Hi, I have tried the zoom several times (one friend has a mint specimen for sale), the build quality is most excellent, just little bit behind Super Takumars (a high praise!). What I disliked was the only 1 meter minimum focus distance, which for me is a major pain in a**, especially at the short end. Otherwise, it seemed an excellent lens. Didn't take any photos with it though, but my friend says it's excellent and the guy won several even world photo salons. But I like to get closer to my subjects than 1 m, I sold my Tamron 35-105/2.8 zoom as it had same limitation (but the Tamron was optically a bow-wow lens, unfortunately. It would be a nice range for a 2.8 zoom. It performed awfully wide open at the wide end, average at the long end wide open, was quite optically nice stopped down, but for stopped down I can take much smaller 4 zoom with me not the big 2.8 Tamron).
Also, the zooming and focusing can be pretty stiff, so check if to your liking. Frantisek - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
