HD Pentax-DA 10-17mm Fish-eye Announced

This new version has a removable lens hood

By PF Staff in Pentax Announcements on Jul 9, 2019

Ricoh has today officially announced the new version of the DA 10-17mm Fish-eye zoom, dubbed the HD Pentax-DA Fish-eye 10-17mm F3.5-4.5 ED. Like its predecessor, the SMC version, the new lens has internal focus (IF) even though the "IF" has been omitted from the lens name.

The new version has three material upgrades over the previous version:

• HD coating which controls flare and ghosting a tad better than smc coating
• Lens barrel design in line with other recent lenses
• A removable lens hood

The removable lens hood is of special interest since it should make the lens more suitable for use on full frame cameras: with the hood removed the lens produces a nearly circular fish eye image when used with the Pentax K-1 or K-1 II. We will evaluate this claim and the suitability for use on full frame when we can lay our hands on the lens. The SMC version only got one star out of three in our assessment of its suitability on full frame. 

The HD Pentax-DA 10-17mm Fish-eye is launching at $499.95 in the US and is already available for preorder (currently only listed at B&H photo):

Preorder the HD 10-17mm at B&H

The new lens with the hood removed:

Ricoh has created a special site dedicated to this new lens. On that page Ricoh provides this example of the lens in use on a KP and a K-1 II, respectively (click image to enlarge):

As a DA-series lens, the 10-17mm is of course officially designed for use with APS-C cameras.

The new 10-17mm lens should hit the market on July 26, 2019. See our lens database for the full specifications.