HD PENTAX-DA★11-18mmF2.8ED DC AW Ultra-wide-angle zoom lens 17-27.5mm (Equivalent to 35mm format) All Weather resistant Extra-sharp High-contrast images Free of flare and ghost images Smooth, quiet AF

This lens is a phenomenal value - light, PLM autofocus is very quiet and very fast (in good light), the lens is decently fast, and the pictures are tack sharp under the right conditions. Low light performance cannot compete with faster lenses, of course, but for this price point it is very good. I previously had a Nikon D5600 with a Nikon 77-300 lens, which I lost. I decided to buy a K-70 because of Pentax's backward compatibility with a wide range of old glass. While the Pentax 55-300 and the Nikon 70-300 are very similar on paper and cost about the same, I find that the Pentax 55-300 on my K-70 beats my old Nikon 70-300 on D5600 on several points - it is more compact, lighter, has slightly greater range, does not make any noise as far as I can hear (the Nikon did make a bit of noise), and I find the long end very usable, e.g., for birding and backyard wildlife, where the Nikon became a bit soft over 250mm. I do not regret the switch to Pentax, and this lens is a true gem at this price level.

I bought this to use on a K-S2, and loved it. Insanely fast focus, relatively light and portable lens. Image quality is good throughout the zoom range. The PLM focus is unbelievably quick, silent, and does not have the hunting issues that Pentax often suffers from. While Pentax is usually not recommended for sports or other high speed photography, this lens works very well and the three airshows I've taken it to, I never found it lacking. I have since swapped my K-S2 for a K1 mk2 and was initially going to sell this lens to buy a 150-450(another great lens), but decided to also keep this for travel. It's basically the same size as the 28-105mm FA lens. The size of this lens and the low amount of vignetting on a full frame means it is still a viable lens on a FF platform. Short version: On APS-C it is one of the best telephoto lenses available. On FF it is perfectly suited as a telephoto lens for travel where you want more reach, but want to avoid the bulk of a much larger lens.

Amazing lens, as expected for a * lens. The built quality feels premium and the performance on par.

Carefully tested this lens as I do all new lenses I buy. This sample was was sharp across the frame at all focal lengths by f5.6. Slightly soft in the corners at 16mm at f3.5, but not bad. Autofocus is fast and silent. As with all zooms I've encountered, the internal focusing shortens the effective focal length to focus closer. My estimates of the effective focal length when the lens is set at 85mm and focused at 10 ft it is about 83mm; focused at 5 ft about 77mm; at 3 ft. about 70mm; and focused at the closest distance of about 13.5 inches the effective focal length is about 50mm. Focused very close with lens set at 85mm the image was very sharp and high quality but the area covered was about what you would expect with a 50mm lens not an 85mm lens so it is acting like a 50mm macro not an 85mm macro lens when focused up extremely close. Not a flaw. Every zoom I have ever tested behaves this way. Just do not expect an 85mm macro performer. An excellent lens and the sharpest all purpose zoom lens I have used on a Pentax. It seems to be very well built. I wish it had a marked focusing scale, but otherwise I am very favorably impressed with this lens. I am a very experienced photographer. Be sure to test your sample because there have been some reports on Pentax forums of people getting samples with elements decenterd which would give you images sharper on one side than the other.

Aug 2016 update Took this lens on a multi-week vacation in Hong Kong. The weather was hot and humid. Together with a K-3II and this lens, the combination performed flawlessly. The three attached pictures were taken with this combination. All hand held except for the night scene. A fast lens (ie f/2.8 or better) is not required for this type of scene. Nov 2015 update I now have spent more time and come to really appreciate the strengths of this lens. Corner sharpness is head and shoulder better than the Tamron 17-50! This is a big surprise to me. At 50 mm, the FA 50 f/1.4 is still better at comparable aperture, but not by much. This finding actually presents a problem for me - I am starting to look for a better fast standard zoom. ***** Original review ***** I have a read a lot of reviews on this lens. But before saying anything, I need to state that I already have a Pentax 18-135 and Tamron 17-50. The Tamron 17-50 is my most used lens and with the 18-135 as my rainy day lens. The two main reasons for considering this 16-85 is 1) better optics than the 18-135 and 2) the wider 16 mm than either the 17-50 or 18-135. The 1mm difference between the 17mm on the Tamron and 16mm on the Pentax is huge. I like WA lens; I have a Sigma 8-16 UWA, Samyang 8mm & 14mm. With this 16-85, it will reduce the number of times I need to swap lenses. I am not so concerned with losing the 85-135 region because I have several lenses to cover that, including Pentax 55-300, Pentax 50-135, and Sigma 70-200. In terms of optical performance, it does not disappoint me. It is significantly sharper than the 18-135 especially wide open aperture. It is comparable to the Tamron 17-50 at corresponding focal length and aperture. In other words, I can really get along well with this WR combination - 16-85 and 55-300 - for casual situations and landscape photography where fast aperture is not usually needed. I have not tested flare resistance, but reports so far seems to confirm the superiority of the HD coating. AF is very fast and silent; it seems to be faster than 18-135. It does require a -4 focus adjustment on a K-S2 while none for the 18-135. I have not tested on my K-5IIs but I expect similar results. The lens is much larger than my expectation. Both the 18-135 and Tamron 17-50 are small compared to this 16-85. So I am not saving space when I substitute this 16-85 for the Tamron 17-50. The filter size is 72 vs 67 on the Tamron. The lens is well build but not heavy despite the size. The lens hood is well design. I took one star off because it is not perfect. It is substantially more expensive than either the 18-135 or the Tamron 17-50. Aperture is neither fast nor constant. I would pay a little more to have constant f/4.0. The slower aperture especially towards the long FL end does not lend itself to challenging low light photography. In summary, I highly recommend this lens if you can live within the constraints of the lens. WR is handy if you find yourself in wet or rainy environment.

