Originally posted by alexeyga The so-called "wow-factor" about 77ltd is an urban legend of Pentax community... among many other onces... the biggest strength of that lens being its size... For the rest, not much to "wow" about... by the time it gets sharp you realize that you could've gone with the DA70 with the same, if not better, outcome for half the price...
The FA77 doesn't have to "get sharp" since it has an MTF50 of 1930 in the centre wide open. Stop down to f/2.4 and it's already as sharp as the DA70. Plus it reaches a maximum the DA70 never reaches. It also has .1% distortion as opposed to .5%.
Crank the DA* 50-135 wide open and the FA77 is sharper and doesn't suffer from 1.2% distortion. At its best the zoom also cannot match the Limited at its best. Notice a pattern here?
Now, I would be the first to say that for all intents and purposes, in most real-word photography scenarios, the sharpness figures are equivalent. But if a winner must be declared it's pretty darned obvious which it is.
This doesn't even consider the rendering, which is what really makes the FA Limiteds shine. I won't get into that, since it requires actually looking at pictures and making bias-free judgements. Someone who has to resort to slandering the preferences of others is unlikely to get that far.