An absolutely brilliant lens. I bought mine as a used item from Amazon.Com. Superb for street photography and urban landscapes. Razor sharp from f5.6 to f8.0 and pretty damned good at around f4.0-f4.5. Great colour rendition, ultra fast and silent focusing.

A very bizarre little gem, this is by far my most-used lens. Everyone else has already covered the aspects of this lens to death (weird hood, small size, etc), so there's no reason for me to re-hash that here.

Size; Metal Construction; Sharpness; Colour Rendering

Finicky Hood; Small Max Aperture

I believe each lens should be considered with its intended use in mind. A portrait photographer has no need for an ultra-wide lens. So what is the intended purpose of the DA 21? For me, its purpose is to work as a portable, handheld task force with the F50 f1,7.

This is a lens I had been considering for use on my K-5 as a moderate wide walkaround for some time. Every time I just about pulled the trigger on it, I would read some so-so review and look at the price and think, no way.

very good wide angle lens (not so wide on an APSC) Pros: top picture quality you can get at this price; super slim design only from pentax (cannon's pancake is ....); top grade build quality includes lens cap and hood; cons: too small for some bigger hands; small aperture (hard to build a big one in...

Very tiny, light, and sharp wide angle lens.

As we've already happened to mention before, Pentax is the only company on the market which enlarges very consistently its line-up of fixed-focal lenses designed for small sensors.

significant distortion for such an angle of view; noticeable coma; very high astigmatism; image quality on the edge of the frame near the maximum relative aperture could have been better; a bit too high vignetting

The field of view of the lens, in 35mm equivalent, is that of a 32mm lens, near the classical 35mm focal length often associated with street photography. It can thus be regarded as an evolution of the FA 31mm F1.8 AL Limited.

This is one of the lenses that has made a lot of pros keep their Pentax gear, as it is superbly made, sharp as a needle, and very small. Can't fault it in any way!

A lovely little lens; superb in every way

Could be cheaper; I guess :-)

In a recent review of the Pentax DA70 Limited lens, I discussed the time in history when lenses were

Excellent quality metal construction; Great optics; Compact and lightweight.

Too bad it's not f/2.8 or faster; but at this size who can complain