21977 DA 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 ED AL (IF) DC WR Lens for Pentax Digital SLR cameras,Black

A very, very useful lens. Surprisingly, 1/2" shorter than my already-compact Pentax 16-45 f/4! This one, with that 200mm-equiv zoom, is much more versatile. Came from 'Another Deal Site', fulfilled by Amazon... mentioning this because, unlike some older posts below, this lens came in a proper box, with Ricoh warranty cards, an instruction guide AND the lens hood. Exactly as shown on the Amazon page. If I were going on a trip, I would take this lens. Or as the best choice for a walkaround-town snapshot lens. Amazon calls it 'discontinued', which is confusing, since, as of today June 9 2015, it is also for sale on the Ricoh lens web page, though at $500. It is well-made, works perfectly and immediately with my K-5 IIs, and my older K-01. Does it take good pictures? Sure. Tell you a secret though... ANY modern lens takes great pictures... re sharpness and color rendition. What we are really buying is ergonomics... how easy it is to use the lens for a hurried once-in-a-lifetime snapshot. And that gets you over to the camera... and Pentax DSLRs... all of them... have excellent autofocus if there is any light at all in the scene, any contrasting area you can use as a focus point. This 18-135 WR also lets you focus manually with a lens ring, without having to turn off autofocus. Best of both worlds. Lastly, the WR means Weather Resistant. No, you can't take it surfing, or in a pool. But it is rainproof, and dustproof, and sandproof... particularly if you are using it on a recent Pentax weather-resistant DSLR, like the K-3s, K-5s, K-30, K-50, etc, etc. So few photos are taken in the rain... but you can!

This is the Swiss-Army Knife of Pentax lenses. When you can't bring the whole toolbox, this one you want. It can do almost anything well - or at least, well enough for the person who is only bringing along one camera body. It has the greatest zoom range of any weather-resistant lens by Pentax, so when don't want to miss a shot, but don't want to ruin your camera by changing WR lenses in the kinds of weather that necessitates them - this is the lens to have. It's not a "macro" lens, but with it on my old K-5 I have taken shots of a fly so clear I can see the hairs on its back. It's not a "super" zoom with 15x, but it IS a true WR lens, with seals where they make a difference. I have taken shots in the snow - as it came down. I have taken shots in the spray of water. It can take wide angle shots and then zoom in 7.5x and get a close-up. The "softness" in the corners is primarily at the longest end of the zoom range, so I use the normal-wide settings for landscapes, and that works perfectly. But if you're taking a people-picture, when you zoom in it is still very sharp in the center where the person's face will be - and so the "softness" in the corners is like a lovely bokeh treatment of a large aperture (expensive) lens. And if I'm using it instead of a 200mm lens to capture something far away, I'm going to crop out the corners anyway and keep the sharp center portion. The focus is reasonably quick and delightfully quiet. The build is quite solid, yet light. If you take photos at the beach, in the snow, in the damp, where the wind is kicking up dust and debris, water is dripping or children knocking over large tumblers of sugary beverage next to your camera gear - this is your lens, especially if you want to take landscapes, portraits, zooms and macros all with the same lens. There will be times you are very glad you brought this one along instead of a bag full of the expensive, Limited-use limited lenses to ruin in the weather.

I bought this lens to use on my K-5 at Burning Man 2011. The Weather sealed combo served me well out there on the Playa. The range is extremely useful. I have a DA* 50-135, but really needed an all in one zoom because of the nature of Burning Man, and changing lenses is too risky and time consuming. Auto Focus is suburb even in extremely low light (with the help of the K-5's AF assist beam) and the Build Quality is rock solid. It really does have a good heft to it. It balances extremely well on my K-5 with Battery Grip. I can live with out the 2.8, and uber duber image quality...at least for what I was intending to use this lens for. The contrast is a bit lacking compared to the 50-135, but RAW files are kinda "flat" to begin with. The Distortion at 18mm is somewhat noticeable, but if you turn turn on lens correction in the camera it really is no problem. (at the cost of taking slightly longer to write to the memory card). The Lens Correction option in Lightroom or Photoshop would work very well, also. The Bokeh is nice, and I have gotten some pleasing portraits with this lens.

