Collin wrote:
It's been stated that they have large back-orders on istD bodies.
If true it may likely be the same scenario for the lenses.
No, not dying.
Just unable to adjust to the volume of growth that's coming with popular new products.
They may need an influx of cash in order to manage the growth better.
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B&H lists the *ist D as in stock, but not the *ist D/DA 16-45 combo. Pentax, as I understand it, has sold many fewer *ist Ds than they had hoped to. It is lenses that they cannot/will not produce.
I speculate as follows:
1. All lens assembly is being moved to Vietnam (poor Nguyen), or elsewhere, and we are in the middle of this transition.
2. While there may still be demand for some higher-quality lenses, that demand is not high enough to warrant a production run. (Well, this wouldn't explain why the DA lenses are unavailable.)
3. Pentax is scaling back. They will produce new lenses, like the DAs, at a steady pace, but will not produce enough to meet sudden surges in demand. (Foolish, if you ask me, since the demand is now. If not met now, the demand may not exist when production becomes adequate.)
4. Pentax's remaining manufacturing capacity is going into digital point-and-shoot cameras. Are the lenses for these also assembled in Vietnam?
P�l's informant claimed that Pentax would produce only five DA lenses. Pentax has stated that some of these will be "consumer-friendly." A DAJ 18-55 to go with the baby D would be essential.
Back when I got an early DA 16-45, then my lab ordered two more, I checked the serial numbers against when the lenses arrived. I suggested that Pentax was producing the DA 16-45 at a rate of about 500 per month. Someone protested that such a production number was way too low. To the contrary, the evidence suggests that Pentax is indeed producing very few SLR lenses.
The bottom line is that Pentax is shafting us serious photographers. And if they lack a full lens line-up, what serious photographers will buy Pentax?
I was not doing photography in the late 1980s when the F lenses were being introduced. I wonder if the situation then was similar.
Joe
