The Pentax 02 Standard Zoom Lens ($299.95 direct)($149.99 at Amazon) is the lens you'll get if you buy the Pentax Q7 camera—but if you bought into that camera system with the original Q( at Amazon), which was bundled with the 01 Standard Prime, you may be considering this as a complementary zoom.

The lens has a 3x zoom range, covering a native 5-15mm angle, which translates into a 24-70mm field of view in terms of traditional 35mm photography when used with the Q7 thanks to its 1/1.7-inch image sensor. If you use it with the older Q or Q10($219.99 at Amazon) the field of view narrows to 27-83mm. The maximum aperture is f/2.8 at its widest setting, which dwindles to f/4.5 as you zoom all the way in, and it uses 40.5mm filters. The lens itself is 1.9 by 1.9 inches (HD) in size and weighs about 3.4 ounces. It can focus on objects as close as 11.8 inches at any focal range. The lens has a built-in neutral density filter, so you can shoot at lower shutter speeds in very bright light, and its leaf shutter can sync with an external flash at speeds of up to 1/2,000-second.

I used Imatest to check the sharpness of the lens when paired with the Q7($299.42 at Amazon). At 5mm f/2.8 it is extremely sharp, recording 2,033 lines per picture height—better than the 1,800 lines we use to define a sharp image. Zooming to 10mm f/3.5 reduces the score to 1,938 lines. The lens is slightly soft at 15mm f/4.5—it only manages 1,754 lines there. Stopping down the lens generally decreases its sharpness, as is common in cameras that don't boast SLR-sized image sensors, but in this case reducing the aperture to f/5.6 when shooting at 15mm bumps the resolution up to 1,806 lines. Edge performance at wider angles is impressively sharp. But the corners and edges of photos are a bit murky at 15mm f/4.5; they're sharp at f/5.6, however.

If you shoot JPG, distortion isn't an issue—the camera corrects for it—but there is some noticeable barrel distortion (8.5 percent) at the widest setting if you shoot in Raw mode. This drops to 1.5 percent at 10mm, and is gone at 15mm. If you use Lightroom 5 as your Raw converter you'll be able to perform a one-click correction to compensate for the distortion. The above photo is a stitched panorama; I didn't correct for the disortion before stitching, but be aware the that Photoshop's sitching has accentuated the effect.

If you're in the market for a standard zoom lens for your Q-series camera, the 02 Standard Zoom is the only game in town. It's not perfect, but its performance is quite good for a lens of its class and zoom range. Most entrants into the Q system will find that this lens is bundled with the camera, and unless Pentax puts out a high-end standard zoom with a fixed f/2.8 aperture, it doesn't leave much to be desired. Raw shooters will have to deal with some distortion correction, but that's a trivial task with a good Raw conversion application like Lightroom. If you're more of a prime lens person, you'll likely prefer to pair your Q with the 01 Standard Prime( at Amazon), which Pentax sells on its own for around $200.

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