18-135mm lens advice Pentax or Sigma AF

jimrpdx wrote:

I went down the middle on this, with the Sigma 18-200. They make a new one now, 200g heavier (and me $200 lighter?) for stuff I don't need = no thanks. My 18-200 outperformed both Tamrons (18-200 and -250) due to equal or better IQ

I think your suffering owner pride syndrome

and Zero zoom creep.

you either have an exceptional copy or haven't used it enough for it to loosen up..it has a zoom lock for reason

User reviews for Sigma 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM lens. ... "The only issues I find annoying are it's bulkiness and the zoom creep "

At 35mm the sigma 18-200 has no border resolution at all barely rating 600 lw/ph vs the Tamron 1700

The bokeh is frankly laughable for a superzoom (and that's not a high standard) general optical performance worse than poor.

Not just my opinion

Here photozone gives it a miserable 1.5 for Optical performance personally I think Klaus was feeling generous that day.

http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/321-sigma-af-18-200mm-f35-63-dc-os-canon-test-report--review?start=1
some user reviews
http://www.dyxum.com/reviews/lenses/reviews.asp?IDLens=226

Unfortunately all the current 18-200 (non OEM) are based on old design and these old designs were not very good.

All the 18-250+ lens completely blow away all the 18-200's demonstratively so.

Never-the less a superzoom is a compromise from beginning to end the good ones are poor and the poor ones should never have been made fooling those who know no better into parting with good money.

If a superzom is what you need then tread carefully and pay close attention to lab results as many owners will tell you things that are just not true, Not through any deliberate lie but rather they've seen nothing better.

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Jim in Oregon -- a200 veteran, now G1 + K-5
talking to myself: http://granitix.blogspot.com