On 5/12/2012 11:56 PM, Boris Liberman wrote:
It is good to know that your story with A* 200 has finally ended. I
don't recall, so I'd try again - why did not you try to obtain Sigma
180/3.5 Macro? It is almost just as long, has AF for non-macro
applications and it is up to date lens. I saw one going for sale on
Pentax Forums recently.
Thanks, Boris - I've been watching for a either an A* 200mmm macro or
Sigma 180mm macro ever since my old one went to be repaired a year ago,
though I've only been watching ebay. (I also kept an eye out for the
FA* 200 mm macro, though they are rarer than unicorns.) While my old
lens was still in adjustment I was not willing to pay much of a premium
over the SIgma 150mm f2.8, which I kept hoping would appear appear for
the Pentax. Sounds like I should have looked at the Pentax forums.
It appears that the lens line up of Pentax during the film era was
more complete than that nowadays... E.g. Pentax does not offer a
digital equivalent of A* 200/4 macro...
I think that Pentax peaked in lens production with the A series. I have
a copy of the old SMC A lens booklet which lists of the A lenses. There
were 32 prime lens ranging from the 15mm f3.5 to a 2000mm. Four were
macros and 8 were A* lenses. There were also 12 zooms and 2 specialty
lenses (the 28mm shift and 85mm soft.) The line included some pretty
extreme glass, like the A* 1200 f 8 and the 135 - 600mm f6.7 zoom. The A
lens linup did include some degree of redundancy - like five 50mm lenses
(f1.2, f1.4, f1.7, f2 and f.28 macro.)
The FA line was somewhat diminished, but they even then Pentax kept
making the more exotic models. They introduced a 600 f4 (standard birder
lens) and a 250 - 600 FA* f5.6 zoom and they kept the 'star' lens lineup
stronger than ever with more FA* lenses back filled with still in
production A* lenses. I think that back in the A and FA days, Pentax was
completely competitive against any other brand.
Today's line up is very good, but it still falls short on many fronts,
particularly in regards to extreme wide angles, macros, and telephotos.
The lens road map is promising, though!
- Mark
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