[lithedreamer]

I usually use this link, and insist on email:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/contact-us/ref=hp_gt_comp_cu?ie=UTF8&nodeId=508510

[kenspo]

This is not good..and totally different from my experience. I didn't even need to adjust. Even a pre-copy i had was better then this. When it comes to AF, its a bit better on K-1 then K-3II, but it seems slow here?

[randee]

I usually use this link, and insist on email:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/contact-us/ref=hp_gt_comp_cu?ie=UTF8&nodeId=508510

Awesome, that's the link I was looking for. I perfer email so I can have a record of it. Thanks!!!!

---------- Post added 01-13-2017 at 03:57 AM ----------

My email to Amazon in case you are curious.

The issue you chose indicates you may need us to take action on your order. Please include the following information:

Item name:
Pentax HD D FA 70-200mm f2.8ED DC AW Telephoto-Zoom Lens for Pentax KAF Cameras
Please tell us if you would like a Replacement, Refund to a gift card, or a Refund to the original Payment method:
Replacement, but I have already received 2 of these lenses.

Description of issue:

I purchased this lens, when I received it, it appeared to be opened before. I am not saying it was used, but perhaps tested and returned? Since the lens was not very sharp and displayed autofocus problems I asked Amazon for a replacement and was promptly shipped a new one.

The replacement came without any external packaging, which is not normally how a photo gear store would send a $1600 lens. However the box was relatively in good shape. It also had some signs that it may have been opened before, but not as bad as the first one. Unfortunately, the lens showed some troubling signs of AF problems and sharpness problems.

I have been talking on a forum to other purchasers of this lens. One stated that the warranty card was not in the proper place. Here is the link to post and responses:
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/10-pentax-slr-lens-discussion/337315-pent...-concerns.html

Regarding these issues, you might ask, maybe it's my camera? Which is a reasonable question. Well I have 2 of the same cameras (Pentax K3) and the behavior is the same on both. Also, I have about 10 other lenses I use regularly that perform very well. I would say they perform excellent. I know from fellow forum members and sample images, that this lens is a performer and should be working much better than this.

So, I just have 2 questions for you.

1) When these lenses go back to you, do they go back to Pentax for testing/recalibrating? or are they tested by you and resent out to customers?

2) If I was to ask for a replacement lens, could I request one direct from the factory? Also, just as important, some proper packaging for the lens? I would pay extra to have it properly boxed with foam/bubble wrap. The UPS/USPS folks in my area hate their job and take it out on the parcels they deliver.

I apologize for the trouble and Amazon's response was prompt and friendly. Just looking for a little assistance in this matter. This lens is important to me, it's the culmination of a year of saving and selling lenses, so I want to make sure I get a decent lens and I really appreciate you help in doing so.

Thank you very much,
Randy

[randee]

Response from Amazon, pretty fast.

Hello Randy,

I'm very sorry to hear that you still received a defective replacement order for your item Pentax HD D FA 70-200mm f2.8ED DC AW Telephoto-Zoom Lens for Pentax KAF Cameras. I truly understand how disappointing and inconvenient this is to you receiving the defective item. Please be assured that this is not what we want our valued Prime Members to experience here in Amazon.

With regard to your concern, it's okay that you already received 2 items for this specific product for I'm assuring that I've already escalated your issue to our higher department for investigation why your first order and replacement was defective. Every report they receive is investigated and appropriate action will be taken. Rest assured that this concern will be address since we value this kind of feedback, as it helps us continue to improve our store and provide better service to our customers.

To extend my best help, I issued another replacement as you requested at no additional charge. Here are the details:

Order Number: xxx
Shipping Speed: Two-Day Shipping
Guaranteed Delivery Date: Monday, January 16, 2017

Here is a direct link to check on the status of your replacement order:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/css/summary/edit.html?orderID=xxx

Although I know that my words are not enough to appease your disappointment, but I hope that you'll consider this an isolated incident and give us another opportunity to serve you better.

I hope that the resolution and information I've provided helps you a lot. We truly value and care our dear customers.

