DA* 16-50 Vs DA 16-45, A Shootout

Here is one of first more formal tests I have seen, which I think is good enough to tell us some truths about the lenses, for a head-to-head comparison:-

http://blog.photosharp.com.tw/BLOG/Article.aspx?m=%e5%8e%9f%e9%87%8e%e7%b6%a0&id=3407

(Test report in Traditional Chinese, use Babelfish if required)

Well, as we can see from the pairs of sample photos and the full size crops the author posts, he gives us the following conclusions:-

1. Purple fringing of the DA* is just a little bit better than the DA, but both lenses are considered to be worse than acceptable because the fringes are still obvious for both;

2. The DA* 16-50 consistently underexposes more than the DA 16-45 on the K10D, under a wide variety of shooting situations, as stated by the author. In fact, the two posted sample images by him show this clearly too. The author considers the underexposure of the DA*16-50 is highly undesirable. It is further noted that the DA* may have more light loss which is judged by lower EV values metered but yet the pictures came out to be darker, which is again undesirable indeed;

3. The images from the DA 16-45 are warmer, i.e. with more yellow whilst the DA* 16-50 contains no yellow at all. It is further stated that the DA* 16-50 images look more saturated than the DA 16-45 but anyway the author does point out that this maybe related to underexposure as underexposed images normally look more saturated than normally exposed ones. Personally, I must say I still don't like the "new" tone of the DA* lenses, as I have said before. Regarding this kind of colour reproduction which I don't like, I can find the same thing for many of the other sample photos I have seen on the net, including Ned Bunnell's ones, which I bet quite some we *old* Pentaxians will not like it - we love the *old* tones of those older Pentax excellent optics, but it seems that those were the days. In fact, I found that the DA 16-45 is already cooler than I like (a detailed comparison here) but now that the DA*s are even more blueish!(?)

4. Resolution wise, the DA* 16-50 wins and that the only aspect it clearly wins. The difference will become smaller when stopped down to f/8 or beyond, though.

Nonetheless, do note that the above comparisons are not made with the same aperture numbers, the tester compares the relative stopped-down apertures in the same amount of stopping down step(s). As such, there is always one f-stop's difference in the comparisons. One may think this to be fair or unfair, depending on what one thinks about the rationales.

Besides, I have also found another fair and comprehensive overview by another new DA* 16-50 user here. Actually, he also "coincidently" notes about the underexposure problem too with his DA* on the K10D. Besides, he points out that the AF with SDM is indeed not significantly faster than that with traditional body AF.

Another major problem some other new users have reported about is the high amount of distortion at wide angles, which is obviously more than that of the DA 16-45 (2.52% barrel), which IMHO is too much indeed for a wide lens, not even to say for a luxury classed one as the DA Star. In fact, some of the users believe that the distortion is of the same level as the Tokina ATX Pro DX 16-50, of which the amount is measured and can be visualised here (a 3.55% barrel distortion, which is really *too* much!). My experience is that such large and obvious barrel distortion is a true annoyance when shooting landscapes with the horizons or any horizontal lines appeared near the top or bottom picture frame borders, which will make the pictures look somehow ugly and odd.

So, if one asks me if the DA* worth its price, in particular for the DA* 16-50, I would say "No" without second thought. Actually, I won't recommend this lens as long as there is a much alternative cheaper choice of which the DA* 16-50 is not much better than, i.e., the DA 16-45. With nearly four times the price of the DA*16-50 than a DA 16-45, the small difference in performance and features actually makes the DA 16-45 a no-brainer. Do note that the DA 16-45 does even have some other advantages over the DA* 16-50, as for those discussed above and some other things which are obvious, e.g., it is smaller and lighter and uses a common Pentax thread size of 67mm (which the DA*50-135 uses too).