OK if you need one lens to use, for a variety of tasks, this may well be the perfect lens. With the K-1 and K1 II you get a 50% increase in effective focal length, making this more of a 24-200mm lens, which is very good for almost any situation. The sharpness is excellent, and speed of focus is superb. I added some pictures that show the color and quality of the coating - excellent optics. The flowers is at 18mm, almost a macro, very little crop. The candle is at ISO 3200 with 48mm and very little crop as well. It's relatively light weight and balances well with the K-3II. The quality is solid and it feels like it will hold up for the long run. I used it for some flower shots this past weekend and was not disappointed. While not a macro, it is able to focus down to about a foot. Telephoto is great. Recommended!

Do you like the kit 18-55mm lens? The one that probably shipped with your Pentax camera? If you think the overall image quality of the kit 18-55mm lens (called the DA-L 18-55, or the DA AL, or the DA, WR, all of which share the same optical formula) is good, then you'll probably like this lens. It has the same high quality fit and finish as the kit lens, the same good contrast and color. However, it also suffers in the same two ways that the 18-55 kit lens suffers: Sharpness and Chromatic Aberration (CA). I really wanted to like this lens. I really did. 18-135mm is a great range of focal lengths for everyday shooting. Weather Resistance is a great feature, and the DC focusing motor seemed like a nice option as well. It is well balanced and everything operates smooth as butter. Unfortunately, it has some major image quality issues which negate these positive features. I started my quest for the ultimate walkaround lens when I began to see the limits of the kit 18-55 lens. If you go pixel peeping or make any enlargements bigger than about 8x10, you'll notice that it just isn't very sharp. It's quite soft wide open and only improves moderately when you stop down to F/5.6 or so. You'll also notice that it does a lousy job of controlling CA, with pretty bad purple and green fringing in high contrast edges. It was for these reasons that I sold my kit 18-55 and eventually landed on this one, the 18-135. Unfortunately, the 18-135 is pretty much just like the 18-55, just with 80 more mm of focal length! It is soft at all apertures and does a lousy job of controlling CA. If it cost half of what it does, these things might be forgivable, but at the current price I do not feel it is a good value. Look, if you want an all-in-one lens which looks pretty on your camera, and if most of your shots only end up on the web or in small printouts, and if weather resistance is important to you, then you'll probably love this lens. As I indicated above, it is a nicely built piece of engineering that is a joy to operate. If you're not super concerned about image quality, then you can just leave this lens permanently on your camera and you'll be happy. If, however, you want image quality which is better than what the kit lens has to offer, then look elsewhere. I have tried many lenses over the past few years. I've settled on a collection of old primes for my K-01 to use for landscaping. On my K-30, I want a general purpose walkaround lens and a good long telephoto. I have tried numerous lenses, some of which have found a permanent place in my bag and some of which I have sent back or re-sold. This one was sent back. There are plenty of other lenses which offer superior image quality - I even had an old 1990s Promaster 28-105 which took better pictures than this, and cost me only a fraction of the price. If Pentax could improve the sharpness and CA problems, this lens would be a fantastic option. I know zoom lenses always have compromises, but if they could re-design the optics a bit and re-release this lens, I'd be happy to buy it again. Like I said, I really wanted to like it. A note about the DC autofocus... yes it is nice and yes it is quiet. But it is NOT faster than screw drive AF. There are plenty of screw drive AF lenses which will run circles around this one. That said, I still like the DC AF option. It is nearly silent and seems very accurate. A note about the seller Web Offers - I bought this lens via Amazon from a company called Web Offers. The lens I received was in a plain brown cardboard box, not the official Pentax retail box and packaging. There was also no paperwork or warranty card. I strongly suspect that it was a grey-market lens. As far as I know it is not illegal to sell lenses on the grey market, but it is something you should be aware of, as it can impact the support and warranty. Basically this means that the seller is probably importing the lens right from Pentax in Japan, and not via Pentax/Ricoh here in the US. The problem is that Pentax/Ricoh here in the US is the official company importer, so if you run into warranty or support issues, they may not honor it. Grey market lenses are cheaper, but you have to be aware of this potential problem.

