Sharp wide open. Good colour. Good size & weight without the hood.

A little expensive for what it is. The hood is heavy and oversize. 77mm filter thread.

It is a lens which can be used wide open with confidence.

Customer Service

I had gone through 3 faulty samples before I got a perfect one. Pentax needed to improve their QC.

Everything

Price

Very sharp, even at 2.8! Gorgeous build quality / finish. Focus down to 1.2 m. Very easy selector MF/AF. Still very good with Sigma Apo-Extender 2x.
Price a little bit high: the 180/2.8 Nikon and the 200/2.8 Canon are cheeper. But are they as good ?
I LOVE THIS LENSE.

Similar Products Used:

Tamron SP180/2.5, Leitz R-180/2.8, Leitz R-180/3.4 Apo, Tamron MF 200/3.5.

Good optics whatever in colour reproduction and sharpness.
Reasonable packing size and convenient for travelling

A bit expensive than similar class products and no AF built in motor available.

It gives very good optical performance even shooting in a dim day. Very solid and weight feeling. If you can't afford almost 1.6kg weight of FA 80-200/2.8 lens, you should go for this lens which should not make you disappointed. AF speed is reasonable for most purpose (used with MZ 5n), but I think not too good enough for sports shots.

Customer Service

No experience.

Similar Products Used:

Nikon AIS 180mm F2.8, some 80-200/2.8 lens of Tokina, Pentax, Nikon, etc.

Well balanced, great optics, tack sharp, fast focuser, excellent flare control.

None so far. The silvery paint makes me nervous about scratching its nice finish.

Great lens. worth every penny paid for it (retails for $1000 to $1100). Too bad Pentax does not make matching teleconverters for it, but I do use both Tamron's 1.4 and 2x AF with good results.

Customer Service

Never needed

Similar Products Used:

Only zooms up to 200 mm but none comparable