[jsherman999]

This just baffles me. You say you could only afford the 50 but are saving for the 16-50. According to the survey Buddha Jones posted about 1/3 of the buyers of this lens got a bad copy. Both isteve and Ben have given up on this lens and both of them know a lot more about lenses than most of us. There seems to be good evidence the design of the AF mechanism has some weak parts that will give you problems down the road. You and many others are still willing to lay out over $600 for a product with all of these problems. Why on earth would anybody be willing to spend this kind of money on a poorly constructed lens that will have to be sent back 1 out of 3 times? I just don't understand the logic here and would love to have somebody explain it to me. Don't bother to tell me that when you get a good copy it does a great job because you still have the poorly designed problem facing you down the road.

Regards,
Ken

-------------------------> h a p p y h a p p y j o y j o y


It can be an ordeal if you land a bad one. I *almost gave up, but I'm extremely glad I didn't.

I guess your question could be answered this way: If you're willing to possibly put in some extra effort, you are absolutely guaranteed to get a good copy - and a "good" copy is exciting to own and well worth the money. (sharp, contrast, color, SDM, weather sealing, f/2.8 constant)

The 'extra effort' would entail 1) exchanging lens, possibly more than once, or 2) sending in to Pentax for warranty adjustment. That's IF you get a bad copy in the first place, which seems to be happening less now.

Anyway, to the OP, I'd suggest you get rid of any lens you don't use. It's nice to simplify.


.





.

---

Last edited by jsherman999; 04-16-2008 at 11:16 PM.

[betsypdx]

No, you don't. Keep the kit - in case you buy a new body and want to give the old one to someone else.

[Canada_Rockies]

-------------------------> h a p p y h a p p y j o y j o y


It can be an ordeal if you land a bad one. I *almost gave up, but I'm extremely glad I didn't.

I guess your question could be answered this way: If you're willing to possibly put in some extra effort, you are absolutely guaranteed to get a good copy - and a "good" copy is exciting to own and well worth the money. (sharp, contrast, color, SDM, weather sealing, f/2.8 constant)

The 'extra effort' would entail 1) exchanging lens, possibly more than once, or 2) sending in to Pentax for warranty adjustment. That's IF you get a bad copy in the first place, which seems to be happening less now.

The bad lenses seem to be at most 2.5% of the production. This is, of course, a lot more than most lens reject rates, but not as disastrous as might appear at first. If there is a mechanical problem later, as has been reported as a possibility, I will have mine repaired. It is that valuable to me.

[regken]

The bad lenses seem to be at most 2.5% of the production. This is, of course, a lot more than most lens reject rates, but not as disastrous as might appear at first. If there is a mechanical problem later, as has been reported as a possibility, I will have mine repaired. It is that valuable to me.

According to the figures from the database on this forum the bad lens percentage is running at over 30%. I have sold power tools since 1970 and wish my customers would be as forgiving as a lot of you are. How about this as a sales pitch, " After you buy this $600 tool you have a 30% chance you will have to send it back for repair right out of the box. You might even have to do this 2 or 3 times. It will most likely develop problems after the first year but if does we won't charge you to much to repair it. We can usually get it back to you in 4 to 5 weeks when you have these problems."

Wonder what that sales pitch is going to do for the rest of my line of tools.

Ken

---

Last edited by regken; 04-17-2008 at 12:11 PM.

[jsherman999]

According to the figures from the database on this forum the bad lens percentage is running at over 30%.
Ken

Those figures are very, very far from statistically valid - for one thing, people post in this forum to get advice on their bad lens - they come here to talk about it - so we're seeing a skewed sample already here. Then, people with a bad experience are more likely to answer that survey than the larger percentage who have a good copy, glance at it the survey and move on.

So, to Albert's point, reading this forum makes it seems much worse than it actually is statistically. If Pentax were actually seeing anything close to 30% failure rate, they would probably stop selling the lens, because their profits would be gone from returns/repairs and they might even start losing money on it (depending on their overhead.)

In my local camera store, they had never even heard of the problem, and they sell 16-50's all the time. I was the only one who came in for a return, according to one of the guys there.


.