With Pentax, there are not a whole lot of choices in production for a modern Pentax lens, especially for an all-around zoom. This 18-135mm is pretty much your best bet. Luckily, it performs decently well for its price. I have this lens and the 35mm F2.4 for really nice, leight-weight travel combination. The focal length of 18-135mm covers about 27 to 200mm 35mm film equivalent range, which is pretty good and covers many types of photos (landscape, portraits, group shots, and mild telephoto for wildlife). Plus the 1:4x magnification ratio means that you can also do product photography and close up of flowers. This lens has a little above average distortion at wide angle, so architecture photos are not going to be straight unless you post-process the image. The modern Pentax cameras can fix distortion in-camera too, but its slow. Vignetting, dark shaded corners, is about average..nothing I would concern myself with. Contrast is great a couple stops down from wide open. The color reponse of the lens is fantastic and typical of good Pentax glass. Its not too warm like vintage glass but great and vibrant nonetheless. Sharpness. This is the subject everyone looks at. Pentax seemed to attempt keeping the longer focal length as sharp as possible. I feel they succeeded for the most part, at all focal length the lens performs very good a couple stops down from wide open. The CON is that the corners are very soft and blurry. I took a test shot of my carpet, pointing the camera straight down (using a bubble leveler to make sure), and at all focal lengths the corners are soft. Now, before one jumps ship, it is recommended that one read the Ken Rockwell article on the importance of sharpness. Most of the time your subjects are not at the borders of the picture, leaving the rest defocused anyway with bokeh, so most of the time when I compose my shots they are still very pleasing to my eye. And thats what matters. Only when you do critical work like close-up photography does a sharp flat plane work in your benefit. For your money you get a lot of lens. Its lightweight because it doesnt need added elements for optical stabilization. It's weather sealed meaning it can handle mild rain with no problem (I wouldn't say torrential rain however). A feathered petal-hood is included and can be inverted backwards on the lens for storage. The focus ring is dampaned and quick-shift, meaning you can focus even with the autofocus switch on. Its located behind the zoom ring and has "soft" stops. The 62mm filter diameter is not so large that you must get expensive filters. The autofocus speed is not up to par to Canon's USM but it is about the same league as Pentax's SDM. Accuracy depends on what camera you have, but mine did well on my k-x. No back or front bias focus on my sample. All in all, if you are looking for a one lens do-it-all, then this might be your best bet. If the longer focal length is not of concern, the older Sigma 17-70mm might tickle your fancy, plus its cheaper. Compared to the Pentax 18-55mm kit lens, though, it is way better and a good upgade. As with Pentax, if you want the best, you might want to look at their prime lenses.

Another stunner Lens from Pentax. A higher range to DA, DA and DA-AL II, Brilliant economical alternative to DA* series with almost identical features and a ditto same build. Very quick and stealthy auto-focus. Although sharpness is an issue in high aperture and very less noticeable lens aberration, it gets a perfect ten for zoom. A 11/10 FOR weather sealed extremely brilliant and reliable build, being sound-dust-moisture-snow-water-acceptable level heat proof. Highly suitable for landscape and family/wedding pictures too. what it lacks in sharpness is compensated for quality. Overall, worth the value, highly recommended over its other counterparts.

Outstanding lens. Very sharp. Has about the same macro capability as the Pentax 18-55mm lens, or at least there is not enough difference to mention. But it doesn't have an extreme macro capability. You can get close enough to be useful. (Roughly 1 foot away at 135 mm.) It has a good working length range. It can be used from scenics to portraits. Wide angle for scenics. Telephoto for good compression in your portraits. Plus there is enough telephoto power for some decent wildlife and nature shots, or some sports shots. (For the nature shots and the sports shots, you are going to find yourself wanting a longer lens. But this lens will cover the basics.) The only downside to this lens, and most zoom lenses, are that zoom lenses are not fast lenses. If you need a really fast lens or a lens with really limited depth of field, then you need a Prime lens. But this is a great lens to simply put on your Pentax DSLR camera for normal usage. It is fast enough and has focal length which is long enough to be useful.

