[Pixelhdr]

I converted my 50-135 to screw drive. Yes, it is noisier but far better than a non-functional lens. The optical quality of this lens is exceptional.

[wtlwdwgn]

Yep, I probably did overdo my rant by saying I would not recommend any Pentax gear. I think the 16-50 and 50-135 (which I've had since 2007) are terrific lenses in so far as the optics, materials, and build (except for the SDM). I was just really mad at having 3 failures in 18 months and having spent $400 plus and shipping for two repairs. I'm going to wait and see what Ricoh will do before doing anything else. (long sigh)

[Rupert]

That was a bit over the top.

Originally posted by pathdoc Quote
Just convert the d##n thing to screwdrive, sell it to someone else with full and open disclosure, and be done with it. We will be waiting with bated breath to buy the rest of your Pentax gear that you are so obviously sick of, then don't let the door hit your back end on the way out.
That was a bit over the top.

Seems to be a too common response when "it's not me, so it's not my problem." Like ...sorry for your heart attack, but my heart is just fine. How does the poster end that conversation......"Happy casket shopping"?

Regards!

[reh321]

Ultrasonic motors are an oddball technology. Olympus first showed off a USM driving a lens at Photokina, many, many moons ago. I've long lost the Shutterbug that made mention of it in their Photokina wrap up. Canon no doubt were first to grab the rights to it and bring it to market.

One wonders which genius in some Japanese lab first figured out how to make one. My guess is they were trying to come up with a new computer hard drive motor. But the USM was too slow, required super precise alignment, and eventually wore out. Hey, let's sell it to the camera industry!

Pentax owners have the right to fume about the continued disappointments of the SDM fiasco. However, let's not forget that the Canon USM's also fail. The local newspaper managed to break the USM's in all of their 16-35L's in short order. A hard knock put them out of alignment and they wouldn't turn - not in manual or AF.

Many Nikon owners can enjoy the squeaks of their SWM's in larger lenses. They still work, but not silently. And the little battery sized SWM's in the 18-200's, 18-55's and similar lenses, often need replacing when they wear out.

It's embarrassing, but a little coil and magnet micromotor can long outlast a USM design.

Now we have to wait and see if these new "stepper motor" designs are any solution to the problem, or if they are just another bag of ailments.

In 1995, when I was ready to move to AF, I moved from Pentax to Canon because I liked their USM units so much better than the screw-drive. I never regretted that decision. Yes, I am a relatively low level user, but I did switch back to Pentax last year because I personally had issues with the reliability of Canon Rebel bodies {so now I have a K-30 (*) }. From my experience, I still like the various in-lens motors better than the screw-drive, and I was very disappointed each time the lens I wanted was available only in screw-drive. I'm not sure what technology Canon is using today in their lenses, but outside observers still think highly of their lenses, so please do not assume there is an issue with that technology in general.

(*) as of a month ago, my K-30 has a higher shutter count than my second Rebel attained, and I had to do a hard reboot on that Rebel several times before it died.

---------- Post added 08-17-16 at 02:16 PM ----------

Yep, I probably did overdo my rant by saying I would not recommend any Pentax gear. I think the 16-50 and 50-135 (which I've had since 2007) are terrific lenses in so far as the optics, materials, and build (except for the SDM). I was just really mad at having 3 failures in 18 months and having spent $400 plus and shipping for two repairs. I'm going to wait and see what Ricoh will do before doing anything else. (long sigh)

My feelings about your issues are different from my reactions to K-30/50 failures, where {in many cases} people seem to pay consumer-level prices and expect professional-level robustness. I don't know what your options are. I just hope that people don't "throw out the baby with the bathwater". I will state two opinions:

(1) in-lens focus motors are better than in-camera focus motors. I am seriously thinking of purchasing a K-70 reasonably soon, despite having purchased a K-30 just fifteeen months ago, primarily because I believe the new PLM version of the 55-300 lens is going to prove to be seriously superior to the older version {which I already have}

(2) "glass is forever" is a long-honored statement which is no longer true. People will, as I plan to do shortly, buy a new lens solely because it is superior {operationally, not optically} to the perfectly-good lens they already have(**). Perhaps the various motors and other electronics in the new lenses will have a shorter lifetime than we would expect; the companies need to work on that, and they need to work with us, but that is not "the end of the world", because we will also get benefits from these motors and other electronics that make replacing the lenses on occasion worth the effort {and no, I don't think your "3 failures in 18 months" comes anywhere close to "on occasion"}

(**) based on the "KAF4 lenses won't work with my K-xy" complaints, apparently I'm not the only one who feels that way.

