OK, so I guess this is a long time coming, in an attempt to keep the histeria to a minimal, lets start keeping track of the good and bad serial numbers so we can try and see if there is a trend base on some facts rather than speculation.
Please help out, if you have a DA* 16-50mm please post your SN# here and wether it is a good or a bad copy and if it's a bad copy where you got it from. This will help to keep count of bad vs. good and perhaps build a corrolation with the serial numbers as well.
Thanks.
__________________ PENTAX K10D PENTAX DA* 16-50 | DA* 50-135 | DA* 200 | DA* 300 | DA35LTD VIVITAR S1 105mm f/2.5 Macro
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Albert in the Rockies - Items in bold are in the pic in my profile
SF-1, MZ-S, AF500FTZ
M 100/4 Macro, M 400/5.6, FA 28-80, FA 24-90, A 70-210, A 1.4X-S
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Two for two http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/images/smilies/mad.gif
First bad one was SN 9017292 purchased from B&H and I just got the second one today at 1pm and after an afternoon of shooting and evening of testing 9018380 it is a stinker as well. It severely front focuses as you move from 50 to 16mm. Also from B&H. It is going back next week. I'm leaning towards asking for a refund at this point and not waiting another 2 weeks.
Serial Number: 9013254
Of all the bad images related to the DA* 16-50 that I have seen on this forum, I think I had the worst copy of the lens. At all focal lengths and apertures, my images were blurry (double images) with the exception of the center area being very clean and sharp.
Replacement was due for delivery yesterday, but my wife didn't hear UPS ringing our doorbell. I'll report back after Monday with the replacement's serial number and test results.
It's just a good idea to keep track in case a certain retailer is hustling the same lens as it's returned for faults. Also we might see a correlation in resellers having lots of bad copies.
I was hoping to see some relationship of bad SN's to good SN's...none so far. Still holding off till summer to decide if I really want one.
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K10D | D-BG2 | Vivitar 28/2.5 | Tamron SP Macro 90/2.5 + SP 2x Tele | Zenitar 16/2.8 | FA 80-320/slow | A 24-50/4 | Sears 55/1.4
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