Originally posted by sjwaldron Should we have to jump through hoops to get it? Not to mention it doesn't have WR, so I'd have to wrap plastic or something around it. I've heard of it and $350 isn't exactly a deal breaking price, but :ugh: How hard would it really be to get it stocked at adorama or b&h? really...
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Oh, I hear ya....something to think about though is we in the US are used to being the primary market for companies. It's sort of obvious Hoya does not view the US market or many outside of Japan as viable, right now...I suspect it's part of their on-going reorganization of the new HoyaTax. For that reason many products might be initially sold only in Japan, and maybe, and that is a "for certain" maybe in other nearby Asian countries. I offer the 645D as an example. For a change the US consumer was NOT used to help shake out the distribution and any issues a new device might have. Remember as recently as the fiasco of the green-line-syndrome of the K7 released on a world wide basis. So, maybe it's a good thing that for now it's a Japan only, if that is really the case and it's not a case of just not getting to the US and distributed to resellers yet.
I actually see the genuine Pentax 1.7x TC as a super way to get longer glass across the board for a reasonable price. Plus from what I have seen around the web, the thing really does not seem to crush the IQ like other TC's.
But, again I know what you mean about the need to be creative or "jump through hoops" to get a piece of gear, but remember in decades gone by that was not an uncommon thing for many brands or specific bits of gear.
And it could be that the big three gear sellers, B&H, Adorama and Amazon don't want to keep stocking Pentax gear under the new Hoya terms and their PITA MAP agreement. Pentax might have been a PITA but Hoya is downright Draconian in their agreements, which until we know if anything happens thanks to the new law in Maryland about things like MAP agreements which limit a retailers rights to price merchandise they have legally purchased however the retailer feels works best. But the Maryland law might render the Hoya MAP agreement requirements illegal and anti-consumer and anti-competitive. But these things take time, or might not materialize at all as it might not be worth the effort for these retailers to pursue the issue since it's not like they will go broke if they either stop completely or carry only a small set of Pentax gear.
I only offered it as a possibility for your desire for longer glass. As well as better than dropping $5k+ on the 600/5.6 lense of which they might build just 100 or so/year until a valid market shows itself.
I am not defending HoyaTax because I am not thrilled with the direction things look to be going. It's not what I bought into and for me the brand has regressed. My issues come from the lack of tethering with Liveview as all the others have...I was willing to live with marginal LV while waiting for the K7 because with the obvious that their LV had to improve, I mean it could not have gotten worse than the K20D...
, it was not a rough stretch to assume the addition of LV tethered shooting...but neither happened, in fact they took away tethering. So, I am displeased with the current state of the system and in a wait and see mode for the final time with Pentax. Not too worried because either I will have croaked or my limiteds will have increased in price enough to cover a switch back to Canon and a 7D.
And yeah, the TC has no WR...not sure the 600/5.6 would either but for the price I would hope the figure anyone with that sort of cash would drop another few hundred on a 600WR.
Anyway, hope a solution finds you one way or the other...trust me, life is too short to worry about all of this...even if it's how you pay for the right to keep living...Burger King can do the same thing.