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View Poll Results: Do the reported SDM failure problems affect your purchasing?
Yes 9676.80%
No 2923.20%
Voters: 125. You may not vote on this poll

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02-07-2010, 10:15 PM   #61
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Here's another one.
View full high quality image at http://prowebb.com/IMGP0873.jpg

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02-07-2010, 11:04 PM   #62
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QuoteOriginally posted by Alex00 Quote
Don't compare tamrom to DA*. It's like comparing silver to diamond. Da primes are known to offer the best quality and are compared to cannons and Nikon's best lenses optically. If you read cannons forums, you'll be amazed at how many users complain about the lenses and failures.

Again we all would like to see Pentax extending the warranty on those lenses, but that doesn't make them bad lenses as you claim.
Boy some of this verbiage sounds like it's straight off an advertisement. For the record, I was an early adopter of both the DA*16-50 and DA*50-135, before any SDM issues came out. The 16-50 was replaced under warranty because it was de-centered. I was not so lucky with the 50-135, which had an SDM failure 13 months after I bought it. Pentax "gave me a break" on the labor costs, and the total was about $160 from my pocket. And to top it off I got back someone else's refurbished unit, shipped with a broken lens hood.

If I were making the decision today on what lenses to buy, no I would not choose an SDM lens.

What is your lens collection like? What is your level of experience, aside from parroting back whatever you've read? What lenses have you bought, used, sold, traded, or borrowed to arrive at this conclusion, after three weeks of owning a DA*50-135, that IT is the absolute best? I would put my Tamron 70-200/2.8 up against my 50-135 any day, for image quality, and I doubt you could tell the images apart- and the Tamron's screw-drive has faster AF as well! "Silver vs diamond"?

As far as that goes, I've had the Tamron for just over a year, the time of reckoning for my Pentax SDM lens; well, there is an issue with the Tamron requiring service, but guess what? I've still got 5 more years of warranty left, so I'm covered! No worries!
02-07-2010, 11:31 PM   #63
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QuoteOriginally posted by NeverSatisfied Quote
Boy some of this verbiage sounds like it's straight off an advertisement. For the record, I was an early adopter of both the DA*16-50 and DA*50-135, before any SDM issues came out. The 16-50 was replaced under warranty because it was de-centered. I was not so lucky with the 50-135, which had an SDM failure 13 months after I bought it. Pentax "gave me a break" on the labor costs, and the total was about $160 from my pocket. And to top it off I got back someone else's refurbished unit, shipped with a broken lens hood.

If I were making the decision today on what lenses to buy, no I would not choose an SDM lens.

What is your lens collection like? What is your level of experience, aside from parroting back whatever you've read? What lenses have you bought, used, sold, traded, or borrowed to arrive at this conclusion, after three weeks of owning a DA*50-135, that IT is the absolute best? I would put my Tamron 70-200/2.8 up against my 50-135 any day, for image quality, and I doubt you could tell the images apart- and the Tamron's screw-drive has faster AF as well! "Silver vs diamond"?

As far as that goes, I've had the Tamron for just over a year, the time of reckoning for my Pentax SDM lens; well, there is an issue with the Tamron requiring service, but guess what? I've still got 5 more years of warranty left, so I'm covered! No worries!
I think it would be better if you could lend Alex a hand by showing pictures as well on how good the Tammy really is?

or much better, a side by side image comparison.
02-08-2010, 12:07 AM   #64
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QuoteOriginally posted by axl Quote
i.e.: did you cancel/postpone your lens purchase based on these?
In a sense, yes: even though I would have spent less money buying from the US, I bought all three SDM lenses I own in Canada, where we have a 2 year Pentax warranty. Also, if you're buying in person, check if the motor isn't dead already. There was a post in the DA* 16-50 serial number thread about a dead-on-arrival motor.

02-08-2010, 12:13 AM   #65
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QuoteOriginally posted by NeverSatisfied Quote
Boy some of this verbiage sounds like it's straight off an advertisement. For the record, I was an early adopter of both the DA*16-50 and DA*50-135, before any SDM issues came out. The 16-50 was replaced under warranty because it was de-centered. I was not so lucky with the 50-135, which had an SDM failure 13 months after I bought it. Pentax "gave me a break" on the labor costs, and the total was about $160 from my pocket. And to top it off I got back someone else's refurbished unit, shipped with a broken lens hood.

If I were making the decision today on what lenses to buy, no I would not choose an SDM lens.

What is your lens collection like? What is your level of experience, aside from parroting back whatever you've read? What lenses have you bought, used, sold, traded, or borrowed to arrive at this conclusion, after three weeks of owning a DA*50-135, that IT is the absolute best? I would put my Tamron 70-200/2.8 up against my 50-135 any day, for image quality, and I doubt you could tell the images apart- and the Tamron's screw-drive has faster AF as well! "Silver vs diamond"?

