I can tell you that the cleaning marks could be performed by the Pentax factory. No, I am no insane. Most of my Pentax lenses were bought brand new from Japan, HK, Canada or US. Some of them do show hand-cleaning marks inside. Experience tells me that cleaning marks or scratches of long telephoto lenses are more likely to be seen, while stardard or wide angle lenses are difficult to inspect due to different optical characeristics (means they could be there, you just cannot see them). Guess that is the typical Pentax quality since the AF era. My latest adventure is the FA*200/2.8. Still waiting for my 3rd replacement...I am still a bit disappointed with the FA* 400mm f/5.6. Mine just doesn't seem to be a very good performer at near-infinity, although it is better than the manual focus Tokina lens it replaced. I will do some more testing at closer distances. However if I hold it "just right" I can see what may be cleaning marks on an internal element (I purchased this lens secondhand). Maybe thats causing a bit of softness. Would other owners of this lens care to comment?
regards,
Alan Chan
_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