We look forward to serving you again soon.

We'd appreciate your feedback. Please use the links below to tell us about your experience today.

Best regards,
Mark M.

Flipped the switch for me to get another one, however didn't respond to my question about packaging or how returns are handled.
Guess I can hope this one is direct from the factory and properly calibrated. Also have to hope that it somehow survives UPS without any extra packaging materials.

Thanks everyone! I will keep you posted.

[kenspo]

Thanks everyone! I will keep you posted.

Even though Ricoh Europe and Ricoh USA has nothing to do with eachother what so ever, i can try asking around if this doesn't get solved. I know a few people in the Ricoh Europe system (Do'h)

[randee]

Even though Ricoh Europe and Ricoh USA has nothing to do with eachother what so ever, i can try asking around if this doesn't get solved. I know a few people in the Ricoh Europe system (Do'h)

Connections huh? hmm....
I have always wanted to visit Europe. Go there, get lens, and use it and my 3 amigo limiteds to photograph my way through Europe.
Sounds fun, but seriously thank you Kenspo.

This Lens is so important to me, that I am considering asking Ricoh/Pentax to Calibrate my camera and lenses. Not sure what it would cost, but I know they have some pretty advanced tools.
Maybe I can find a Ricoh agent stateside that will take pitty on me and my lowly selection of cameras and lenses. Maybe I just need to upgrade to the K1. It only took a year or so to save up for the 70-200mm.
I might have to start a kickstarter or a gofundme for it.

[kenspo]

Im ambassador for the Nordic and Baltic countries.

If you ever want to visit Norway and explore the wild nature here, just give me a heads up, and i'll be your guide!

[rawr]

a few test shots and video

This comment may now be irrelevant, since you have already drawn your conclusions, but to be frank, it looks to me like your testing setup is not very good for demonstrating anything.

At a minimum, for AF and/or lens testing stick to shooting flat test charts. Choose a consistent focus method for each test (PDAF or CDAF, not mixed). Stick to using the same AF mode and settings for each test (eg AF-S, centre-spot). Improve your lighting. Improve the alignment of camera/lens to the focus target. Plus you seem to be focusing at close to the minimum focus distance for the 70-200. All not optimal.

[randee]

This comment may now be irrelevant, since you have already drawn your conclusions, but to be frank, it looks to me like your testing setup is not very good for demonstrating anything.

At a minimum, for AF and/or lens testing stick to shooting flat test charts. Choose a consistent focus method for each test (PDAF or CDAF, not mixed). Stick to using the same AF mode and settings for each test (eg AF-S, centre-spot). Improve your lighting. Improve the alignment of camera/lens to the focus target. Plus you seem to be focusing at close to the minimum focus distance for the 70-200. All not optimal.

Thanks for the input RAWR,

I am sure I wasn't doing proper testing. Since I had problems with consistancy, I wanted to try different things to try and get some success.
All I can really say is that shooting around the house and a little outside, the AF didn't perform as well as my old tamron, which has been through hell and back.
Isn't CDAF using live view? Since I rarely use live view I never messed with it for testing. I think I brought it when I was aligning both the lenses. Just checked the forums and some people said CDAF was much better for focusing so maybe I should have tried that. Do you have to use live view to use CDAF? Forgive my ignorance on that, like I said I rarely use live view. I remember when I got a camera that had it and I thought I would use it all the time, and never did...

In the past, I always checked and calibrated AF using a couple batteries level with the lens/tripod. Put 3 batteries on table 1 closer and 1 farther away. I would focus on the center battery and adjust accordingly. These lenses didn't seem to respond like my other lenses. So I looked online and made myself a quick and dirty focus chart with ruler on side. Poor man's lens align item. Leveled the lens to the chart and shot away. Even with nice crisp clear black and white focus chart. I found the lenses hunting and slow to focus. I tried to get past the inconsistency and adjust them. When I felt I had them in range, I found 1 out of 5 or 6 shots were out of focus. Then when I moved the lens back, the AF was again off and would require adjustment. The same was true for changing the focal lenth. The lens at 70mm was at a completely different AF adjustment than 200mm.


here is one I thought I had dialed in pretty good.


