Originally posted by woodywesty Reading about SDM issues makes me want to vomit... I bought three brand new DA* lenses, the 16-50, the 50-135 and the 300 and they all failed. The 50-135 failed within two weeks of delivery. Sent it back to B&H and they replaced it with a new one which failed in one week. While I love my K-3 and K-3ll cameras and my 15, 31, 77 and 100 Pentax lenses I will never buy another Ricoh/Pentax lens, EVER! The bottom line is that Ricoh knowingly sold defective lenses to thousands of people around the world and in my mind they stole $3,000 from me. I have very much wanted to buy the new K1 mark 2 full frame to do scenery and night sky photography but I need a fast 15-30 lens that accepts various front filters and the Tamron lens doesn't allow for this because of the front element. Sadly, I'll be buying a Nikon full frame and wide angle zoom for my needs. Ricoh is not delivering on the wide angle zoom end or the long end nor are they accepting responsibility for screwing thousands of customers.
When this was an issue I read an article on another site from a Canon user, who also had three lenses fail, one of which was more expensive than anything you can buy for a Pentax, who then sold all her gear and switched to Nikon. So, I have to ask, what's your point? People have had problems with Pentaxes, people have had problems with all camera companies. Lensrentals say in the big picture Pentax is as good as you can do. So what's your point?
You do have my sympathy if that's what you're looking for. But apart from thst, what happened to you could have happened to anyone with any camera system, it's just not really related to Pentax.
The whole SDM thing as far as I can tell was completely fabricated by Pentax users who had no knowledge of the camera industry trend towards lower prices through less quality control. Lenrentals has and others report Canon and Nikon lenses that cost over ten grand being dead on arrival or failing almost as soon as they were out of warranty. It wasn't and isn't just SDM.
Pentax forum is a really good resource not enjoyed by other company users. The down side tot hat is once the hysteria starts it's tough to shut it down. It's one stop shop where a lens like the original 16-50 will be reported and analysed. Other cameras may not have that kind of resource. That doesn't mean they don't have the issue. It just means their aren't 200 people in one place screaming about it.
If you install higher than industry standard quality, and higher than industry standard quality control, you won't be "the value brand" anymore will you?