Customer Reviews

Pentax 21870 DA 50-200mm F/4-5.6 AL Weather Resistant Lens

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this lens earlier this month with the K7 kit through Amazon. I have used the lens several times already at my sons football games. The lens coupled with the K7 takes very sharp jpegs with good color. It focuses very fast too. I've got some excellent action shots with this lens. The lens is also very compact and light considering its zoom capability.

Folks,

After much research and review reads, purchased the Pentax DA50-200mm F/4-5.6 ED WR Lens for use with Pentax K7 DSLR.

Both items were bought from Amazon, and the service, shipping and quality were excellent, as has always been my experience.

Now to the lens, lens is perfect for use along the Gulf coast in the high humidity, heat, rain environments. The lens is weather resistant, well constructed and sealed against the elements. Displays very high build quality overall and has excellent optics.

The photos uploaded to Amazon demonstrate this lens performance at the extremes - macro and telephoto. The photos were taken with the new K7 Pentax DSLR. Very fast focus and great looking pictures. See for yourself by checking the uploaded sample photos.

I would have rated this lens at a 3 star level for optical quality. However, the decent build combined with relatively low price and weather resistance probably deserve a four star rating overall.

I've tested a lot of lenses and this Pentax 50-200mm WR zoom appears to be inherently not very sharp, particularly in the 50mm to 90mm range. I tested two copies, on both a Pentax K-5 and also a K20d. The lack of sharpness that I observed mirrors the professional reviews of the 50-200 Pentax at respected sites like DXO Optics.

If you stop down two to three stops from maximum aperture in the 100mm range, then the center is often reasonably sharp at f 11 and the edges are not that bad. However, wide open, or near 50mm or 200mm, this lens is among the less sharp modern lenses that I've used.

I sent my first copy of this lens back because there was left side decentering that resulted in noticeable lack of sharpness on the left 1/3 of the frame at all focal lengths and apertures. The second copy was marginally better and more uniform across the entire frame, so I kept that copy.

Pentax's 18-55mm WR wide to normal zoom seems sharper. In conjunction with a K20d that became "surplus" after I bought my K-5, these two Pentax WR lenses make a decent and reasonably priced all-weather kit.

Amazon was excellent about making a quick and pain-free replacement. I absolutely appreciate their excellent customer service.

I bought this item as my first extra lens for pentax k-x, i have the kit lens and i'm very pleased with it.. but this is superior quality.. the sharpness of this lens is amazing.. and its fast focus too.. I'm completely satisfied.. I would definitely recommend to buy this lens if your looking for a mid range zoom lens at a very affordable price.. you will not regret..

I had a 18-55 and a 100-300 lens, and needed something 'in between'. I am not sure how this works in lower lighting, but for everything else it shoots as well as any other lens I have. I looked at other lenses, but the pricier ones do what the other two do already. None of my other lenses are any better in low lighting. I needed something to take pictures of bucking bulls in a smaller arena, and this is going to work just perfect. Now I have to wait til spring to use it!

Knowing that I needed an automatic focusing mid-range telephoto lens to augment my Tamron 55-210mm lens from my film based Pentax cameras, I looked very closely at the specs for lenses on the market in this category. As I do a lot of on the water yacht portaiture, having a waterproof lens to use with my Pentax DSLR cameras was a key consideration. The Pentax 50-210 handily filled this bill, and is the #2 lens in my optical inventory.

With a fast focus response time, excellent contrast and overall sharpness across the lens range, I find that this lens approaches the performance of my Pentax 105mm prime lens, but has the flexiblity of a great zoom range, along with full coupling to the auto/focus, auto/exposure systems of Pentax cameras. The big plus of course is that it leverages the body based auto-stabilization system in my Pentax K200D, allowing me to use every Pentax lens I have in my inventor(including the 50mm 1.4f lens I acquired in the 1970's) in autostabilization mode. Try that on a Nikon or Canon.

I have not needed to trust the waterproof feature of the Pentax K system and it's lenses, but after watching review of this capability of these cameras being used in a bathroom shower on You-tube, I believe that this capability puts this lens and the associated cameras in the league of the four figure priced competition.

May not be up there with the $2,000 lenses but I don't have to worry much about it. Image quality is acceptable, and it's great for wildlife shots.

This is a good lens for the K-7. Focus is good and fast enough for me. I have had the lens/camera for 4 days now and have taken 1300+ shots. Many of those were with this lens. Definitely worth the price! I posted some pics showing examples of wide and narrow shots. Fast shipping and excellent packaging!

I bought this lens for my father-in-law who was looking for a decent tele lens. He is quite happy with the result and the lens is very well built and produces quite a good quality images.

I purchased this lens along with the 18-55 to use on a K5 body I bought on ebay. My thinking at the time was buy two inexpensive lenses to cover this range 18-200. In hind sight I should have spent a bit more money and bought a lens with SDM focussing and more substantial build qualities. Although this 50-200 is good value and captures good images, I find the focussing a bit clunky. It is good value and ideal for one of the Pentax DSLR's lower down in the line. The flagship model, K5, deserves a better built more substantial lens.