Yes, I could be just too close to the subject. I also hoped to use this lens for portraits. I love using the 77mm for portraits, hoped to use this as well. I was often shooting around 10ft away from my focus chart. I varied it up quite a bit. What distance should I have been at (for a close distance) when the next one comes in to test? I was using a calculator to find my depth of field so I would know what to expect, often it was around 1"

I first tested the #1 pentax 70-200 to the tamron, and was disappointed in the AF and the consistency of sharpness. (which might always be AF related)
Then convinced I had a bad copy, I got a replacement pentax 70-200mm, and tested to see if the #2 pentax was better than the #1 and found them both to be acting erratically.
Monday I did some walk around shots.
Tuesday night I spent all night focusing on those test charts. Changing distances and focal lenths. Alternating cameras and adjusting lighting.
Then last night, I grabbed my tea set and took come pictures of that, just for something different to look at. I thought maybe the focus chart was somehow not working the way I thought it should.

Not at all a scientific test so you are correct on that.

No matter what, as a pentax fan who saved up for a long time on this, I really want to love this lens. It's a beautiful lens in construction. I loved seeing the sample shots, even read the stupid interview with the designers at Pentax. I love how it feels. It is surprisingly heavy, but I can live with that if it can perform.
Maybe that slight IQ increase vs the tamron is what everyone is raving about. It's most likely a problem of expectations and my own personal photography skills versus good copy/ bad copy. Getting a bad copy I can believe, but not 2 in a row. Well we will know for sure next week. If this one doesn't live up to my expectations, i'll have to give up on the pentax 70-200mm.

Thanks!

[zapp]

With my Pentax lenses I figured that:
1) I buy from a Pentax dealer not from some Amazon El-cheapo source
It is always tempting to buy a lens for less, for europeans buying at B&H is MUCH cheaper than original price plus tax in your home country. If you ahve any trouble the whole proce advantage is gone - don't do it
2) test my lenses only in daylight condition for focus and AF-fine tuning - all your tests were done with artificial light of unknown spectrum. I know it is hard finding the time to do all the checking in day light during the weekend, but it is worth it. K5 AF system was horribe in low/artificial light, K3 was much better, real life conditions = daylight.
3) reserve time for tests before using the lens for a shooting and reserve sufficient time to return the lens in time if necessary
4) redo all tests after a couple months - done properly you should get the same or at least similar results again
5) Buy Pentax - don't even consider Tamron and other brands (assuming Pentax make the lenses I need). Here the Pentax lens is heavier, bigger, more expensive, ... but it is a Pentax product, will work and communicate correctly with all Pentax cameras, has Pentax coating and color rendition, will have Pentax design, have Pentax weather sealing and Pentax AF. In the long run, the Pentax 70-200 will outlive several Tamron lenses.
6) The lens should make me happy and keep the promise of price/performance

My 70-200 has different fine-adjust for 70/135/200 mm. I found a decent intermediate solution. Critical sharpness wide open requires live view.
All that said. I was extremely impressed by the performance of this lens on K3 and I am still very happy with it on K1.

[randee]

Excellent advice zapp,

1) I didn't realize Amazon was an el-cheapo source. Not sure if any place I could get it locally. It would probably be a 3 hour drive to Chicago for me. Amazon gets the directly from Pentax don't they? or could they be coming from an additional source. Amazon told me they came in as "New from manufacturer"

2) I was hoping my testing was just not accurate, so I did take some pictures out in daylight. I was only home early enough once. I would say that AF performed slightly better, but still inconsistent. One more thing is that I used the Tamron to shoot football games at night, under artificial light. So I kind of wanted to test it in those conditions, however inaccurate. I would say my test was a lot brighter than what the football game would be.

3) Makes a lot of sense!

4) Also, makes a lot of sense. Something I have been guilty of. However, I will have to retest all my lenses. One thing I did while I was testing the Pentax 70-200mm was to reset all my custom functions. I was thinking some setting I had was causing a problem. So I lost all my settings. This time as I retest all my lenses I will also write them down.

