To be quite honest, I don't understand that the DA17-70mm is so dirt cheap in the UK. For most Dutch people the UK used to be an expensive country. Now it is cheaper because the pound fell against the euro.

In Holland the average price of the DA17-70mm is 470 pounds, the cheapest one costs 430 pounds. In Germany the cheapest DA17-70mm costs 400 pounds.

On Friday the 27th I was in London and bought my DA17-70mm at CameraWorld for 349,99 pounds.

The price difference is quite big. Why?

From SRSMicrosystem's own site:

* This lens is compatible with the Pentax K-m, K20D, K200D, K100D Super and K10D (with Ver. 1.30 or later firmware installed). When mounted on other camera bodies, the focus mode is automatically switched to manual.

**SDM-only focusing lens may be used with non-SDM Pentax DSLR bodies in manual focus mode.

http://www.srsmicrosystems.co.uk/644/Pentax-smc-DA-17-70mm-F4-ED-(IF)-SDM-Lens.html

I don't have a Yahoo account and don't sign up for one.

According tot the German magazine Colorfoto, the middle range is the best part of the lens. They also come to the conclusion that the DA17-70 is slightly better than the DA16-45mm. The 70mm range seems to be the weakest part of the lens. My few shots from everyday life taken at aperture 8.0 don't show the softness as in this test:

http://www.digitalcamerareview.com/default.asp?newsID=3676&review=pentax+17-70mm

My copy focuses quite well at 70mm, but a little worse at 17mm, as most zooms do. I focus at 70mm and zoom out the the desired focal length to take the picture.

Some early copies had problems with sharpness at 70mm, but did not focus all right at that focul length either. There seem to be no problems with later copies.

Some tests are conflicting showing opposite results. I am quite happy with my copy.

Opinions differ on this:

"Decidedly indifferent at 16mm, where it needs to be stopped down to F11 for best results, the lens improves markedly at longer focal lengths, and is at its best around 28mm. Image quality improves significantly on stopping down , with F8 and F11 the sweet spot; at smaller apertures diffraction takes its toll, as usual. Fortunately apertures smaller than F22 aren't available."

http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/pentax_16-45_4_p15/page3.asp

"Nice lens, which shows worse results, however, at the tele end where it loses in contrast."

http://www.colorfoto.de/Testbericht/Pentax-SMC-DA-4_16-45-mm-ED-AL_4770730.html


"While the lab tests may overstate the impact for real-world shooting, the fact is that the 17-70mm f/4 – or at least, the one we reviewed – was soft across the board at f/4."

http://www.digitalcamerareview.com/default.asp?newsID=3676&review=pentax+17-70mm

I have both the DA16-45mm and the DA17-70mm and I don't recognise what the testers have found. For a long time the last test withheld me from buying the DA17-70mm, thinking ik was a bad lens. Finally I bought my copy last week and I did two photo shoots with this lens. I am pleasantly surprised with the sharpness. The tester must have had a bad copy.

There is sample variation. My first copy of the DA16-45mm was faulty. The left side was unsharp. My second copy is allright.

Last Friday I was in the UK and I bought the DA17-70mm. Now I have both the DA16-45mm and the DA17-70mm. My impression is that the DA17-70mm is slightly sharper at the borders and edges than the DA16-45mm. A lot depends on foccussing. The DA16-45mm is a sharp lens, but the DA17-70mm is at least equally sharp if not sharper.

The DA17-70mm focuses silently and rapidly and is solidly built. The front element of the DA16-45mm is a bit wobbly.

What about this one:

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/0582683/c_1/1%7Ccategory_root%7CPhotography%7C10198049/c_2/2%7Ccat_10198049%7CCamera+lenses%7C10198094.htm

Matches design of D Xenon camera.

A real bargain, isn't it?

You must be doing something wrong. Just use Dust Alert as if you were taking a picture of a sheet of white paper. It should be OK. I used it in the wrong way and it indicated that the sensor had some specs on it. In reality there were no specs. Just take a picture of a blue sky, a white door, or something like that. Forget about Dust Alert.

Dust alert isn't reliable. It tends so see many dust specs on a flawlessly clear sensor.

The lens is just a miracle of technical ingenuity by combining a super wide angle with a super tele range at a reasonably high quality level. The engineers have thought about all this and put many glass elements in the front tube. Therefore that front tube is quite heavy causing zoom creep.

This is quite normal. Every time I put my camera and this lens into its bag I use the zoom lock.