great lens for the price

I purchased this lens to take landscapes. I recently took it to Alaska, British Columbia and mount St. Helens. The lense is great with my pentax pz-1p. I was worried about the light measuring, since I have read it is a problem with wide angles so I tried a to over and under expose slightly to experiment and found the light meter is accurate. I have not had any problems with flares even on extremely sunny days. ( I do have a hood and use a standard UV filter) With out the hood flare may be more of a problem. I did get some pictures back that were cut improperly so I could see the very edge of a few photos and did notice quite a bit of light on the edges, however this is not noticible in the pictures that were cut properly(since this section is usually cut off). I would definetly recommend this lense to anyone who wants a wide angle with out spending too much money. P.S. works much better than wide angle macros, plus more versatile since it is a zoom.