While I dont doubt you have enjoyed and used your 31,43, and 77 mm lenses more, but those are not valid arguments against the FA80-200/2.8 or the 70-210 or 60-250mm lenses, those are primes not zooms and with the exception of the 77mm lens are not even close to being same focal range as the 60-250 lens being considered.
FWIW, there have been two recent clean used fa80-200/2.8 sales on ebay in the $1400-1600 range, not that far off the $1350 price(new) of the 60-250/4 and the focal range is somewhat similar. My tamron sp 80-200/2.8 is 1400g and not really that bad weight wise. the pentax FA 80-200/2.8 is 1500g which to me would not be that bad either for a lens of that speed and range. If size and weight is a primary concern, the A70-210/4 is only 2/3 the weight of the DA60-250 around 680g for the A70-210/4 vs ~1000g for the DA/60-250/4. For anyone on tight budget, the tamron sp 80-200/2.8 is a great value. I got mine for under $300 a few years ago. I think they are still fairly inexpensive. the performance is really outstanding and you can get a "A" version of the adaptall2 mount too. JC O'Connell (mailto:[email protected]) "Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom" - Thomas Jefferson -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mark Erickson Sent: Saturday, May 09, 2009 4:52 PM To: PDML Subject: FA* and DA* lenses (was Re: A70-210/4 assessment- If AF matters,how about the SMC FA80-200/2.8) JC OConnell wrote: > >http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1036&message=20382864 > >Maybe thats a better lens for possibly the same or less money? I dont >know but it would be worth investigating, no? I had one--bought it from a member of this list (or its predecessor) for ~$1100 around 2000. Nice glass, but really big and really heavy. I sold it for $2000 on eBay in 2006 and bought my 31, 43, and 77 limited lenses with the $$$. I use them far more than I ever used my FA* 80-200 F2.8. I also had an FA* 28-70 F2.8 lens. It worked ok, but didn't seem all that durably built. Some other folks on this list had terrible troubles with theirs. I sold it for what I paid for it, so no net loss there. What keeps me from buying the 60-250 (besides the $$$) at this point is my lack of trust in the Pentax DA* lenses. I have no interest whatsoever in dropping more than $1000 for something that may or may not have a fatal design/manufacturing flaw. I have a 16-50. It went back to Pentax USA twice because of quality control problems. The second time they replaced it with a different copy. It seems ok, but I've lost some confidence. I decided to stay away from the 50-135 due to the rash of SDM failure reports at a couple of different forums. Pentax is going to have to convince me that they can reliably manufacture durable lenses before I buy another one. Maybe a year from now, if the 60-250's out "in the wild" are still working, I'll consider one. --Mark -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
