Lenses...

I got my DS at the end of last year. It came with the 18-55 kitlens.
Allthough I have to agree with the fact that it is not the sharpest of lenses available but I think that it is not as bad as people claim it to be.

Shure a good prime will beat the hell out of it any day. The 16-45 will beat it hands down as well, as will a lot of other lenses.

The thing that some people keep forgetting is that the 18-55 costs about Euro 120 and the 16-45 costs about Euro 400. (I have seen the price for the 16-45 range from 399 to 520 Euro's... On the same day, different shops)

With glass you get what you pay for. My Sigma 50mm f/2.8 Macro beats the hell out of the 18-55@50mm as does my SMC Pentax-A 50mm f/1.7. But am I dissapointed with the 18-55, no absolutely not. For the amount of money it costs it is absolutely not a bad lens. And lets be honest here, when you print to 10x15cm or 13x18cm which is what is going to happen the most you will not see the difference in the end. Maybe when printing up to A3 or larger that it will be visible but then again...

I agree absolutely.

I have been using the 18-55 with my *istDS, as Sue has with hers, and we've both been very pleased with the results, even at A3. But then the aperture has rarely been wider than f8, so the lens has been allowed to give its best.

I have just taken delivery of the 16-45, but this was purely to go slightly wider, and had nothing to do with quality. I'll be interested to see the difference.

Perhaps mine is a bad example, however it's so soft in the corners that it no longer gets used - the only reason I haven't sold it is because it's not worth anything. Mine was comprehensively outperformed by a cheap Pheonix 19-35mm AF zoom, so it's not just more expensive lenses that out-perform it.

My style of shooting requires decent corner sharpness, and that's perhaps why my experience with the 18-55 is so bad. The only lens I've ever used that was softer in the corners was the Vivitar 19mm F3.8.

Well, we have two and they perform the same and are perfectly sharp across the frame at f8 and f11 at least.

Perhaps you do have a poor example - it happens.

I was testing 50mm lenses earlier but I decided that as I temporarily do have another consumer zoom (bought as part of a bundle) I'd try it against the 18-55.

The other lens was a SMC-FA 28-80mm F3.5-5.6 - one of the silver ones you used to see with the MZ50 etc. I compared them at 28mm and 50mm. At 28mm the 28-80 was slightly better until F16 where the 18-55 edged it. At 50mm they were very close at all apertures - too close to call really.

While I was at it I also compared both lenses at 50mm with the FA50 - at F4 or so (wide open on the two zooms) the FA50 was miles better and it remained noticeably sharper at all smaller apertures.

My conclusion is that it's probably just these very low price entry-level zooms that I don't like, and the 18-55 is not all that much worse than Pentax's cheapest zooms have been for a few years. The current FA28-80 seems about as bad as I remember my old powerzoom FA 28-80 being, although at least it was a bit better built (and I remember complaining about it's build quality at the time!).