Pentax FA 15-30mm f/2.8 ED SDM WR review: A fun but flawed ultra-wide

There’s a saying that age is just a number – and with some photographers still using old film cameras in the digital era, that can certainly be true for photography gear. But what about lenses? The Pentax FA 15-30mm f/2.8 ED SDM WR was introduced in 2016, making the lens about eight years old now, but it remains one of the few full-frame K-mount options with a wide zoom that doesn’t step into fisheye territory.

Pentax is one of the few brands still actively making DSLRs, so in my experience with the K-1 Mark II, I wanted to see what the brand’s ultra-wide, ultra-bright zoom could do.

Pentax FA 15-30mm f/2.8 ED SDM WR review: Specs

Pentax FA 15-30mm f/2.8 ED SDM WR review: Price

As a high-end zoom, the Pentax FA 15-30mm f/2.8 ED SDM WR isn’t exactly an impulse buy. The lens retails for $1,496 / £1,799 / AU$2,799 / CA$1,899.

As an older lens, however, it’s also possible to find the lens used at a discount.

Pentax FA 15-30mm f/2.8 ED SDM WR review: Design

The Pentax 15-30mm f/2.8 has a classic DSLR-style design. That includes, thankfully, a focal distance scale in a window near the lens mount. A lot of modern lenses eliminate this feature, but it’s helpful for manual focusing and astrophotography.

Next up on the lens is the focus ring, which is followed by the zoom ring. There are no other controls on the lens, so the barrel is free of switches and buttons.

The lens has a built-in petal-shaped lens hood, so it’s impossible to lose it. The front of the lens does change length as it zooms in and out, and there’s a mini hood inside that moves along with it.

A key perk for Pentax, the 15-30mm is weather-sealed. Beyond helping prevent damage and dust build-up on the sensor, this gives the lens a more durable feel.

Lenses that are both ultra-wide and ultra-bright tend to be heavy, and the Pentax 15-30mm f/2.8 is no exception. It weighs in at 2.29 lbs / 1040g and will take up a 5.65-inch / 14.35cm slot in a camera bag. That makes for a fairly heavy kit mounted on the K-1 II, but there’s a good, beefy grip to balance it all.

Pentax FA 15-30mm f/2.8 ED SDM WR review: Performance

The 15-30mm is a fun range of ultra-wide focal lengths to play with distortions on the short end or minimize them yet still get a fairly wide view on the long end.

I like to flip back and forth between the JPEGs and RAW to see just how much is corrected in camera, and there’s a bit of correction done in camera here. At 15mm, there’s some noticeable barrel distortion at the corners. At 30mm, the edges have just started to slightly curve up rather than down. In both cases, the lens profile in Lightroom makes quick work of the distortions.

The lens does a fantastic job at preventing vignetting, and I didn’t spot any bothersome dark corners.

Ultra-wides are known more for fun perspectives than bokeh, but with an f/2.8, you can get some background blur, particularly when getting in close to the subject. The lens can still focus as close as about 11 inches or 28 cm from the front.

The sharpness coming from this lens is solid for a DSLR optic, even when subjects are placed more towards the edges of where the K-1 II’s autofocus can go.

My biggest disappointment with this lens, however, was the colored fringing, or chromatic aberration. Out-of-focus areas on the edges, like fine tree branches, tended to take on a rather noticeable purple edge to them, which is a bit disappointing for a lens at this price point. I could spot the colored fringing in some shots without even zooming in, and it wasn’t automatically corrected with Lightroom’s lens corrections.

Autofocus performance was right where I expected for an ultra-wide DSLR lens. Focus seemed to lock on fairly quick without an obvious lag, though as an ultra-wide, I was using this lens more on landscapes than action.

Focusing manually was a bit annoying – but that was more of the camera’s fault than the lens. Still, as is typical, adjusting the focus ring right to infinity isn’t precise enough for the stars, and the camera's focus peaking wasn’t working well in the dark. When shooting astrophotography, I had to take a test shot, check the focus, and try again.

Pentax FA 15-30mm f/2.8 ED SDM WR review: Images

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Pentax FA 15-30mm f/2.8 ED SDM WR review: Verdict

The Pentax FA 15-30mm f/2.8 ED SDM WR delivers ultra-wide views with easily corrected distortion and a bright aperture. The lens’s performance was right on par with what I expect from an ultra-wide DSLR lens.

However, the chromatic aberration is a deal-breaker for me, at least at this lens’ price point. The colored fringing, in some cases, is noticeable without zooming into 100 percent and is difficult to correct in post.

The K-Mount family has fairly limited options when it comes to ultra-wide lenses that still have zoom, however, so for the right photographer, it makes for some fun ultra-wide shots.

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