BTW, is this the DA 12-24mm f4 lens? If not, which lens were you using here? How are you happy with it? I'm looking for something wide and that's one of the lenses I'm considering.
Yes it is the DA 12-24mm f4. It arrived only a few weeks ago, so far it's been going great. Very sharp, no major complaints, excellent build quality. The front is huge, balaces well with a K10/20D, and feels a lot more solid holding and rotating the rings than the kit lens (and it comes with one of those useful edge and center pinch lens caps).
As with most ultra wide angles it seems you get a fair amount of purple aberrations in the corners at 12mm in high contrast situations, it looks to decrease slightly as you stop down. At 24mm its there but only very slightly. Please keep in mind I'm talking about when viewing the image at 100% here, when viewing regularly you have to look harder it might not even bother you. The good thing is it's mainly purple and can easily be fixed in photoshop so not a great issue…or if your lucky and have the K-7 it'll fix it for you
With the kit lens I'd sometimes get other cyan/magenta/red/green colourful aberrations
across the frame and was very annoying to get rid of it all, as trees are green too! You'll still get them but it appears they occur in less situations with this lens which is good.
Anyway, I was in your situation a month ago too, I also took a look at the wider Sigma 10-20mm, but after reading about quality control issues I really didn't want risk it, and there aren't any local camera stores around that'd be convenient to send back too. The prices are around the same as the 3rd parties so I went with the Pentax. I was worried about loosing the 2mm compared to the Sigma, but find the 12-24mm focal range very useful nevertheless.
I'd highly recommend it!
PS the blurry surf club building in the background is due to water dragging the tripod not the lens
Just returned from a month-long photo trip.
Welcome back, how was the trip? Get lots of Alamyables?
