Zoom Lens Tests 135mm & f8

At 70mm they both look better, I'd still give it to the 18-135.

I dont think youve got a "bad" 55-300  just that the focus is off on the 135mm shot.  Maybe, it back focussed at that distant subject or its that gigantic centre focus point.

According to Pentax the DA18-135WR was supposed to be a step up from the basic zoom lenses like 18-55, 55-200 and 55-300,  so it should be a bit better.    Your 18-135 certainly is a good copy.

Last September I went to Broken Hill for 5days with 25 mostly Canikon types all with 18-270's.  I brought far to many lenses with me and struggled to to keep up with them using primes when we were out and about so ended up swapping between 18-135 and 55-300 quite a bit of the time.

After weeding out the rejects  there's 1993 shots.   More weighted towards the wider end and not many portraits.  Statistically they go like this:

DA15=324,  DA21=126, DA35=59,  FA43=17,  DA70=4, DFA100=90, 55mm/1.2=36

DA18-135 = 934   and DA55-300 = 403.    Now 609 of these are in the overlapping 55-135 zone weighted slightly toward the wider side.

Conclusion 1: You know what.  I'm buggered if I can tell the difference between the 2 lenses.

Conclusion 2:  After changing lenses so often whilst standing in dry creek beds I need to clean my sensor. oops.