16 - 45 and CA and options

For better or worse I always look at photozone before buying a lens and in particular the mtf figures. The 16 -45 has a very healthy set of mtf figures and is on course to do really well in the review but then CA is brought up and it seems to mar the performance of the lens. Could users indicate if it is an issue or not,and if so where is it likely to appear.
I am looking to buy this along with the 55-300,cost new is £400 but it is expensive when compared to the 18 -55 Mk11 and the 55-300 for £250, is it worth it ?
Then there is the 18 -250 option, Pentax or Tamron which whilst 50mm less at the long end, is so versatile and keeps the dreaded dust to a minimum, any thoughts advice, sorry if this has in part, or all, been discussed previously.

You could tie yourself in knots with all the options and the alternative solutions, but I use three lenses routinely - the 12-24mm, 16-45mm and 55-300mm. They are all fine and produce superb A3 prints.

CA is only a problem if shooting bare branches against bright sky and similar things and it's not really that much of an issue normally. 99% of the time it's not even noticeable.

Many thanks for that on the 16-45, I think I will go for it along with the 55 - 300.

CA is a big problem if you shoot around water or grey birds such as Herons.

shim

There is also a tamron 17-50 f/2.8 for the same money but it seems that AF isn't always that accurate with some models and I would miss quick-shift but it's a f/2.8 lens though so that make some of it up.

The Pentax 16-45 seems like a solid preformer besides the CA and thats quite easily corrected most of the time.

CA is a b
I take 95% of my shots with water in them, living on an island it is what I shoot a lot of. I am concerned at the comment you have made about CA and water, can you, or anyone be more specific ?
I looked at the 16 - 45 group on flickr and all I see is superb sharp shots,many inc water but do not see CA.

Take a look at the thread I posted yesterday on powerboats link on the 2nd photo down look at the blue tracks where the boat has been, the rest of the water looks green? It should be nearly grey. Green and blue are CA. The very last photo of the Grey Heron has a lot of blue in it. The lens was a Pentax 80-320 which is much better than the Pentax 100-300 and Rikenon APO 300mm with regard to CA.

shim

I too was concerned about CA and debated long and hard before purchasing my 16 -45. My copy of the lens is extremely sharp and although you can find CA, it is easily fixable in post processing.

If you search the gallery for Cornwall , you will find several images taken by me with the DA 16-45 in February this year.

Steve

Depends on what the subject is. If it already has blue in it you may not be very successful.

shim

Pardon my ignorance here, but I do minimal PP, usually a run through Picasa, although I have Lightroom 1.4. I shoot jpeg, so is CA easily corrected, or can it only be done for raw.

If you search on Google there are many articles on how to do it, mostly it's a case of substituting one colour for another, trouble is CA isn't just one shade of blue/purple it could be thousands. I've tried it but haven't been too successful and it takes quite a lot of time. Not much use if you've got say 200 shots.

shim

Would you recommend the 16 - 45 for doing landscape/coast shots at iso 100 on a K200D ? what else is there this wide otherwise ? selling my 10 - 20 as it is just too wide unless you have a strong foreground, 12 - 24 is way out of my league and then its 17 - 70, Sigma/Pentax, what do I go for ??

I have a very early 16-45 - it's superb. CA has never been an issue at all I have a nice set of landscape shots taken with it on the *ist-D, *ist-Ds and K10D (now I use the DA17-70 on the K20D as I use the longer end more).

Sure, I can engineer a situation to make CA show up big time. However, I can do that on almost every lens I have. Really, the 16-45 isn't a problem. You'll see it if you "pixel peep".

The current new price of around £200 is a steal for the 16-45
Matt

Lateral CA is easily corrected by many imaging programs in JPEG, TIF and Raw.

What many confuse lateral CA with, is colour fringing, usually purple but sometimes green, generally referred to as PF (purple fringing), this is much harder to remove and often incurs a loss of colour integrity when post processed in order to remove it. The Tamron 70-300 LD Di is well known for it's tendency for PF. Other lenses do exhibit this problem, especially very fast lenses when used wide open in bright contrasty conditions.

Both the DA 16-45 and DA 55-300 exhibit some lateral CA which is easily corrected. The 16-45 has very low (almost non-existent) PF, but the 55-300 does exhibit a tendency towards a bit of green fringing at the longer focal lengths wide open, but it is very unobtrusive in comparison to the Tamron.

Here's a couple of shots from the DA 55-300 that are shot under high contrast conditions that would exaggerate any PF.

55mm at f11




Full size - link

300mm at f11




Full size link

There is some fringing on the out of focus branches, but it is less than many other long lenses.

Here's another shot taken at 260mm @ f8, which would scream with PF on the water droplets with many lenses, if you look at the full size image there is very limited PF sparkles of some of the droplets.




Full size - link

I hope these shots help.

The lack of fringing on the swans shot is quite impressive Richard.
The Cherry Blossom is as well, but its against a blue sky which is about 18% grey, so not really too much contrast.

I wish I'd bough the 55-300 now instead of the 80-320.

Thanks
shim