I bought this lens as my one and only bad-weather zoom. Physically it is about the same size as my 18-250mm Pentax superzoom, but for what it loses (100mm plus of zoom at the long end), it makes up in the comfort of knowing it's weather-sealed, and I can face light drizzle with confidence and downpours with the knowledge that if I get inside soon enough, my camera and lens will not be destroyed or shorted out. Thus far I am quite happy with it - it offers enough focal length "span" for the tasks I bought it for (wide enough at the wide end; tele enough at the other), and more than adequate image quality. Handling is good, and manual focus override is quite reasonable with "quick shift" - the MF ring is nicely damped, making manual adjustment easy, or if you're moving from near to far objects (or vice versa) you can give the focus ring a twist and let the AF do the rest of the work. The inbuilt DC motor doesn't seem notably faster than screw-drive, but it is accurate when lighting is adequate (see below) and is generally much quieter where this is important. The lens is advertised as being incompatible with some older digital bodies (all *ist-D... series, K100D, K110D) as they do not support the inbuilt autofocus motor, so take care if you are buying a cheap body and this lens separately second-hand. The only problem I have had with it is I've had trouble locking focus sometimes. However, this has always occurred in quite low-light situations, where variable-aperture zooms like this one aren't at their best without strong focus-assist from an external flash (which I don't have). It really can't really be put down to the lens, which I seem to be pushing to its limits in low light on the K-5. If you can only have only one lens on your Pentax DSLR, this is a good choice, especially if you are travelling to wet and/or dusty places and don't want to fiddle with lens changes much. It doesn't give quite the range that the 18-270 does or quite the image quality that some of the other higher-end lenses do, but the weather sealing makes it an excellent practical choice, and if you use it well it will give you excellent results for amateur or enthusiast work. Especially if you're just getting into DSLR, this lens as part of a lens-body deal is an excellent option and will keep you going for quite a while before you need to consider anything else.

Este objetivo es ideal como todo terreno: - Permite viajar con un solo objetivo muy versátil. - Resistente a inclemencias ambientales (agua y polvo). Buena construcción - Muy ligero. - Focal muy utilizable. - Calidad y resolucion de imágen buenas. Esplendidos colores. - Autofocus muy rápido y preciso. Con shift focus manual para ajustar el enfoque. Pegas: - Le falta un poco de luminosidad. Se compensa subiendo ISO con K5.

Articulo identico a lo ofertado con entrega en perfectas condiciones 24 horas antes de lo programado.

Ich habe für meine Pentax K 30 ein Zoom-Objektiv mit realtiv großem Zoombereich gesucht, dass auch noch abgedichtet ist. Also bieb eigentlich nur das 18-135 mm übrig. Meine bisherigen Erfahrungen damit: Top verarbeitet, schneller und leiser Autofocus (der stellt wirklich blitzschnell scharf und immer auf dem Punkt). Das Objektiv hat bisher meine Erwartungen voll und ganz erfüllt. Die Abbildungseigenschaften habe ich jetzt nicht akribisch getestet, wenn ich mir meine Fotos so anschaue, dann genügt das meinen Ansprüchen voll und ganz (meist Darstellung über HD-Fernseher mit 55" Bildschirmdiagonale). Nicht so begeistert war ich von der Verpackung: Das Objketiv wurde in einer einfachen Schachtel aus Pappe geliefert. Ich hätte wenigstens einen Objektiv-Köcher erwartet. Ist aber momentan nicht so wichtig, da ich es derzeit als "immer drauf" Objektiv nutze. Könnte sich aber mal ändern, wenn weitere dazu kommen.

En remplacement du 18 55 de base et en complement du 55 300. La plage couverte permet des photos d interieur et d exterieur lors de reunion de famille. Le 135 permet de faire des prises de detail et d expression. De bonne qualite de fabrication, silencieux et rapide sur l af. Je m en sert pour les photos sur stade proche, apres je prends le 55 300. Je me sentais bloque avec le 18 55, je me sens beaucoup plus libre avec ce 18 135.