Da 55-300 quality issue

I was one of the lucky ones to get this lens for half price from Amazon. On another thread I said that my copy gave poor image quality. I had taken a pic of a newspaper page taped to a wall, had the camera on a tripod set to timer mode. My Tamron ad2 80-210 gave a much sharper image through all focal lengths. My DA 55-300 seem to get more blurred the further right of the image you went and at all focal lengths.

I uploaded an image to the gallery

Following advice I made sure the camera was perfectly square to the wall and also tried with the camera in portrait orientation. Still the same.

I was worried returning it to Amazon would mean they would simply refund the money so I would lose the bargain of a lifetime. Anyway following reassurance from members, last Sunday I filled out the returns page ticked the box asking for a replacement and it arrived today. Excellent service from Amazon.

Checked again using the same set up and I must say I am very pleased with it.

I want to thank members for their suggestions.

Is there a known problem with quality control on this lens or am I just unlucky to get a duffer.

Just unlucky, I think. People have been extolling the virtues of the 55-300 here for some time, never heard much in the way of issues.

Good to hear it is all sorted out.

Never had any problems with mine, bought 2 years ago from SRS.

No issues with mine, although I thought I had a problem when I first used it. I later pinpointed the problem to my K-x which needed the autofocus adjusting (images taken with the 55-300 on my K-m were razor-sharp, but on the K-x were soft). After adjusting the AF to '+70' in the debug menu it now works perfectly.

Regards
David