Originally posted by sjwaldron That being said, I don't agree with Pentax only having price as a selling point in the past. The construction and focus on primes has been very nice. However, all we get from Pentax this week has been a plastic averagely fast prime and a slow super zoom.
You are correct, I should have worded that differently. But, as you mentioned, one of the other things Pentax was mainly known for was their superior primes (just as Canon has been known for their superior tele's). But, as you also pointed out, they really haven't developed a lot of new prime lenses. They still seem to be pushing their older Limited's and such (all very fine lenses, I'm sure) but they have not been upgrading them to keep pace with the competition. For example, how many weather-resistant primes does Pentax currently offer? How many primes with silent and fast SDM do they offer? I'm not sure of the number, but I doubt it is very many. Which leads us to the next one-time standout feature of Pentax... weather resistance at a low price. Why make so many bodies weatherproof (K10, K20, K7, K5) and not offer weatherproofed lenses with optics comparable to Limited's? After all, why should you have to sacrifice image quality for the sake of weather resistance?
Maybe it's just me, but so many of these things just seem like they would be "logical" steps for any major corporation, yet the left hand of Pentax doesn't seem to have a clue what the right hand is doing.