6 inches.

2) The weather sealing is awesome. I've shot in the rain with this coupled with my k200d and it was great not having to worry about it.

3) The SDM is faster on newer Pentax bodies than on my k200d. I mounted this on my brothers Kx and the auto-focus was noticeably faster.

4)I really like how wide the manual focus ring is.


Cons:

1)Disappointing fringing in high contrast, don't know if it's possible to get away from that. It better than most lenses but it's still more than I'd like.

2)The zoom ring has a bit of a "catch" around 28mm.

3)The zoom isn't internal.

4) This lens is huge. 77mm filter will do that. If you want to see a comparison between the kit lens and the 16-50mm check out the above mentioned video on YouTube. It makes a good side-by-side comparison.

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!
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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?!)

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.