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Originally posted by UncleVanya Your post reminded me I once owned the FA* 80-200 myself. I really liked the lens. It is worth noting that the DA* 200 exhibited purple fringing far more often than the FA* 80-200 even in head to head shots with the same exposure settings and lighting. That FA* was a special animal.
Probably you had the bad copy of DA* 200. I owned both DA* 200/2.8 and now have FA* 200/2.8 that is optically the same. Very little PF even in extreme conditions. The real PF beast from star lenses was FA* 400/5.6 that had to be stopped down to f8 to eliminate PF.
I had a 'star lens sickness' some time ago, and owned or still own following lenses:
A* 85/1.4 -- sold, still regret. A fantastic lens.
A* 200/2.8 -- sold, kept K 200/2.5 instead, that is the same lens minus ED element
A* 200/4 Macro -- sold and bought back. Very special one.
A* 600/5.6 -- great for moonshots and to impress people.
F* 300/4.5 -- tele lens classic
FA* 24/2 -- my most favorite one. I like it much more than FA 31.
FA* 85/1.4 -- this one is special. I would use it more often if I do not have FA 77.
FA* 200/2.8 -- great light relatively small tele. Use it often in travel.
FA* 300/4.5 -- sold in favour of F* version
FA* 400/5.6 -- sold, could not make it usable for me
FA* 28-70/2.8 -- sold, too many great primes in this range
FA* 80-200/2.8 -- for sports and events. Unfortunately, my current camera is KP so PZ does not work. But I am going to try it on my old K5 soon to avoid manual zooming.
DA* 200/2.8 -- sold it in favour of lighter FA* 200/2.8, but built quality of DA* is better.
In the current line-up I might want to try DA* 11-18 when the prices go down a bit.