5) I would prefer to buy Pentax if they make the product. Although, if a 3rd party is better and cheaper, might be hard to pass up. My main lenses are 31mm 43mm 50/1.4 77mm and 100mm all pentax I also use a sigma 8-16mm and the tamron 70-200mm. I would prefer Pentax if possible. That's what started this is I wanted a better 70-200mm even though it was more expensive I was trying to get the Pentax product.

6) Like I have said I really want to love this lens, it's an important range and an important lens to have.

Ok, that is excellent input. So you can expect to have different different adjustments at different focal ranges. That is good to know, so I can try and find an intermediate value to try and keep things in DOF. That is disappointing for sure, but definitely good to know. Would be awesome if the camera software could allow for those adjustment, but I haven't seen anything like that on any camera.

Like I said before I rarely use live view, so I guess I will have try and use it more often when I can. I don't think I will be able to at a football game.

Did you find an improvement in AF consistency and accuracy when you moved to the K1?

Thanks Zapp for your input, definitely some good advice. It's appreciated!

With my Pentax lenses I figured that:
1) I buy from a Pentax dealer not from some Amazon El-cheapo source
It is always tempting to buy a lens for less, for europeans buying at B&H is MUCH cheaper than original price plus tax in your home country. If you ahve any trouble the whole proce advantage is gone - don't do it
2) test my lenses only in daylight condition for focus and AF-fine tuning - all your tests were done with artificial light of unknown spectrum. I know it is hard finding the time to do all the checking in day light during the weekend, but it is worth it. K5 AF system was horribe in low/artificial light, K3 was much better, real life conditions = daylight.
3) reserve time for tests before using the lens for a shooting and reserve sufficient time to return the lens in time if necessary
4) redo all tests after a couple months - done properly you should get the same or at least similar results again
5) Buy Pentax - don't even consider Tamron and other brands (assuming Pentax make the lenses I need). Here the Pentax lens is heavier, bigger, more expensive, ... but it is a Pentax product, will work and communicate correctly with all Pentax cameras, has Pentax coating and color rendition, will have Pentax design, have Pentax weather sealing and Pentax AF. In the long run, the Pentax 70-200 will outlive several Tamron lenses.
6) The lens should make me happy and keep the promise of price/performance

My 70-200 has different fine-adjust for 70/135/200 mm. I found a decent intermediate solution. Critical sharpness wide open requires live view.
All that said. I was extremely impressed by the performance of this lens on K3 and I am still very happy with it on K1.

[erosenbe]

I think when you mount an FF lens on a crop body, you are in some sense magnifying a portion of the glass (image circle), which can magnify the achilles heel of the lens.

Perhaps you are encountering this to some extent with your tests.

I have the old Tamron 70-200 f/2.8. It is reasonably sharp, but definitely soft from f/2.8-f/4 at 135mm-200mm, and especially at close focusing distance. The weakness is a bit less pronounced on my K1 than on my crops.

Tony Northrup relayed a story of a guy who bought Canon FF 24-70 f2.8s and had a poor go with them on crop bodies, sending them in to Canon service, who found nothing. He switched to FF and had much better performance with the exact same lens copies.

Just food for thought.

[Kunzite]

I think when you mount an FF lens on a crop body, you are in some sense magnifying a portion of the glass (image circle), which can magnify the achilles heel of the lens.

No, you're not.
The K-1's pixel density is similar to that of a K-5 series camera, and lower than that of a K-3. If we're talking pixel peeping, a K-1 won't stress a lens (in the center) any more than a K-5IIs.

[clackers]

I think when you mount an FF lens on a crop body, you are in some sense magnifying a portion of the glass (image circle), which can magnify the achilles heel of the lens..

No magnification happens.

The lens is the same, the subject and sensor distances are the same, only the field of view differs.

[sbh]

I've been following this discussion and there are some good thoughts. Now I just got a 70-200 myself and I think I got a bad copy, unfortunately it's not what I expected.