As far as that goes, I've had the Tamron for just over a year, the time of reckoning for my Pentax SDM lens; well, there is an issue with the Tamron requiring service, but guess what? I've still got 5 more years of warranty left, so I'm covered! No worries!
Please let your indoor headshots do the talk.
You can't possible compare tamron with Da*.
tamron = lower quality, heavier lens, noisy motor and lens distortion at both extremes. You wouldn't want to be in a wedding taking picture with a noisy lens. Defeats the purpose.
No to mention no weather sealing, you wouldn't want to be taking pictures on rainy, very humid or foggy day.

Last edited by Alex00; 02-08-2010 at 12:28 AM.
02-08-2010, 12:13 AM   #66
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QuoteOriginally posted by Pentaxor Quote
I think it would be better if you could lend Alex a hand by showing pictures as well on how good the Tammy really is?

or much better, a side by side image comparison.
I think you should post your images instead of asking other users to do it.
02-08-2010, 12:14 AM   #67
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QuoteOriginally posted by Damn Brit Quote
Alex has posted some images in his last post. If you have any that you could post that are similar (face and eye crop) that would put some perspective on this discussion (and maybe cool it down a little).
I agree......

02-08-2010, 12:15 AM   #68
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QuoteOriginally posted by Damn Brit Quote
Cute baby BTW.
Much appreciated
02-08-2010, 12:17 AM   #69
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Sounds like an interesting project but, as I referred to, unfortunately the Tamron is boxed up for shipping right now. But I think other forum members like JSherman have pretty well demonstrated the Tamron's abilities. If I had to choose between the two though, the 50-135 would get the boot!
02-08-2010, 12:24 AM   #70
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QuoteOriginally posted by Alex00 Quote
You wouldn't want to be in a wedding taking picture with a noisy lens. Defeats the purpose.
You wouldn't want to be taking photos at a wedding with a lens that refuses to focus

Look, I would suspect that most people who paid $1,000 for a precision optical instrument are taking good care of them. If SDM failures were a result of abuse, there'd be a heck of a lot of broken DA lenses given the ratio of DA to DA* lenses on this forum.

People here have had their lenses replaced with someone else's refurbished units, had their repairs fail, had their replacement lenses fail, etc... there's an obvious QC issue and people have formed their opinions about the quality of the SDM system over several months (years?) of reading about other people's experiences with these lenses.

You're probably the only person that I know of here who would be happy sending back an expensive lens for an expensive repair a few months after the warranty expired, and then having to send it back again when the repair fails in another 6 months.
02-08-2010, 12:50 AM   #71
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Personally I don't do "indoor headshots" with a 70-200, but here's the quickest thing I could come up with.
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02-08-2010, 12:51 AM   #72
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Makes me hestitate to buy them. However aside from SDM problems, what's even further preventing me from buying the 16-50 is the optical problems with de-centering. It is also not as sharp as I hoped it to be wide-open, considering it's heavy price-tag compared to the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 which is much sharper.
02-08-2010, 12:59 AM   #73
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Headshot?
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02-08-2010, 12:59 AM   #74
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QuoteOriginally posted by sebberry Quote
You wouldn't want to be taking photos at a wedding with a lens that refuses to focus

Look, I would suspect that most people who paid $1,000 for a precision optical instrument are taking good care of them. If SDM failures were a result of abuse, there'd be a heck of a lot of broken DA lenses given the ratio of DA to DA* lenses on this forum.

People here have had their lenses replaced with someone else's refurbished units, had their repairs fail, had their replacement lenses fail, etc... there's an obvious QC issue and people have formed their opinions about the quality of the SDM system over several months (years?) of reading about other people's experiences with these lenses.

You're probably the only person that I know of here who would be happy sending back an expensive lens for an expensive repair a few months after the warranty expired, and then having to send it back again when the repair fails in another 6 months.
nonsense. No one would be happy with a failed lens. But if for whatever reason the lens did fail after it's warranty period. I don't see you having any option but to send it back for fixing. Even the new Cannon USM's $1300 lens have many reported failures. Any lens you buy is bound to fail. You don't just buy a lens because of it's warranty neglecting the quality, motor noise, weather sealing, and weight. Every single one these count.

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.

I just hope Pentax would increase warranty in the future, but as it currently stand you have to live it as being 1 year. I personally wouldn't sacrifice quality for warranty.
02-08-2010, 01:03 AM   #75
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Regardless of the side tracks this thread has taken, the simple answer to the poll question is: YES
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