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Last edited by reh321; 08-17-2016 at 03:54 PM. Reason: (**) added

[wtlwdwgn]

Well, I just had an encouraging phone call from a very nice lady at Ricoh Imaging to tell me that they will have a definite answer for me tomorrow. Very good.

[UncleVanya]

Ultrasonic motors are an oddball technology. Olympus first showed off a USM driving a lens at Photokina, many, many moons ago. I've long lost the Shutterbug that made mention of it in their Photokina wrap up. Canon no doubt were first to grab the rights to it and bring it to market.

One wonders which genius in some Japanese lab first figured out how to make one. My guess is they were trying to come up with a new computer hard drive motor. But the USM was too slow, required super precise alignment, and eventually wore out. Hey, let's sell it to the camera industry!

Pentax owners have the right to fume about the continued disappointments of the SDM fiasco. However, let's not forget that the Canon USM's also fail. The local newspaper managed to break the USM's in all of their 16-35L's in short order. A hard knock put them out of alignment and they wouldn't turn - not in manual or AF.

Many Nikon owners can enjoy the squeaks of their SWM's in larger lenses. They still work, but not silently. And the little battery sized SWM's in the 18-200's, 18-55's and similar lenses, often need replacing when they wear out.

It's embarrassing, but a little coil and magnet micromotor can long outlast a USM design.

Now we have to wait and see if these new "stepper motor" designs are any solution to the problem, or if they are just another bag of ailments.

Very nicely said.

Yep, I probably did overdo my rant by saying I would not recommend any Pentax gear. I think the 16-50 and 50-135 (which I've had since 2007) are terrific lenses in so far as the optics, materials, and build (except for the SDM). I was just really mad at having 3 failures in 18 months and having spent $400 plus and shipping for two repairs. I'm going to wait and see what Ricoh will do before doing anything else. (long sigh)

Well, I just had an encouraging phone call from a very nice lady at Ricoh Imaging to tell me that they will have a definite answer for me tomorrow. Very good.

That makes sense. Good luck.

I recently went on a trip with my glasses (never leave home without them - LOL) and on the trip I took them off to clean them. I held them in one hand gently and used a nice microfiber cloth to wipe the right lens. Then I heard a PING sound and the two halves of the frame were separated at the CENTER of the nosepiece. I have purchased this type of frame (Flexxon) for 20 plus years. When I told my eye doc's optician she said there were over 2 years old which is the warranty period. I said please contact them and see if they will budge because after 20+ years I will never buy them again if they can't do something for me. Essentially the frames are supposed to be super durable and I would have been better off buying regular junk frames.

Is it fair of me to push for better than advertised service? Maybe not. Is it rational - perhaps. I'm not sure anything else I buy would be better but I'm unwilling to continue to toss money into this hole unless they work with me.

Pentax worse than Nikon or Canon? Maybe not - at least not at the prices we pay. But it still hurts when you pour your dollars into one brand for a long time and watch as reliability ebbs away in the pressure of a consumer economy that puts more stake in price than quality, durability, and serviceability.

[gda13]

Well, I just had an encouraging phone call from a very nice lady at Ricoh Imaging to tell me that they will have a definite answer for me tomorrow. Very good.

A good sign, I hope it works out.

