Glyn

The Panasonic Lx3 is also my compact of choice when I don't want to lug my K-7 about. I think it is a great little camera. I was drawn to it originally as many reviewers use it as a baseline for comparison and while it was not cheap (although now its been superseded by the Lx5 there might be some good deals out there) I am very pleased with it.

I did consider a GF1 with a 20mm lens but I knew that would have just lead to another serious dose of LBA, of which I'm currently cured .

Glyn

I would just like to reinforce ChrisA's comments. As a local resident over 3 days at Farnborough I took around 1200 pictures of aircraft in flight with my DA55-300 of which only 38 made it to my "best", presentable, folders.

For two of these days I was at the southern end of the runway where, with luck, you can get the opportunity to shot aircraft in fast & tight turns with the sun behind you.

I found that manual focus is a dead loss for this. Nearly all my photos were with lens close to, or at, infinity focus so if the camera decided to do a focus hunt at a critical point I quickly learnt to take my finger off the shutter button and use quick-shift to get back to the infinity end of the focus range and then let auto focus take over again.

Quick shift for me has therefore become a necessity for airshows and while I have a reasonable longer lens I have given up using this in preference to the 55-300.

Glyn

I'm on Firefox 3.6.6 and does not seem to want to update at the moment but Adblock Plus did update itself recently and is v1.2.1 on my system.

Glyn

Here Firefox Adblock seems to block all the classifieds except the one for the K-x. If I disable Adblock on that page and reload it the other entries appear.

Glyn

While I agree that there is a difference between the two I think you have to expect tolerance differences between different individual lenses and given that these are at the smallest depth of field I think don't look too bad.

The K20D gives you the ability to adjust the focus point of individual lenses providing you only have one of any particular type. See setting 35, AF Adjustment, in the custom settings menu.

However before you make any adjustment I think you need to spend a little more time with setting up your focus chart. In the 3 images you have shown I don't think it is straight. A good check is to review the shot on the camera, magnified, and while looking at the centre line scroll left & right and make sure the centre line is level. If this is wrong you get different results from either side of the chart which is particularly noticeable on the upper RH 20mm point in your 50mm shot.

I think it is also very important to make sure you have accurately set up the 45 degree angle of the camera.

I believe that it is also important, with the K20D, to use daylight to illuminate the chart as different results may be obtained with other forms of lighting.

Having made any adjustment I think it is also worth testing at more usual distances by, say, sticking a printed page up on a wall.

Hope this helps,

Glyn




Glyn

Many thanks Aiki for an interesting subject, well thought comments and judging.

Congratulations to i-Berg for another superb picture and everyone else for a wonderful set of images.

Glyn

Between Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Circus, just off the north side of Oxford Street, in Wells Street, there is Camera World, see map here. Very nice people. I bought my DA55-300 there.

They appear to be listing the DA*16-50 at a slightly better price than SRS see here.

Glyn

The only evidence I have is the repair report for No.3 which stated that the SDM motor had been replaced.

My feeling is that with the SDM lenses that also have screw drives there is more work for the SDM motor and my experience suggests that the motor is just on the limit of its maximum loading and can suffer from, say, any dust, even on the outside of the seals, or wear in the focus mechanism causing extra friction and overloading the motor leading to progressive failure.

As a retired broadcast R&D engineer, and before that design engineer, I think the design may be flawed. I believe it needs a more robust SDM motor. Some of my old lenses are over 10 years old but I don't have any confidence that my DA*16-50 will last as long as these.

Glyn

Just to add my experiences:

My first DA*16-50, one of the very early ones (August 2007), on a K10D had sticky SDM from day one. The focus would not shift but if I put it on my old Ist DS and used the screw drive to wind it backwards and forwards a few times it would then work SDM wise on the K10D for a couple of days before seizing up again. Even when working it performed badly on the K10D often not acquiring focus, particularly at the long end and with landscapes. After a couple of months I got it replaced.

No.2, although an earlier serial number than no.1, was fine but I broke this 2nd one myself in June last year so bought No.3.

After about three months No.3 started behaving strangely on the K-7 where sometimes it would not move the focus and not flash the viewfinder hexagon to indicate focus failure. I have a feeling that this coincided with a firmware upgrade to the K-7 (possibly V102 in October 2009 ). However about 6 months in the lens got worse and started to have a sticky SDM like No.1. This got progressively worse and it got to the point where the lens could not be trusted to shoot anything except stationary studio shots. So, before its warranty expired, I sent this one back and it was repaired by having the SDM motor replaced. I have only had it back a couple of weeks and it seems to be ok but I have concerns about the longevity of this lens particularly as its original warranty has now expired.

These lenses were the most expensive I have ever bought and the only ones, in a collection that exceeds 30 lenses, that I have had any trouble with. I would need a lot more confidence before buying another SDM lens, particularly the ones that have both SDM and screw drives as I think this might be a contributing factor.

During this period I bought a Sigma 17-70 OS HSM as I wanted something to back-up the the 16-50 and thought I would give HSM a try. So far I have been very impressed with this and is now almost a permanent fixture on my spare, K20D, body.

Glyn