So, I ordered this lens from Amazon, I received it very quickly.

Excited to use the lens, I put it on my K10D, and started shooting around the yard. I took some shots of the yard in general, then I shot some flowers. I switched between AF and MF, because with MF, I was able to focus much better on closeup shots of the flowers.

I took the camera in and took a look at the pics. I immediately noticed that any pictures shot at 2.8--4.5 were EXTREMELY soft. On 2.8, the shots were so soft that it looked like there was a cloud moving through...

Above f5.6, the shots became pretty sharp.

Unfortunately, this lens was entirely unacceptable for me. I boxed it up and sent it back to Amazon this morning.

Hoping that this was an isolated case, I ordered an identical lens. If this next one is soft as well, I'm going to be pretty sad. What I am quickly learning about Pentax is that the selection of new, quality glass is not as big as I had hoped for...

Thoughts?