SMC Pentax DA 50-200mm F4-5.6 ED review

I found this lens to be very handy to have. It has a nice range at a very small size... and weight. It's slightly bigger than the Pentax kit lens (without a hood). At 50mm it's a little soft, however I found that stepping down to f8.0 helps a lot and also the contrast is really nice. I have nothing to compare it with unfortunately, but this lens is good, especially if you can get it cheap. Mine cost me 20.000 HUF, which is about ~$73 at the time of this writing.

Comparing it to other cheaper telephoto lens, like the inexpensive Tamron 70-300, it has a smaller zoom range, but keep in mind that the Tamron is about unusable above 200mm anyway, since it's so soft and has a terrible level of chromatic abberations. Yes, CA. I found that this lens doesn't suffer much from aberrations, maybe due to Pentax's super-multi coating.

This lens however is now discontinued and has been replaced by the weather resistant WR version, which is a better choice, if you plan to shoot in the rain or snow.

I could recommend this lens if you're a beginner, need a cheap but good telephoto lens and weather resistance is of no concern to you.

I included a few test shots.

Pentax K10D ; f8.0 ; 1/60s ; ISO100 ; 200mm

Pentax K10D ; f5.6 ; 1/30s ; ISO100 ; 200mm

Pentax K10D ; f8.0 ; 1/320s ; ISO100 ; 88mm

Another K10d owner with the 50-200 DA lens. I have the 18-55 DA lens as well but he 50-200 pretty much stays on the camera all the time. I don't go looking for the finer points good or bad out in the corners, I simply look at the overall image and either smile or frown and delete.

A few images from the K10 with the DA 50-200 lens. The horse photos were taken on a dull drizzly day. These are the downsized photos.

The gray sky did not help much.

This is a crop from the full resolution photo.

This kid was having a ball.

I was cropping into the horse,, honest!!

Hard to see the rain falling but it was there

Another crop.

I have the early (non WR) version.

It has been my most used telezoom since 2006, until I got the HD DA 55-300 1 year ago.

I fully agree with your review: DA 50-200 has nothing stellar but it does the job and is very light and compact:

The DA 50-200 WR was the lens I choose to go get those pictures of snow monkeys. It was in Winter, with snow, and, the monkeys were playing in the hot spring bath.

Thank you Pentax, for the WR

It's easier to take pictures when not worrying.

The Dentist

Supper Can Wait

3 Small Ones

Nice shots

It is a nice lens for the price. When Pentax designed this lens more than likely it was to be the classic in 35mm/FF equal of 70-300mm. What they designed is a remarkably small lens that does that range as well as any in the price range.

Its small but has some heft to it, feels well built.

I personally wipe the barrel in down pours of rain before retracting. That's up to you.

It comes with a large thick lens hood, nothing cheap about it.

There is a pretty bad review from Photozone. They probably had a poor sample of the lens. Owning this lens I know its not that bad. The good reviews -

https://www.ephotozine.com/article/pentax-smc-50-200mm-f-4-5-6-da-ed-interchangeable-lens-review-4568

Popular Photo tested the WR version which is optically the same as all others.

http://www.popphoto.com/gear/2010/09/tested-pentax-50-200mm-f4-56-da-wr

Now after reading them, this lens should be a really good performer, better than Average. Well wide open and I will have some issues at certain focal lengths. However at f/11 it does produces a picture that is uniform across the whole 50-200mm frame and detailed enough for good prints 8X10. Pentax keeps it in the catalog.  A good performing and feature rich lens for the money.

A out of K-5 jpeg with minimal PP not cropped, no sharp mask

K-5, 1/500, iso400 200mm equal to 300mm FF. Out of Cam JPEG