Originally posted by PentHassyKon A DA 16 or 18/2.4, 2.8, or even 3.5 sure would be nice. The 16 would give the 24mm FOV while the 18 would give us ~ 28mm FOV.
Hmm, I would think that cropping a 15mm shot to 18mm would not do too much damage. Although the speed factor is something worth noting... the lens set-up right now does not leave much room for a 16-20mm prime no matter the speed (which I believe would be, maximum, 2.8 anyways).
However I do think something between 24 and 28 would be a nice addition. I quite like the 28mm focal length on digital. I suppose there are a host of options in discontinued glass, and it would clutter up the limited line a bit.
The DA 21 is actually pretty close to a 28mm on film being... 30.5 or something? It has got to be tricky - lump too many lenses in the same FL and you cannibalize your sales, but leave the gaps too wide and people get frustrated.
It is unfortunate that the DA 21 is 3.2. Not because I think that it really makes a difference from 2.8, but it does look worse on paper and likely does not help sales...
However cropping on a nice 10-14 megapixel camera does give you a lot of latitude, I would suspect that you could crop a picture from the DA 15 down to 18 mm on a 14 MP camera and still sit around 10 megapixels. I did the math, and cropping from 15 to 21 brings you to 8-ish megapixels.
Makes me think that I should start with the 15, and crop away, and eventually fill the gap with the 21 when I get sick of the quality lost
. The DA 15 is ridiculously sharp in the center from wide open, which helps things.