Pentax SMC DA* 16-50MM F2.8 ED AL (IF) SDM

Very good rain proofed lens – I added this lens to my kit lens 18-135mm and FA 50mm 1.4, and this was my first ever Pentax DA* lens going on my K-5 at the time. My first test shots left me very happy as the sharpness was great, but the mood or ambience the lens produced reminded me of Canon L lenses I'd seen somewhere else. I really liked the ambience of this lens and that era of DA* lenses.

Purple fringing is a bit of an issue from time to time in high contrast situations. But I have been extremely happy with the landscape images I get from this lens. Indoors in not too good lighting I did get some bad purple fringing against lights, but in that poor lighting I would have been much better off with a f/1.8 or f/1.4 lens anyway.

This lens is a weather proofed lens, and at the time I obtained a copy the Ricoh website stated that the DA* lenses were rated to a torrential downpour. Simply there is no other lens range thats actually rated for rain as the DA* lens range is. I thoroughly research the other brands and have used many other brands, and even if their products are deemed "weather resistant", when you download their user manual and find the "Care" and "use" section regarding rain, water spray or moisture, they all say explicitly that the camera or lens must not get wet or be exposed to humidity, thus nullifying the "weather resistant" moniker they've signed it off as. So this is the real deal DA* rain resistant lens, or in 2023 Pentax labels as AW "All Weather".

SDM: I bought my lens used and zero warranty. Many times I haven't used the lens on a camera and its just sat in a case for months at a time. I take it out and it won't auto focus, and many times this scared me. I did hear and read that if you haven't used the lens for a while, the SDM gets "Sleepy" or sticky, and you need to mount the lens to the camera and let it sit for 5 minutes for the capacitors to fill up with electricity. I've done that and then the lens starts auto focusing no problem. Sometimes its been a little sticky and works intermittently at first. So I just hold down the AF button until it moves, and that can take 2 or 3 seconds, and the AF comes to life and works like a charm. If you don't use this lens, then the AF motor can be a bit sticky, and you need to let the capacitors fill up with electricity - you've got to warm it up like you do a car. Some may say this is unacceptable, and probably it is. But there was a complete range of Alpine car audio back in the late 80's and early 90's where the whole unit could be pulled from the car. And because the capacitors ran empty of electricity, they tended to fail in the whole head unit and needed to be replaced. It was better for the head unit to remain in the car connected to 12v and the capacitors filled with electricity. I just now tried my 16-50mm 2.8 after not using it for a few months and it worked straight away and wasn't asleep. It was a little intermittent, but came good within a few seconds. So the SDM is for me just a minor annoyance and could just have something to do with the electrical engineering behind it.

I've owned the Fujifilm kit lens 16-50mm 3.5-5.6 mark 1, and at 16mm you absolutely cannot get the sun in your frame as the flare is enormous and catastrophic. Meaning that the lens is unusable in certain situations where the sun gets into the frame. I forgave that lens for that because it was sharp, but in reality it was pretty bad that you simply cannot get the sun in the frame at 16mm, and that equals a bad lens.

But I think that the image quality in terms of sharpness, ambience and 3D pop/dimensionality far outweigh the sleepy SDM. Then add to it that its a rain proofed DA* lens and there are far more positives then there are negatives. The only other problem was that there could be purple fringing in certain situation, while I have used it down at the beach in the full summer sun and barely notice any purple fringing. So my guess is the in camera corrections are working most of the time, and sometimes not.

In conclusion I think the 16-50mm DA* is a fantastic lens and basically one of the sharpest dslr zoom lenses ever made. Its extremely well built and has fantastic image quality most of the time. It has a couple of flaws but they're not deal breakers. Anybody saying that this lens is no good, is completely wrong or motivated in the wrong way to say that. A bad lens is one that isn't sharp and lacks 3D-pop/dimensionality and is very dull and clinical, or flares so badly that its unusable. This lens excites me when I use it because of the ambience it creates, whereas my Sigma 17-70 mm C 2.8-4 doesn't excite me as much because it can be a little too boring. Thats why I'm all in with Pentax because the IQ from the ambience produced by the lenses excites me.

Crap – This lens is piece of crap. SDM faults after warranty ends, noone can do anything. Just focus manually... Pentax is immune to claims... Im switching to something... Canon or Nikon. Go to hell, Pentax! Wasted money Good looking Faulty crap