I was looking for a 16-50mm since I already have the 55-200mm lens; however, I decided that this lens would serve a greater overall purpose for a variety of situations. It's light, quick to connect, and the auto focus is flawless--smooth and quiet. I'm delighted that I chose to go with this lens.

Great every day and all occasion lens. I use it almost exclusively with my Pentax K-5II.

This lens is my everyday all purpose lens. I take it everywhere. It is fast, quiet and more than adequate for my needs as amateur photographer.

Pentax's 18-135mm zoom has a weather-resistant (WR) design – a claim to fame that only stands up if the optics are any good. Fortunately the optical performance is sound and there are also several other features that make this lens worthy of a second look… Despite its compact size there is a full...

Fuss-free operation

Distortion at extreme focal lengths

Weather-resistant finish for use in all manner of conditions

Fuss-free operation

Distortion at extreme focal lengths

The new Pentax 18-135mm lens is a very welcome addition to the Pentax lens lineup, and seems like a natural companion to the K-5 and K-30. It boasts impressive AF performance as well as above-average image quality, and offers a flexible multi-purpose zoom range, which when combined with its...

John Riley reviews the SMC Pentax-DA 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC, a weather resistant, compact lens.

Superb handling; Weather resistance; Silent DC motor; Close focusing; Quick Shift manual focus; Visually appealing images

High distortion levels; High CA levels; Low fine resolution at longer focal lengths; High price

Really sturdy, practical lens with an ideal (for me) zoom range. If you've never had a lens with a DC motor, it will astound you how silent it is. The biggest issue is zoom creep, which happens any time I walk around with it. Too bad they didn't include a lock button.

Practicality; build quality; weather sealing

Zoom creep; lack of distance scale

Very compact, not too heavy but feels sturdy. Performs very well on my Pentax K3.

That's right, not to big, and not to small. I used the 18-55 kit lens for about ten years on my K-100D. However, after moving up to the K-50, I noticed that my old 18-55 was getting a little stiff on the focus-not to mention noisy.