Hi Dan, On Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:03:45 -0400 Daniel J. Matyola wrote: > >Does anyone have any experience with, or opinions on, the following lens? > >smc PENTAX-DA 1:3.5-5.6 18-135mm ED AL [IF] DC WR
I got that one with my K5, almost two years ago, and still is my default lens for it. I just checked in Lightroom, and out of the 8200 images shot, 4300 are with the 18-135. - It is SMALL and light (significantly smaller than the 16-50), - It focusses really FAST and accurate compared to most of my other lenses - It focusses really CLOSE making it usable for near-macro nature shots - It has an excellent range for a walk-about lens. Of course the optical quality does not match that of a prime, but that said, I have made some remarkable sharp images with it. Top sharpness is in the center though, the corners suffer a bit, but for most of what I use it for, that is not that important. Several of my images accepted in the PPG are with this lens, including a near-macro shot of a dragonfly I have used super-zooms before, the Pentax 28-200 on film which was 'just-OK' and the Tamron 18-200 on digital which was almost unusable. The 18-135 on the K5 is in a different league, it is perfectly usable. (partly because of the good high ISO capabilities of that body) It only goes off the K5 if I need more reach (Sigma 50-500), a dedicated macro, or more light like the 50 1.4 of the 85 1.4, or one of the FA and DA limitteds. Regards, JvW ------------------------------------------------------------------ Jan van Wijk; http://www.dfsee.com/gallery -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
