I did seriously consider buying a 16-45mm lens a couple of years back but in the end didn't - largely because the anecdotal evidence of its ability was so mixed. It seems that nothing has changed.

About half the posters in this thread seem to think it better or much better than the 18-55mm kit and the other half notice little or no difference. Maybe both sides are right and the difference is due to sample variation in both lenses.

From the testing I've done, I suspect that I have a good or very good sample of the kit lens. It is as good as any prime I have from f/8 onwards - and close at f/5.6. The primes are, though, 2 or 3 stops faster - so well worth keeping and using in low light or when I want the minimum depth of field. The search for a better kit lens seems to me a bit like the search for the Holy Grail and I've now given up on it.

Andrew

I also wear spectacles but press them against the rubber viewfinder surround when using my K30. I've never really thought much about it, as it feels natural to me to do it that way. Is that what other spectacle wearers do?

Andrew

I never normally use the "green" Auto mode, so I hadn't noticed that the flash on my K30 doesn't auto pop-up, like on the K200D I used previously. It's only after reading the Imaging Resources link provided by obione that I now realise that it is supposed to be like that. Other than that, it does work exactly as I expect it to.

Andrew

True but for most people, most of the time a zoom will do the job - even a cheapie old zoom seemingly. So why do I carry primes around all the time? I must ponder on that .....

Andrew

I spent several hours a few days back, playing with the K30's AF micro-adjust feature with three zooms - a 18-55mm MK2 kit lens, SMC F 35-70mm, SMC FA 100-300mm f/4.7-5.8. All three were front focussing significantly and needed an adjustment of -3 to -7.

Yesterday, I updated the firmware on the K30 and, "just for fun", decided to re-check the focus adjustment. All three had to be re-adjusted. The 18-55mm kit lens is now spot-on at zero - and the other two needed only a small -ve adjustment.

Yes, I think there must be something in the new firmware affecting focus accuracy.

Andrew

I am happy to do so ........

Not exactly "in the wild", but I did hurriedly blag off a few shots with the SMC F 35-70mm in the garden late this afternoon to check whether the AF micro-adjustment had been a success. Most of them are shots of gates, fence panels, clothes pegs in a row and so on - not of any particular interest.

I also took one leaning over the fence, of the view from the rear of the house.




Nothing of any artistic interest. This is a 100% crop from it.



Pretty sharp, but so what? The "so what" is that this is a photo taken by a 25 year old SMC F 35-70mm zoom at 50mm, that was WIDE OPEN at f/4.5. It is sharper than the kit lens, I think. As Algernon says - "Why carry a load of primes about when one zoom will do the job?"

(Actually, I do carry a "load of primes" and they spend a lot of time on the camera. In the last two years, about 60% of all the photos I took used old manual focus 24mm (Sigma), 28mm (Chinon) or 50mm (Pentax SMC M) primes - maybe I should think again.)

Andrew

A prime killer indeed. Some very nice photos.

I didn't want to pollute your thread with test photos taken with another "prime killer", but after micro-adjusting the AF of a SMC F 35-70mm last night, I blagged off a few photos this afternoon just to check that I hadn't screwed up totally and that everything was OK.

There is an "over the garden fence" photo and crop in another thread that is also about old-ish zooms.

Andrew

Not exactly "in the wild", but I did hurriedly blag off a few shots with the SMC F 35-70mm in the garden late this afternoon to check whether the AF micro-adjustment had been a success. Most of them are shots of gates, fence panels, clothes pegs in a row and so on - not of any particular interest.

I also took one leaning over the fence, of the view from the rear of the house.




Nothing of any artistic interest. This is a 100% crop from it.



Pretty sharp, but so what? The "so what" is that this is a photo taken by a 25 year old SMC F 35-70mm zoom at 50mm, that was WIDE OPEN at f/4.5. It is sharper than the kit lens, I think. As Algernon says in another thread - "Why carry a load of primes about when one zoom will do the job?"

Andrew

From what I've read and heard, the 35-80 is the one to avoid. I've seen it described as the worst lens Pentax ever made. I have an SMC A 35-80mm and don't use it. I wouldn't describe it as bad, but it is no better than the 18-55mm kit lens over its common focal lengths.

The SMC F 35-70mm that I have spends a lot of time on the camera. I find it quite useful as a walk around lens. It was a little sharper than the kit lens at 50mm, f/5.6 before I used the AF micro adjust function on the K30. It previously front-focussed a little (the kit lens was spot on) - haven't had time to try it out "in the wild" yet.

Andrew

Absolutely - that is the main reason why I upgraded from a K200D to a K30. My impression is that the K30 does provide improved performance at low ISOs too - but I haven't done any comparitive testing to verify that.

Compared with the K200D, the things I love about the K30 are indeed its low light performance. I'm quite keen on focus peaking with manual focus lenses. I've also spent quite a bit of time micro-adjusting the focus for a couple of old zooms (F 35-70mm and a FA 100-300) but have yet to discover whether that will result in a practical improvement in their performance.

Downsides? I do slightly miss the top LCD screen - but don't miss the battery grip anything like as much as I thought I might.

Andrew