On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 9:35 AM, Mark Roberts <[email protected]> wrote: > At a certain point, Pentax has to price their lenses comparably to the > competition because a lot of people will assume that cheaper means > inferior and expensive = "better".
The critical thing is that Ricoh/Pentax increase the build quality (particularly on this specific lens!) so that it's worth the new price point. Based on the problematic history reported here and elsewhere, I wouldn't pay this amount of money for the DA*16-50/2.8 lens. I had one, I sold it to a friend (and I wouldn't do that if I had any reservations about the one I had), but I've seen reports from others on everything from poor centering to failed focus motors, and mixed reviews on warranty service for it too. That could ba a $1400 hassle. I paid a similar price for a couple of the Olympus ZD lenses I've owned. Comparing them to the new Pentax lenses I've owned, I could easily see why they were worth the additional money: far superior construction quality, flawless reliability. (I won't get into debates about their optical performance.) -- Godfrey godfreydigiorgi.posterous.com -- 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.
