Review on Pentax 16-45mm f/4.0 SMC PDA ED AL Zoom Lens: Compatible with Pentax and Samsung Digital SLR Cameras by Keith Mertz

I bought this lens mainly because of the great reviews on this site. That's pretty much all the top reviews say. To be more precise, optically it just means: excellent. My bean counting is twofold and possibly unjustified. First, the lens isn't built like the best lenses - too much plastic! Again, the lens costs around $250, making it incredibly good value for this glass quality. (Maybe we just have to get used to all that plastic. I remember the first time I picked up a Pentax DSLR (2004); compared to my LX, it felt like a toy with all that plastic. I don't feel that way anymore.) My second nitpick concerns the focal length. 45mm (67.5mm in 35mm format) is a very strange focal length, not long enough for a portrait lens. PLUS: I'm surprised none of the reviews mention that the lens focuses up to 11 inches. I photographed a tree trunk on the beach from about that distance (11 inches) and the detail and color was stunning. There's also a Pentax 16-50mm zoom with a fixed f/2.8 maximum aperture, but it costs about 2.5 times as much as this lens and significantly more.