At 06:11 AM 11/9/01 -0600, John Mustarde wrote: >But now Sigma reports they have discontinued production of that lens - >because they sell many more of their 135-400 and other long zooms than >the autofocus APO 400/5.6 Macro.
I noticed this recently. The upshot is that there are now no third party 400mm f5.6's being made, AFAIK. And that's not just for Pentax - that's for any brand. >The point of this is that Sigma's newer long zooms are optically crap, >compared to the 400/5.6 APO Macro. Reviews and tests show they are >soft at full aperture at the long end, and not much better stopped >down. Really barely good enough for 4x6 inch prints, and useless for >enlargements. One can only wonder about Sigma's marketing strategy. One one hand they are introducing some very good optics in their EX series - all of which seem to hold their own, zoom or prime. They are also presenting some prime lenses that really swim against the tide of the zoom based market place - like the 28mm f1.8. But on the other hand they discontinue one of the lenses that was generally very well recieved and did a lot to improve their image. They probably have the marketing department decide what to introduce and the accounting dept decide what to discontinue... - MCC - - - - - - - - - - Mark Cassino Kalamazoo, MI [EMAIL PROTECTED] - - - - - - - - - - Photos: http://www.markcassino.com - - - - - - - - - - - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
