Customer Reviews

Pentax DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AL Lens for Pentax and Samsung Digital SLR Cameras

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought my K100D bundled with this kit lens and took it around Europe for two weeks. I found it to be very light and easy to use. The provided lens hood works great for protecting the lens, and it's reversible when you don't want to use it. When the hood is reversed, most of the lens barrel is covered, so you can't reach the focus ring, but that's not really a fault. On a related note, the focusing ring feels very loose, but that's probably because this is an auto-focus lens.

I found that the 18mm wide end was usually good enough to get a picture of a medium to large room. The 55mm end felt a little too short at times, but Pentax also makes a 50-200mm lens that goes really well with this one. I found that I rarely need a very long telephoto zoom though, so this lens worked very well for me.

Both the 18-55mm and the 50-200mm lenses use 52mm diameter filters so you don't have to buy another set.

Some people have found that the focus ring on the 18-55mm and 50-200mm lenses feel unsmooth, like there's sand trapped inside the lens. From what I've read, this seems to be a pretty common thing. Both of my lenses have this issue, but it hasn't affected their performance at all. The only time that I notice the grittiness is when I switch to manual focus.

Overall, I think this is a good lens, especially for the price. It can be pretty sharp at smaller apertures, and reasonably sharp wide open.

I have switched to pentax from canon. Well canon is sure good with a large collection of lenses but pentax gave me somehting better like image stabilization in the body so any lens used becomes IS. I ordered the camera from Beach Camera through the Amazon.com. The service was wonderful and so were the sales support.

I got this lens as a kit lens with my K100D. I was looking for buying a Sigma f2.8 18-50mm. But after reading many reviews of the kit lens, i decided to give it a try first. I am happy i did it. The lens performs great between 24mm-50mm with an aperture fo f 8 or f 11. They are sharp the colours are acurate. While comparing prints (7x5 ") i cant find difference between the pentax kit lens and a prime 50mm f:1.7 on the canon Rebel. There is some difference at same apertures at very large prints. (but how many of us who are not professionals or take regular printouts will go for prints size more than A4 or 11x8.5 inches) I am sure you would like this lens after you try it out......it is perfect for a carrry around lens, you wont be dissapointed.

To summarize.
Pros:
Light in weight and small
very useful zoom range
Great pictures at around 24-50mm (f8-f11)
can move from auto to manual focus immediately
Not seen any ghosting or flare till now
Auto focus accurate
Smooth zooming
Works wonderful for macro shots (of course not comparing it to the true macros)
And all of this you get in under 100$.

Cons:
Vigenneting at 18 mm
soft and unsharp edges at 18mm
5,6 at the 55mm is not sharp.
not good for indoor shots where flash is prohibited.

In fact i have to think a lot to find out any more negatives about this lens.

This kit lens has taught me that :that a kit lens is NOT always bad. try this out first. A great lens will be very costly and buying a great lens will not give me great shots. It is you who can give you some good shots even with this cheap and great lens. if you get to know how to compose good photos.
happy shooting ....:)

It's pretty universal, Pentax's DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AL "kit" lens is pretty much the best kit lens out there. Although it still leaves much to be desired, it does what it does for the price, and outclasses virtually all other dSLR vendor "kit" lenses on their bodies. I skipped this lens with my K100D and was planning on buying the much more expensive DA 16-45mm f/4.0. But after reading reviews on the select issues with the DA 16-45 (which is still a good lens overall, don't get me wrong), I decided to buy this lens and wait on the DA 17-70mm planned for 2008. Note that I use the Pentax AF 28-105mm f/4.0-5.6 as my default lens, and a Zenitar FE 16mm f/2.8 as my ultra-wide angle lens, so this lens doesn't see much action.

But for when I want a solid, basic image quality around 24mm, with the option of going slightly wider (with softness on the corners) or somewhat longer (with excellent IQ), I put this sucker on my K100D, often with a 52mm Hoya circular polarizer filter.

The basic kit lens for the *ist DL/DS and the K100/110D, this is very serviceable lens. Is isn't perfect: it gives a few issues at the extremes, and has just a small amount of play, rather than being 'tight' like more mainstream lenses from Pentax. Nonetheless, it is a very good kit lens, and its light weight and overall utility make it a handy general purpose lens.

It is amusing to read reviews left by Canon inspired morons who bash anything they do not understand ;). This is wonderful lens! For normal shooting, under normal conditions, for 99% of people and in 99% it does a job.
Lens of this optical quality, let say 5-6 years ago would cost 8 times the price. This lens is very sharp. Some funny people ask questions is it sharp like this or like that? Well, it is sharp enough to do any job you may put on it. Photography it is not about the race who is sharper. This lens has very nice, smooth rendition all over the field and it is so nice that I found myself preferring it in many situations. Since the lens is so inexpensive, I do not put a protective filter in front of it, that improves image. Go to [...] and see what amazing imaging this inexpensive glass is capable of.
There's nothing cheap about it. It is not "super fast" but for absolute majority of tasks it is very good choice.

Not the very best Pentax lens out there. But the DA 18-55 is a very good little zoom to carry around with a very usable zoom range, very light and well constructed and at a very reasonable price. Nice looking too.

I initially bought this lens as part of a kit with my K110D. I found this lens to be far better than the kit lenses being sold with other cameras at the time. Specifically, I was using a Nikon D70 at work and found the Nikon kit lens to have much worse vignetting and not as sharp focus at wide aperture. I did find the focus to be pretty sharp throughout the range for a lens of this price.

What I didn't like about this lens.
Construction feels week and cheap. There is a little bit of wobble in the front lens element.
The lock on the lens hood wore out on me fairly quickly
The focus ring feels very loose.
Auto focus is incredibly loud and imprecise. I often shoot live performances so this was a huge issue for me.

Overall, this was a great lens to get me started. However, I now usually favor one of the selection of fast prime manual focus lenses I have.

Hay what can i say. I think every Photographer should have this lens. It's a multi Lens.....

I was really into photography way back in the now ancient film era, back when all focusing was manual and the camera could not even suggest an exposure, let alone set itself. Now, however, I am older; the eyes are not so good any more, and I tend to be a bit shaky. Recently, however, I discovered the Pentax K100d DSLR camera, with automatic focusing and an anti-shake feature. Coupled with the DA 18-55mm Pentax lens, the quality of my photos more than compensates for my difficulties and I am once again lost in the pure joy of taking quality photos that enhance the memories. This is an excellent workhorse lens, and I plan to use it quite extensively, especially after retirement.

Working great. So much better than using my old manual lens from my film Pentax camera.