Pentax HD Pentax DA 16-85mm Lens for Pentax KAF Cameras

THE Best Pentax lens I've had... Period.EXCELLENT zoom range, making it a superb One-Lens rig for an awfully broad range of photography, very good Macro capabilities.The big thing is that there is very low distortion fall off at all ranges, and the sharpness, tonality, color saturation, contrast are really excellent.The Ultrasonic focusing is extremely fast and quiet, and as it's also weather sealed, when it's put on one of the weather sealed Pentax bodies you have a very versatile rig.For an extremely compact yet versatile rig, a K3-II body with this lens and the 55-300 and your standard tripod, cable release, filters and things, and you've pretty well got most situations covered.I've been a Photographer of one sort or another for nearly 50 years, and have used everything from Minox to 8x10 view cameras, with my favorite 35mm cameras being Leicaflex, which I still have, along with a pile of Leica lenses. This lens stands up VERY well with some of the best lenses I've ever used, and that is saying a LOT.

This lens is a phenomenal value - light, PLM autofocus is very quiet and very fast (in good light), the lens is decently fast, and the pictures are tack sharp under the right conditions. Low light performance cannot compete with faster lenses, of course, but for this price point it is very good. I previously had a Nikon D5600 with a Nikon 77-300 lens, which I lost. I decided to buy a K-70 because of Pentax's backward compatibility with a wide range of old glass. While the Pentax 55-300 and the Nikon 70-300 are very similar on paper and cost about the same, I find that the Pentax 55-300 on my K-70 beats my old Nikon 70-300 on D5600 on several points - it is more compact, lighter, has slightly greater range, does not make any noise as far as I can hear (the Nikon did make a bit of noise), and I find the long end very usable, e.g., for birding and backyard wildlife, where the Nikon became a bit soft over 250mm. I do not regret the switch to Pentax, and this lens is a true gem at this price level.

Carefully tested this lens as I do all new lenses I buy. This sample was was sharp across the frame at all focal lengths by f5.6. Slightly soft in the corners at 16mm at f3.5, but not bad. Autofocus is fast and silent. As with all zooms I've encountered, the internal focusing shortens the effective focal length to focus closer. My estimates of the effective focal length when the lens is set at 85mm and focused at 10 ft it is about 83mm; focused at 5 ft about 77mm; at 3 ft. about 70mm; and focused at the closest distance of about 13.5 inches the effective focal length is about 50mm. Focused very close with lens set at 85mm the image was very sharp and high quality but the area covered was about what you would expect with a 50mm lens not an 85mm lens so it is acting like a 50mm macro not an 85mm macro lens when focused up extremely close. Not a flaw. Every zoom I have ever tested behaves this way. Just do not expect an 85mm macro performer. An excellent lens and the sharpest all purpose zoom lens I have used on a Pentax. It seems to be very well built. I wish it had a marked focusing scale, but otherwise I am very favorably impressed with this lens. I am a very experienced photographer. Be sure to test your sample because there have been some reports on Pentax forums of people getting samples with elements decenterd which would give you images sharper on one side than the other.

Aug 2016 updateTook this lens on a multi-week vacation in Hong Kong. The weather was hot and humid. Together with a K-3II and this lens, the combination performed flawlessly. The three attached pictures were taken with this combination. All hand held except for the night scene. A fast lens (ie f/2.8 or better) is not required for this type of scene.Nov 2015 updateI now have spent more time and come to really appreciate the strengths of this lens. Corner sharpness is head and shoulder better than the Tamron 17-50! This is a big surprise to me. At 50 mm, the FA 50 f/1.4 is still better at comparable aperture, but not by much. This finding actually presents a problem for me - I am starting to look for a better fast standard zoom.***** Original review *****I have a read a lot of reviews on this lens. But before saying anything, I need to state that I already have a Pentax 18-135 and Tamron 17-50. The Tamron 17-50 is my most used lens and with the 18-135 as my rainy day lens. The two main reasons for considering this 16-85 is 1) better optics than the 18-135 and 2) the wider 16 mm than either the 17-50 or 18-135. The 1mm difference between the 17mm on the Tamron and 16mm on the Pentax is huge. I like WA lens; I have a Sigma 8-16 UWA, Samyang 8mm & 14mm. With this 16-85, it will reduce the number of times I need to swap lenses. I am not so concerned with losing the 85-135 region because I have several lenses to cover that, including Pentax 55-300, Pentax 50-135, and Sigma 70-200.In terms of optical performance, it does not disappoint me. It is significantly sharper than the 18-135 especially wide open aperture. It is comparable to the Tamron 17-50 at corresponding focal length and aperture. In other words, I can really get along well with this WR combination - 16-85 and 55-300 - for casual situations and landscape photography where fast aperture is not usually needed. I have not tested flare resistance, but reports so far seems to confirm the superiority of the HD coating. AF is very fast and silent; it seems to be faster than 18-135. It does require a -4 focus adjustment on a K-S2 while none for the 18-135. I have not tested on my K-5IIs but I expect similar results.The lens is much larger than my expectation. Both the 18-135 and Tamron 17-50 are small compared to this 16-85. So I am not saving space when I substitute this 16-85 for the Tamron 17-50. The filter size is 72 vs 67 on the Tamron. The lens is well build but not heavy despite the size. The lens hood is well design.I took one star off because it is not perfect. It is substantially more expensive than either the 18-135 or the Tamron 17-50. Aperture is neither fast nor constant. I would pay a little more to have constant f/4.0. The slower aperture especially towards the long FL end does not lend itself to challenging low light photography.In summary, I highly recommend this lens if you can live within the constraints of the lens. WR is handy if you find yourself in wet or rainy environment.