Looking for feedback regarding DA 18-250mm.

Does anyone know of any or have any feedback regarding this lens?

I'm considering it as a gift for someone (not myself) and, like everybody else I'm sure, I don't want to give them a lens that covers the same focal lengths but gives reduced performance.

Compared with what?

Compared with DA 18-55mm, DA 50-200mm, A 28-80mm, and FA 80-320mm. I basically want to know that it's a good performer throughout its zoom range (among other things).

I know there's a trade-off as well: portability & convenience vs quality, but that's why I ask for feedback from users' experiences.

I would say (from VERY limited personal experience and assorted reviews etc.) that it is on a par with or better then all the lenses you list except the 50-200 which, despite being a 'consumer' zoom is generally (IMHO rightly) regarded as a bit special. (the A 28-80 is not highly regarded, the 80-320 has had a mixed reception, the 18-55 is fine provided you don't want to use it wide open)

I agree with amilner but i would expect the 18-250 to exceed the 50-200 by some margin.
The 50-200 is a good lens lens no doubt (i have the Samsung version) But with the large price variance between the two i would expect a quality difference of some degree

I don't think there's a case for rxpecting higher quality on grounds of price. Making an 18-250mm wide angle to telephoto zoom is a much more difficult and expensive process than making a 50-200mm telephoto zoom and much of the cost will be taken up with this.

The superzoom is almost certainly going to have inferior drawing than a less ambitious design (straight lines are the first things to go these days) and if there are many more elements then contrast will be slightly lower as well.

What do you mean by inferior drawing :
So are you saying that the 50-200 would take a sharper clearer pic than the 18-250 under certain circumstances and visa versa for the 18-250 :

"Drawing" refers to the accuracy of reproduction of straight lines. A lens with good drawing means a lens with low distortion of either the barrel or pincushion variety. This can vary with focusing distance, so a lens superb for landscapes may be dreadful for copying documents. In fact macro work and copying is one area where good drawing becomes very important. Barrel distortion in a wide angle used for landscapes may not be so critical, because it is what we expect to see and it can be disguised by the subject matter.

Architecture is another area where this becomes an issue.

The 12-24mm is a good example of superb distortion correction, especially for such a wide zoom. At the centre point of its range the distortion is virtually zero.

The wider the zoom range the more difficult it is to maintain all the corrections needed and lens makers tend to allow distortion to creep in whilst maintainig sharpness and contrast, as that is what they think most users will want. They may well be right, especially with a superzoom that is intended as a consumer purchase.

The advayage of the superzoom will be convenience in not having to change lenses so often. No doubt it will be sharp and contrasty but it may suffer lower resolution wide open especially, higher distortion and will do nothing for camera shake because of its limited aperture range.

I would expect aperture for aperture the 50-200mm to be better, and a nice match for the 16-45mm or 18-55mm lenses. Personally I would not have any use for an 18-250mm, but there is no denying it could be a verstile and successful purchase for those who need it.

KCmadr

I have the Tamron 18-250mm (The Pentax is the same lens made by Tamron)

It is a great lens, better than all the lenses you mentioned.

Here a couple of shots taken yesterday with K10D at 18mm.

With all due respect to John R, I don't any problem with lines.

Rg

(Sorry if my typing is slow, but I just had wrist surgery and am using my left hand only)

Thanks for all the answers. Your suspicions confirm my suspicions, but I do not think it will outperform my FA 80-320mm (search "Oshkosh" for samples). This lens is really good between 80-240mm up to and including f8.0. Afterwards it gets kind of soft. I cannot wait for the DA* 60-250mm: I have been buttering up my wife since September 2006 for this one. I just hope the $$$ are $ and not $$$$$$$$!!!

If anyone wants to check a lens for distortion, then you need a nice square-on flat subject so you can see the effect on straight lines near the edge of the frame.

A wall or building could serve, but a closer subject is useful to see how distance affects things.

If you have a critical use in mind, then something at the same distance as you would normally be working is appropriate.

A flat document will show diistortion up very quickly. General shots disguise the distortion very effectively, so are not the best way to evaluate it.

Hope that helps!

As I said it has modest but regular barrel distortion at 18mm - probably no worse than the 18-55 (I don't have one to check) and certainly not obvious in most 'real life' situations as the pictures above show (though in fact a close look at the windowframe on the left of the top picture shows it to be slightly curved)

One thing that strikes me about RG's first one is that the purple fringing that you might expect to get in the area above the roof-line on the left is fairly inoffensive - visible but not awful, even though the lens is wide open.

Hard to tell without an enlarged section (any chance of a full-size crop, RG, of the bit above the roof line where the branches in shadow have the overexposed cloud as background?), but if the PF is consistently as absent as this in places where you'd expect to get it, then it's certainly a point in the lens' favour.

How good is it at the extremes, John?

Thing is, I wouldn't buy a 12-24 because I wanted zero distortion at 18mm. I'd buy it because I wanted an extreme wide angle - so it would be the 12-16 range that I'd use most.

The 12-24, 16-50, and 18-250 are all lenses I'm considering at the moment, all for different reasons, but the one thing they have in common is that there's little point having any of them if they're not very good at the extremes (of either aperture, or zoom range).

These figures for the 12-24mm will amaze you. They are taken from the recent AP test on the pentax and Schneider lenses. The values are, unsurprisingly, the same for both.

At 7.5m distortion is -0.6% (12mm) -0.2% (18mm) + or - 0.05% (24mm)
At 25m -0.46% -0.15% 0.15%
at Infinity -0.31% -0.1% No value

These are remarkable results and a superb bonus to such a useful ultra-wide lens.