[parinya-ekparinya]

I have just noticed that the smc PENTAX-DA 12-24mm F4 ED AL[IF] is now discontinued on RICOH IMAGING website.

Discontinued Lens for Digital single-lens reflex camera / Lens lineup/ Lenses / Products | RICOH IMAGING

Since there is no plan for a new wide angle zoom lens for APS-C as of writing, will there be a new version with HD coating soon?
Or is it just a trick to push new purchaser to go for DA* 11-16mm?

[cport]

Ok, it seems that we can expect anothter "new" lens with HD coatings.

[rawr]

Tokina also seem to have discontinued their 12-24 f4, which I think was related to the Pentax lens. That range on APS-C seems to have gone out of fashion.

[yucatanPentax]

The Pentax 11-18mm f/2.8 covers much of that range, although at a significantly higher cost.

I like my 12-24mm f/4 quite a bit and wouldn't consider replacing it. But if I were in the market now, the 11-18 looks attractive if I had the money.

[Paul the Sunman]

Ok, it seems that we can expect anothter "new" lens with HD coatings.

This lens is actually pretty FF compatible above about 18 mm. I wonder if a rudimentary tweak could extend that range. The DA 10-17 fisheye was made more FF-friendly by installing a removable hood, so perhaps an updated version may have more than HD coating.

It's still on sale and in stock on The Australian Pentax webstore.

[D1N0]

Makes sense. 11-18 covers that range and the lens was very outdated. 18 to 24 is covered by the kitlens, 18-135, 16-50, 16-85 so it is not really needed in a Ultra wide.

[cport]

I do not agree. 11-18 is much heavier, it makes sense to have 12-24 for landscape photographers for instance ...

[parinya-ekparinya]

I do not agree. 11-18 is much heavier, it makes sense to have 12-24 for landscape photographers for instance ...

I believe that Pentax will soon release a new version of 12-24mm with HD coating.
If it is the same optical formula, Ricoh Pentax should be able to manufacture the new batch without too much difficulty.

---------- Post added 12-11-19 at 06:38 AM ----------

The Pentax 11-18mm f/2.8 covers much of that range, although at a significantly higher cost.

I like my 12-24mm f/4 quite a bit and wouldn't consider replacing it. But if I were in the market now, the 11-18 looks attractive if I had the money.

Thinking the same thing. Although the Pentax 11-18mm f/2.8 should be optically superior to the 12-24mm in term of sharpness, I believe not everyone could justify its cost.
Further, some might find 24mm end of the Pentax 12-24mm useful when there is not enough time to change a lens.

For me, I will stick with my SMC 15mm limited for a while.

[UncleVanya]

I like the fact the 12-24 has a 24mm end myself. But with the photo industry being in such a state I think it probably is going to stay gone. If Tokina wasn't also showing it as discontinued I'd think it might resuface with hd coating. But the Tokina version isn't going to have Pentax coatings, so I'm guessing the lens isn't coming back.

[pres589]

I can't imagine telling people that, instead of buying the 12-24, they can buy the 11-18 AND the 15-30. For a crop shooter the 11-18 seems to pair well with a number of lenses like the 16-50, 16-85, or 20-40.


So for 1st party ultrawide zooms we've got the 11-18, the 10-17 FE, and the 15-30 all available for crop shooters. That's not the worst situation to be in. In a way I'm not that surprised that the 12-24 is going away. Maybe this will give them some production bandwidth to add some other lenses that Pentax shooters are hoping to see. Or it could just be a cost reduction and general simplification of the business which is a bonus to Ricoh (which helps everyone to a degree).

[luftfluss]

Makes sense. 11-18 covers that range and the lens was very outdated. 18 to 24 is covered by the kitlens, 18-135, 16-50, 16-85 so it is not really needed in a Ultra wide.

The DA 12-24 might be "very outdated" in that it was introduced nearly 15 years ago, but when I compared my recently-acquired copy to a newer UWA zoom from a different system, I found the DA 12-24 sharper in the extreme corners and had better flare resistance. Not huge differences, but proof enough that it is a very good performer even by modern standards.

[tvdtvdtvd]

LOL. Almost every reason under the sun is given above. The idea that the 12-24 is outdated seems strange to me when 50mm, 85mm,
70-200mm, et al, lenses are still in the stable. The idea that 2 or 3 other lenses might constitute a replacement reminds me of every bad
parody of a photographer loaded down with excessive camera gear.

I'm going for the non-doom forecast that a HD version will be released concurrently with the K-New.

[y0chang]

The 12-24mm is my favorite zoom on Pentax. Literally half of my images before I got the K-1 was using the 12-24mm. My copy is sharp at every focal length at f8 and that is really all I want in an 18-35mm landscape zoom.

[Ontarian50]

All those lenses in that range bug me a bit.

I can't fathom why when the APS-C sensor DSLR became the norm, that all lenses wider than the kit lens had to a be a zoom.

Canon had their 10-24, Nikon their 12-24 and later 10-24, Pentax their 12-24, and everything from Tamron and Sigma followed suit.

In the film era most of us were happy to own a 28 or 24 to something zoom, and then have a specialty "ultra wide" like a 20, 18, or 17mm. Sure, journalists liked the big 20-35mm 2.8's or 16-35 2.8's. But they were hard to lug around on vacation.

But when we went digital, nobody seemed to follow that logic, and all the wider lenses were fairly large zooms.

Why did no one decide to make a 12mm f3.5, for instance? Or 10mm? Especially if it could have been a bit sharper, bit more compact, and a bit less expensive than the zooms?

I guess market research pointed them in the direction they took. But nobody asked me what I wanted.

[luftfluss]

I can't fathom why when the APS-C sensor DSLR became the norm, that all lenses wider than the kit lens had to a be a zoom.

Pentax 15/4, 14/2.8

Canon & Nikon 14/2.8

Samyang/Bower/Rokinon/Vivitar etc have several wide primes.