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Saw this thread and thought I’d chime in. Congratulations on your acquisition! To my understanding there is not a difference in quality between the, “ASSEMBLED IN VIETNAM” and the, “MADE IN JAPAN”, though there may have been a higher rate of defective lenses coming out of the Vietnam factory just because it took them a bit to get everything ironed out from when they first started up.
However there is, to my understanding, quite a bit of difference between some 43’s and other 43’s. This is because they have different glass!
Now in case you don’t know, creating a lens of exactly 43mm, was chosen because that would be a true, “normal” millimeter length for, “Full Frame”. Over 43 and it technically becomes a telephoto, and below 43 it technically becomes a wide angle lens. Making a lens of exactly 43mm though was difficult, but Pentax decided to demonstrate their prowess at designing lenses by making a lens of not only exactly 43mm, but also made it a lens both great in its rendering and small in size, (this was the main problem of making a lens of 43mm as most optical strategies for creating this millimeter length, called for a bulky lens, and then here comes Pentax with this virtually pancake 43mm lens).
Now when the 43 was designed, it was designed to use leaded glass! Leaded glass has numerous optical advantages, so it was commonly used in lens designs. So the 43 was being produced with leaded glass, to rave reviews. However Japan passed a law that prohibited the use of lead for certain applications, (such as making glass and I believe paint). With this law change in Japan Pentax was forced to make their next run of the 43mm lenses with non-leaded glass! They also had to switch to nonleaded glass for every other design that called for leaded glass, including the 77mm! Now the 77 though it was designed to use leaded glass, when later productions used nonleaded glass the optical design survived fairly well, without a huge amount of difference being noticed. However to my understanding, the 43’s optical design did not survive as well as the 77, or in other words the 43’s optical design working correctly was very dependent on the leaded glass that was called for when it was initially designed.
This could be a reason why a lot of people believe the made in Japan lenses are better, as many of the made in Japan lenses, that were designed to be used with leaded glass got created there with leaded glass, however by the time they went to Vietnam all those lens designs that called for leaded glass were no longer being made with the leaded glass, so you never get a Vietnam lens that uses the intended leaded glass, while many, (but not all) of the made in Japan lenses were created with the intended leaded glass.
You can tell if you have a leaded version of the 43, by:
#1, its serial number, (I forget the cut off number for when they switched to nonleaded glass, but that information can be looked up).
#2, if you have the original aluminum lens cap, the leaded version will have black velvet instead of green, and the word Pentax will be printed on the front of the cap in black lettering, rather than being engraved into the metal.
#3, I believe all the leaded versions have visible screws on the side of the focusing ring itself, while the non-leaded versions do not have screws on the focusing ring.
Hope something I’ve written here is interesting!
Last edited by SGOMMO7; 05-28-2020 at 12:17 PM.
Reason: grammar
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. I'm not sure I'll keep the LBA at bay forever, though.
Originally posted by kiwi_jono 
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