I've owned this lens twice...the first time I bought it used here on marketplace and it had just had the SDM replaced by CRIS (yeah a few years ago) and was still under the 6 month repair warranty. Not more than 2 weeks of me having taken ownership and the SDM failed. Luckily the seller served as a liaison for getting CRIS to re-repair the lens under the terms of their warranty. After that I had it for a few years without incident and the SDM worked flawlessly. I sold it, missed it (it is a nice lens after all) and picked up a used copy for a steal that was being sold as manual only because the SDM had failed. I then converted it to screw drive following the instructions here on PF and I must say it worked brilliantly after that...actually seemed to focus faster and with more confidence. Also the noise wasn't that bad and was probably dampened a bit by the size and materials of the lens itself.

If I had gone through what you did, I would be ranting and venting myself...it is ridiculous to have to pay that much for multiple repairs of the same issue that is clearly a design fault.

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Last edited by gda13; 08-17-2016 at 08:03 PM.

[monochrome]

Over the years I've wondered whether I wouldn't have been better off with the 16-50 and 50-135 instead of all these manual lenses waiting for the FF.

Then I think, 'SDM' and I'm glad I held out.

[mee]

Over the years I've wondered whether I wouldn't have been better off with the 16-50 and 50-135 instead of all these manual lenses waiting for the FF.

Then I think, 'SDM' and I'm glad I held out.

But you could always manual focus the zooms..

[Rondec]

Over the years I've wondered whether I wouldn't have been better off with the 16-50 and 50-135 instead of all these manual lenses waiting for the FF.

Then I think, 'SDM' and I'm glad I held out.

I suppose. The same thing applies to lenses (particularly modern ones with in lens motors) that applies to camera bodies. That is to say they won't last forever and so you have to look at it more as number of photos taken with the lens versus the cost. From that perspective, I have taken thousands of photos with each of these lenses and they are still functional. If they both completely froze up tomorrow, I would still come out on top. I don't fret too much about it.

The second thing is that most Pentaxians aren't actually bothered by the screw drive noise. A few might be, but the idea that these lenses can last a really long time after SDM fails in screw drive mode is fairly heartening for those of us who don't mind the sound a lens like the FA 31 or DA 40 makes when focusing.

[Kunzite]

I didn't held out - I have a DA* 60-250, no issues with it so far (except that it's not a FF lens - but then, it was not advertised as such).
There are (were? what's the current failure rate, i.e. for recently made products?) 2 problematic lens in the entire lens range; and SDM micromotors were abandoned since 2008. The problem, IMO, is not that the very first Pentax lenses with integrated SDM motors failed often; the problem is that they weren't quickly replaced with more reliable products. Thus, two companies later, Pentax still has to fight with the SDM's bad reputation.

[Rondec]

I didn't held out - I have a DA* 60-250, no issues with it so far (except that it's not a FF lens - but then, it was not advertised as such).
There are (were? what's the current failure rate, i.e. for recently made products?) 2 problematic lens in the entire lens range; and SDM micromotors were abandoned since 2008. The problem, IMO, is not that the very first Pentax lenses with integrated SDM motors failed often; the problem is that they weren't quickly replaced with more reliable products. Thus, two companies later, Pentax still has to fight with the SDM's bad reputation.

I never know what the issue was with the 16-50 and 50-135. The rate of failure for these two lenses eclipsed the rate of failure for the other SDM lenses out there. And the DA *200 and DA *300 have the same dual mechanism, but don't seem to fail nearly as quickly.

It really feels like there is some sort of a design flaw that affects some of these lenses and if your lens has it, then replacing the lens motor is only going to be a short term fix, because subsequent motors will burn out as well.

[monochrome]

Yeah, I get it now but using a K10D to disable SDM so the cameras would use screwdrive was not a common hack at the time. Plus, at the time SDM was a feature that I wanted, not something I expected to turn off.

Now my attitude would be different.

[UncleVanya]

I will say this. My dads 17-70 is a refurb and never has given him trouble.

My own 50-135 was sold on eBay with failed SDM and I revived it using the rapid manual focus method for five minutes or so. It has been strong ever since. I just feel lucky.

[wtlwdwgn]

Well, now I have to suck it up and swallow this thread. The nice lady from Ricoh Imaging called this morning and they are sending me a new 16-50. That's the kind of customer service I like to see. Sending a message to Ricoh does work!