cwantuch's reviews

  • Tamron 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 XR Di II LD Aspherical IF AF

    8 out of 10 points and recommended
    Zoom Range, compactness
    focusing speed

    I've been using this lens for about 6 months on my Pentax *ist DS and taken a few thousand shots. Since I'm looking more for convenience than absolute image quality, I would have to say I'm mostly satisfied with this lens. Outdoors the lens performs well. Indoors with flash, my most common usage, I've had some auto-focusing problems, but not consistently. In those situations I just fall back to manual focus without a problem. My most common use of this lens is for family photos. When printed at 4x6, the family has often commented how how nice the prints looked in comparison to their point and shoot prints. Construction quality of the lens seems good, but perhaps a notch below my Pentax lenses.
    Should this lens ever get ruined, I would not hesitate to buy another as a replacement.

    reviewed January 7th, 2007 (purchased for $369)
  • Pentax 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 SMC P-DA

    10 out of 10 points and recommended
    Image quality, focusing speed, compact size

    This lens came with my *ist DS and I am very pleased with it. I use this exclusively indoors with flash, and get consistently good results. Construction quality is very good. I cannot foresee upgrading this lens in this zoom range even if a hypersonic motor version comes out that is compatible with my camera.

    reviewed January 7th, 2007