Fair optical Quality

Zoom travels too easily if you don't hold it. Zoom Lock failed after a couple months, fell apart.

The optics are acceptable on this lense. It would be my favorite overall lens if not for the loose travel of the zoom. Pointing the lens downwards results in the zoom traveling by itself unless you hold the lense barrel by hand. The tiny lens lock mechanism fell out after a few months. I also have a Pentax SMCP-DA 55-300mm, with better/sharper optical results, which is probably to be expected.

I especially like the ability to store the lens hood reversed on the lens. (This is a nice feature of other Pentax lenses.) The finger detents in the lens cap are welcome as it allows use with the lens hood in use.
Close focusing in telephoto allows for close to macro use.

As mentioned above, the biggest weakness is having to switch the camera (idtDS) to manual focus to use the focusing ring. Manual focusing seems "gritty" but I attribute this to turning internal, autofocus gears.

Just a quick caveat. This particular Pentax lens does not offer Quick-Shift focus.
There is no ability to fine-tune the focus in the autofocus mode. I will have to take several hundred photos with this lens before I can evaluate how annoying this is. I had become used to this convenience. Otherwise a great lens. I have not experienced extension by gravity others have reported.

Similar Products Used:

DA 18-55mm, other Pentax products for 35 years.

Incredible zoom range From wide angle to telephoto
Solid look and feel of the lens
Manual focus is a pleasure to use when you need it
Sharp images thru most of the focal range
The fact that one lens does almost all.

A tad expensive for my taste (but not that overly expensive, you pay for what you get)
It's not an indoor lens, if you wish to take pictures without the flash
Some lens creep in certain situations
The barrels is long at the longer focal lenghts (it's not a weakness, just a reminder to be carefull when walking around with the lens fully extended, something that you should not do.)

as a really amateur-beginner photographer (i have my DSLR for just over a year and a half) i was looking to replace my kit Pentax lens (The usual 18-55mm) with something else. I wanted a second lens to do some telephoto shot and i was looking for either a Sigma 70-300 or a Pentax 50-200mm. My wife brought me for christmas the new Pentax 18-250mm. My initlal impressions of the lens is a pretty good one. It's by no mean a scientific review, those are just my impressions. I do not wish to compare this lens against the results of a DA* lens or the 31mm Limited prime lens.

Keeping in mind that there is no such things as a 16-300mm F1.4 lens in the world, here is the second best thing around...

It delivers crisp and sharp images, with good color and balance, thru most of the focal range, having only a slight color aberration at 250mm (not too nociceable unless you look closely at 100% on your screen and only at the edges of the picture) At 18mm, i see no visible distortion. The lens itself feels solid, but the barrel tends to creep inwards a little if you hold the lens up and try to use the zoom around 150mm or so, but only if the lens is moved around. Holding the camera on a tripod without moving it does not affect the lens at all. A zoom lock switch is provided to lock the lens assembly. The lens itself extend quite a bit out when zoomed to the maximum, and altough some people might find the lens heavy, it's quite acceptable. The bokeh is quite pleassant for a lens of this type.

On the downside, the autofocus is great but as with all super-zoom lenses, those are not low-light lenses, and you will find yourself using the manual focus in low-lights conditions unless you want your autofocus to hunt like hell. However, the manual focus ring is a pelasure to use (even if the feeling is a tad weird at the beginnning) it's fast and easy to get into perfect focus. At the longer focal length the lens is next to useless indoors (due to the 6.2-6.2 aperture over 150mm) but it's not too often you have to use a telephoto when shooting inside your home. The lens hood is locking thight on the lens, maybee too thight for my taste, but it won't come loose by itself (is that a weakness?)

Overall it's a nice lens, with a very wide range, and of a quite good picture quality. The fact that it covers a large focal range give you the opportunity to carry around only one lens to cover 90% of your needs, cutting the lens swapping in the field, thus preventing dust contamination.

If you need a lens that will do it all, this might just be the thing that you want to buy.

Of course you have to deal with the fact that the aperture is rather small on the longer focal range, but hey, as i told earlier, there is no such tings as a 16-300mm F1.4 Lens around...

Customer Service

Not used.

Similar Products Used:

Previous lens was the 18-55mm
Tried both Pentax DA 50-200 and AF-J 75-300 borrowed from a friend.