Originally posted by Fontan I agree, but remember that Pentax users seem to not put their money where the mouth is. Many talk about wanting this or that, but when they actually come out they complain about how expensive they are. Then they want to "hold off" until the prices come down, only to then complain about how outdated the line up is and so on. Managing inventory to cater to the crowd as such really is insane, and for an item like this lense they really have no choice but to build to order, I think.
I think that lots of people complaining here about the lack of FF, the problem about focusing, threatening to jump ship to buy a $ 3k DSLR, think the grass is greener at the competitor, but so far, my experience with comparable model of the Pentax line, told me, it's not. It's just as green, but with a different taste.
I have the pulled the trigger about the DA*55 and, ok, i paid it second hand for around 400€ (520$), it is sooo damn expensive for a student with no regular job, but whoooa ! this is really worth it.
If the 16-50 and the 50-135 have the same guts, well it's a no brainer, and the 70-200/2.8 of canon, or the 24-70, are not really much better !
Pentax has some real asset, but they need to tell people how valuable all this is. They need to tell people, that spending $ 1k on a 50-135 is worth it.
Yeah, managing a brand like Pentax today is maybe a hell, specially when you have to tell people to be patient enought to let the "new" Pentax show them what they have created.
And a good way to keep price low for such a lens, and make people realize that Pentax knows how to do very desirable lens at competitive price is doing a big batch of this lens, send it in many retailer, at least just to expose it near the Canikon Big guns, just to say "We are small, but Canikon is not the only one, out there, that can build such things!"
Originally posted by Blue There are plenty that do though. That said, the $8500 to plunk down for a FA* 600/4 was a bridge too far even for those of us who would put it to good use.
Considering Amazon France have some 600/4 from Canon at the very sexy price of 10.500€, so around
$ 13.300 we can say that $ 8,5k for the Pentax one, is really damn cheap !!
One more thing / thought : Pentax should sell it's 560/5.6 at less than 4.000€ ($ 5.100) to be under the pricing of the Sigma 500/4.5. They probably can if they decide to not do lots of benefits on it.