Unlike a rectilinear lens, this lens "distorts" at the edges, so that people's faces at the edges are normal looking. A regular wide angle makes people at the edges look like they have wide faces- but not this lens. The round faces at the edges are round. Only negative thing, there is some blue fringing at the extreme edges, but if not using it fully fish-eyed solves this. The center of the lens is really sharp; the center to near edge detail is excellent. So for large groups, like a wedding line up, people from edge to edge look good, but crop out the picture to a wide panorama format so the corner distortion is cropped out. I love the results shooting with this lens in a panoramic format.

This is an excellent little lens very well worth the about 305 EUR you can get it for new here. Even though it clearly is an APSC only lens I did buy it for my Pentax K-1 FF camera as light vacation/travel tele option. The lens when folded together is just about the size of the fantastic Pentax DFA 100mm F2.8 macro lens,so while certainly being no pancake it is very easy to transport in very small bags. The build quality is very ok for this price range and certainly better than Tamrons. The optical quality is great, especially at the important long 300mm end. Certainly not on DA* 300mm prime level (who would expect this?) but good enough for 60x40cm prints. The new PLM lens AF drive is really very silent and quick. I find it preferable to old SDMs, Sigma DCs and HSMs. Focussing with it is very fast, especially if the change of focus is not between ultra close and infinity. I'd even might give it a try in sports subjects. This PLM drive has the same functionality as the "STM" drive from Canon: It can make very small adjustments silently during video capture. What is also worthwhile noting is that this is the first Pentax lens that I know which is "focus-by-wire", so there is no direct physical connection between the focus ring and the lenses. So when the camera is powered off you can not adjust focus. Pentax calls this "power focus". It features the new KAF4 mount, which means the aperture is not controlled via physical level from a little motor in the camera body but the lens has its own aperture motor. In order to use this you do need one of the newest models K-3II or K-1 or K-70, K-S1, K-S2. Otherwise the aperture will be fixed and you can not really set it. As already mentioned: I use it on a FF body. The strongest hard vignetting is between 78-88mm with only small parts of the corners being shaded at both 300mm and 55mm. Especially at 300mm I usually do crop somewhat anyway to that is not a major loss. Also my zoom lens usage usually means that I use the lens at one of the two ends, so that seems to work fine. Even at the worst vignetting 88mm when using square crop (25 MPx) no vignetting is left on the picture. Together with the Pentax DFA 28-105mm lens this should make my preferred light FF travel combo. Fully recommended.

Really solid well put together lens, excellent on my KP

It's a little bit heavy

Excelente opción para tener un gran angular (ojo de pez) en la Pentax KP. Excelente para paisajes o retratos (siempre y cuando el sujeto se encuentre en el tercio central de la imagen. Sin viñeteado aparente (en apsc), pero sí presenta aberraciones cromáticas perceptibles y poca nitidez fuera del tercio central. Recomiendo activar la corrección de aberraciones desde la cámara (ayuda bastante), y en el postprocesado (lightroom) volver a darle un tratamiento a dichas aberraciones para tener un óptimo resultado. Al hacer las fotos en blanco y negro (filtro BW en la cámara) no son notables los defectos de este objetivo y es excelente en todos los sentidos. En resumen, sí es una excelente opción para fotos casuales, pero si requieres la mejor calidad final, se requiere un postprocesado de la imagen. Mi lente favorito hasta el momento.