For Protraits and other studio/indoor stuff I have never had any issues with the DA*16-50. I find that it excels at this. I have only experienced the colour fringing problem with out-side high-contrast stuff and then not often.


I came to my 1st DA*16-50 from a Sigma 18-50 F2.8 EX which I had bought as a step-up from the kit lens back in 2006. I was then into early morning landscapes and wanted the extra speed. I was very disappointed about the awful levels of purple fringing in the Sigma and was certainly for me an eye-opener particularly as none of the early reviews mentioned this.

You have to offset my grumbles with the DA*16-50 with the fact that I like it enough to have bought two them. Hopefully the SDM issues have been resolved with more powerful motors. Most of the time mine produces fantastic results. As with most of the lenes I have tried there is a learning process you have to go though so that you know where it performs its best and, perhaps, when to use something else or accept some compromise. Of course when you are getting old, like me, you have to remember it as well .

Glyn

Hi Chris, it was shot JPEG. I very rarely go raw. Although this did not prevent me from correcting the colour fringe and distortion in the the Pentax DCU4 laboratory.

The contrast & sharpness being up one notch is what you get when you set the camera to "Bright" which is where I normally run it as I found "Natural" a bit bland on the K-7.

Using 16mm was a compromise. I started off longer but I wanted to be in the picture and I had to get the camera close enough for me to run & place myself in the group under a timer shot . Disappointing the remote didn't work at this distance.

Glyn

With the DA*16-50 I definitely sit on the fence. In my experience it can produce some excellent results but does have some limitations which have occasionally caught me out.

I have had three of these. The first, a very early one delivered in August 2007, was effectively DOA with duff SDM and was replaced after about a month.

The replacement was actually an earlier serial number, probably the shop's demo copy as stock was almost impossible to get at that time. It's SDM was fine but it was definitely soft wide open which caused problems with auto focus not working, particularly with landscapes for which otherwise the lens is an excellent choice. Unfortunately, similar to George, I destroyed this lens in a fall. I did though like this lens enough to buy another one, number 3 in July 2009.

Number 3 had SDM failure after about 9 months. It was repaired under warranty in June 2010. It has been working fine since then and hopefully has the later, more powerful, SDM motor.

I didn't have the first one long enough to test properly but with the other two I did & do occasionally have problems with lens flare. Certainly you can expect this when pointing straight into the sun, e.g. sunsets, but I have seen off-direct-line flare, not seen through the viewfinder, which has caught me out a couple of times.

A problem I have noticed with number 3 is colour fringing. Here is an example of a family gathering, my father's 80th birthday, shot in possibly difficult lighting conditions late in the day back in April. I have added a couple of 100% crops as an example of the colour fringing that was present across the whole shot. I know it was fairly simple to correct in PP but it was just extra work that I didn't expect to have to do:

K-7 with DA*16-50 @ 16mm, 1/30sec, F11, ISO 200 with D-range highlight comp on & D-Range shadows comp high.
[IMG]http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/GlynM/IMGP0711-vsmall.jpg[/IMG]


[IMG]http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/GlynM/IMGP0711-100crop.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/GlynM/IMGP0711-100crop2.jpg[/IMG]

As you might notice, from the fence posts, distortion at 16mm is also a slight issue.

I found the SDM failure on what was my most expensive lens purchases a big disappointment and I have not bought another Pentax SDM lens. I would certainly not recommend buying a SDM lens 2nd hand. I would want the full 2 year warranty you get on a new purchase from Pentax-Pro dealers.

When number 3 started having SDM problems I did buy a Sigma 17-70 1:2.8-4 HSM OS lens. Its HSM works very well and I tend to use it when I go out on my bike mainly because I don't want to risk breaking another 16-50 . My impression is that it is a little bit softer than my number 3 16-50 but otherwise I am very pleased with it.

Glyn

Good grief, my thanks go to DrOrloff who has excelled himself being super early and we have our first entry so I'm out of here.

Please PM me if there is anything that needs a response from me.

Good luck,

Glyn

Here is the place for discussion about fortnightly competition #78 - A Smell.

As is traditional I will stop looking in here once the first entry has been submitted.

The competition will close at 6pm BST on Wednesday 19th October.

Good luck,

Glyn

For this competition I would like to see images that convey to the viewer a sense of an associated smell, think about things like fresh bread, exhaust fumes or at the other extreme, and being a recent grandparent, the nappy bucket!

The usual rules apply. The image has to be taken with a Pentax camera or Samsung DSLR equivalent and be shot within the duration of this competition. Please include camera details and shooting time and date with your image.

The competition will close at 6pm BST on Wednesday 19th October.

Good luck and I look forward with some anticipation to seeing your entries.

Glyn

Wow, Many thanks Jon for a very interesting subject that introduced me to another photographic method that I didn't know. Thanks also for your detailed comments, reviews and judging. Lots of thanks, of course, for awarding my acorns the winning slot .

Congratulations to my fellow winners and everyone else for another great set of images.

All though a disappointingly small number of entries I thought they were all very good. I must admit that having seen Dr Orloff's, early, entry that I thought the win was all sown up and perhaps some others did as well but you don't have to be in these competitions for the win. I find them both great fun and useful learning. However, it is of course very nice to win - Thanks again.


I will set a new subject very shortly.

Glyn

Acorns

[IMG]http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/GlynM/Competition%20Entries/IMGP1719-22-PWA-c2s-small.jpg[/IMG]

It seems to be a very good year for acorns (or a very bad year if, like me, you have to clear them up ). However I hope with this entry I have found a use for some of them.

This image depicts a collection of freshly fallen acorns in natural, late afternoon, sunlight.

A four image focus stack has been used to increase the depth of field.

Each image was shot with a Pentax K-5 and the Samsung equivalent of the DFA 100mm Macro, tripod mounted, manual focused, 1/8 sec, F18 & ISO 200.

The focus stack was processed with CombineZP and resized in PSE9.

The original shots were taken at around 16:50 on Saturday 1st October 2011.

Glyn

Many thanks Tim for a great subject and your excellent reviews and judging.

Congratulations to Jon for the wining shot, our runners up and everyone else for another great set of images.

Glyn

I found that a dedicated macro lens is much better than these pseudo macro zooms for close-up work.

I much regret not realising this sooner. I bought my first SLR/DSLR in 2005 with a Sigma 28-300 macro zoom and held off for 4 years before buying a dedicated macro lens. Now I find that the DFA100 is one of my favourite and most used lenses.

Glyn