[Pentaxor]

That's a silly question. Everyone can benefit from extended warranty. That has nothing to do with the lens performance or quality.

it's not a silly question, you are just having difficulty on answering a basic question. and of course it got something to do with performance and quality, you are just trying to deny it and avoid trapping yourself.

[Pentaxor]

I'd call a quality lens a lens with high quality glass and a very good optical formula. A* 400 f/2.8 went for $3,851 (USD) in a recent ebay auction. That lens does not support the screw driven autofocus motor.

that is optical quality asdf, and thank you. Alex however had pointed out an overall quality of the lens. not just optics, but construction, build and operation as well. that made his argument to contain a basic fundamental flaw which is SDM failure that would affect the AF capability, silent operation of the lens.

[asdf]

that made his argument to contain a basic fundamental flaw which is SDM failure which would affect the AF capability, silent operation of the lens.

I'd say SDM has an eerie quality about it. I usually wonder if it will start up when I take the lens out of the bag or cabinet.

[Alex00]

it's not a silly question, you are just having difficulty on answering a basic question. and of course it got something to do with performance and quality, you are just trying to deny it and avoid trapping yourself.

Already answered.

I'd call a quality lens a lens with high quality glass and a very good optical formula. A* 400 f/2.8 went for $3,851 (USD) in a recent ebay auction. That lens does not support the screw driven autofocus motor.

No it won't affect my decision to buy any future SDM lens.
To my knowledge most of the defective ones were from early production batches.
People I know who have got SDM lenses where I am recently don't seem to have any problems with their lenses.

Nikon has a similar issue with their 18-200mm VR lenses failing but to my knowledge it has not stopped people from buying them.

Allot of posts online talk about Pentax fixing he SDM issue although no word from Pentax on this.

No reported problems from new batches.

Warranty had nothing to do with quality of the lens. I Already proved quality to you, I'm still waiting you you to upload your headshots.

@NeverSatisfied - I know I'm an SDM detractor but I'm sorry, the Pentax images posted beat yours easily.

[Pentaxor]

Already answered.

not really. is a non-working SDM DA* lens a quality lens? YES OR NO ?

[Pentaxor]

@NeverSatisfied - I know I'm an SDM detractor but I'm sorry, the Pentax images posted beat yours easily.

Gary, I think Jshermann's photos are much better examples. also it would fit the bill since he could use his youngling as an unaware subject.

Gary, I think Jshermann's photos are much better examples. also it would fit the bill since he could use his youngling as an unaware subject.

I just hang my head sometimes.

[paulelescoces]

almost a comedy thread

forgot to add to my earlier post... good poll from the op... I also think this gets to the heart of the real problem... while we can argue if a technical problem exists or not, one problem we can not avoid is that the potential buying population are somewhat wary of taking the SDM plunge.

[simico]

Yes, they affect(ed) my lens purchases. I had the opportunity to buy new 16-50 and 50-135 for very good price, and later another opportunity to buy a used 50-135 within warranty period for half price - I didn't buy any of them.

Maybe the rich guys don't mind throwing $1000 lenses into trashcan after 1 year warranty period or paying $200 to fix their lenses every year, but I expect my lenses to work properly for at least 5-6 years. SDM isn't that amazing even when it works to begin with...

[NeverSatisfied]

@NeverSatisfied - I know I'm an SDM detractor but I'm sorry, the Pentax images posted beat yours easily.

I know. Well they are "exported for e-mail" size. Like I said it was just what I could come up with off the bat. (LR does not recognize this lens and so I can't filter results by "lens used", to easily find those images.) The Tamron's not available for me to use at the moment but it does sound like a worthy experiment. When I get it back I foresee the use of a tripod, remote release and some pixel-peeping! But I still believe it was money well-spent.

[Pentaxor]

Yes, they affect(ed) my lens purchases. I had the opportunity to buy new 16-50 and 50-135 for very good price, and later another opportunity to buy a used 50-135 within warranty period for half price - I didn't buy any of them.

Maybe the rich guys don't mind throwing $1000 lenses into trashcan after 1 year warranty period or paying $200 to fix their lenses every year, but I expect my lenses to work properly for at least 5-6 years. SDM isn't that amazing even when it works to begin with...

the K55/1.8 and K28/3.5 that I acquired are 35 years old and they are still in great shape. the SDM zoom lenses can barely live up to 2 years. for sure, the SDM lenses needs some catching up to do. but they can't reach that plateau at their current dying condition.

it's a shame that a $50-$100 dollar lenses can and had outlasted a modern $1,000 lens.

[wallyb]

Please take indoor headshots, We don't want to compare apples to oranges. My point and shoot camera take the similar pictures in broad day light. You can definitely do portraits with 70-200.

You used a strong flash indoors on those baby shots. You do realise that a flash adds to the amount of light in the scene, much like a sun does? So there's absolutely no difference in comparing indoor flash shots to outdoor daylight shots, you just want to pick on something to be obstinate since most people don't take pictures like the ones you posted. Especially since you can hurt such a young baby's eyes with direct flash like that.

Now, onto a real discussion of quality between the 50-135 and, say, the Tamron 70-200/2.8. Here's a picture of very finely detailed treebark that I took with my copy of the Tamron 70-200/2.8 WITH a 1.7x teleconverter attached AND wide open at f/2.8:



I hope you can understand how both of those will lead to potentially poor performance. And as you can see, there is nothing poor about the quality in the above shot.

Or does my subject need eyelashes in order for you to understand?

You wouldn't want to be in a wedding with a noise motor
You wouldn't want to be in rain, very humid or fogy weather without a weather sealed lens
You wouldn't' want to be holding the camera for long with very heavy lens
Finally You wouldn't' want to take lower quality photos knowing that you could do much better with a higher quality lens.

You wouldn't want to be at a fast-paced sports game with such a slow and unresponsive motor.
You wouldn't want to pay extra for weather sealing if your body isn't also sealed and you don't live in a humid, foggy, rainy area.
You wouldn't want to lose the shot you could've gotten at 200mm by being stuck with a 135mm lens just because you wanted to shave a pound off your gear.
Finally, you have no idea what you're talking about since the Tamron offers a longer range with equal or superior quality and a more reliable motor at a cheaper price.

It's great how you're able to pick and choose on a lens' benefits in order to suit your own view (you really should get a marketing job btw), but if you look at the situation from *anyone's* viewpoint but your own, you start to realise that the 50-135 is hardly the end-all be-all lens, and is less than ideal for most people considering its short warranty period and frequency of SDM failure.


Again, you really seem to have completely missed what the title of this thread is called. It's not "hey that 50-135 sucks it has terrible quality who's with me!", it's "do SDM problems affect your purchasing". And the simple answer to that question for the vast majority of people, no matter how much cheerleading for an inherently faulty lens you might be doing, is "Yes".

Not to mention how your vehement and adamant addiction to boasting SDM being based on just one month of experience with your first SDM lens is the definition of hilarious.

[tokyoso]

How does a Sigma 70-200 f2.8 HSM stack up against the Tamron 70-200/2.8?

[reeftool]

I have not bought an SDM lens and for the near future I'm not planning to.