Originally posted by Groucho Are you sure about this?
Short of being a Pentax employee, no I can't be sure about it, but I've been told by several retailers that it has been out of production for quite a while.
It's also listed as such on
Bojidar's page.
Originally posted by Groucho I remember the 50mm being in short supply in mid-2005, and I ordered mine in the fall of '05 when it was out of stock and received it a few weeks later when it came in (from B&H I think but I don't remember for sure.) After that, it seemed to be in ample supply all through 2006 and 2007. That seems kind of strange to have a shortage in '05 but not '06 and '07 if the lens was discontinued in '04.
B&H and Adorama have it in stock now, even Beach Camera has it in stock. If Pentax stopped it in '04, they must have been sitting on an enormous pile of them for stock to have lasted this long! Look at how quickly the K100D and K100D Super sold out when they were discontinued.
Can't really say why they would be short one year after production stopped and not short in '06 and '07. Not really sure that they weren't short in '06 and '07, but it could have been supply was there or demand was low.
Quite often you produce more than you need, especially if it's cheap and you use it lots, and just store what you don't use. If Pentax had been producing the FA 50mm f/1.4 from '91~'04 and the first digital Pentax (*ist D) didn't come out until '03, then there is a good chance that they produced a lot of 50mm lenses. From what I've seen at most camera shops, when I look for a film SLR Pentax, I find a 50mm lens attached (mind you not the 1.4), so I assume that the 50mm was pretty common on a film body. As the demand for DSLR increase the demand for film SLR decreases and Pentax now has all these lenses that they don't need, so toss them in the warehouse until you know what to do with them. Jump forward to '05 when people now have the new Pentax digitals and suddenly demand for a nice, fast, 50mm is high. Time to get the old glass out of the warehouse there's a market for it. By the time it's out of the warehouse and getting to the retailers, you're probably looking at late '06 early '07.
I wouldn't say that they have an enormous supply of them, but I wouldn't be suprised if they did (at one point) have several thousand in storage. How many 50mm lenses would you really sell a year with only 5% of the digital market share (based on 2006)
Originally posted by Groucho I can't see the Sigma being a success in the Pentax mount, I'd be very, very surprised to see it producing better optical quality, and also very surprised to see it sell for less than $200.
I don't see why it wouldn't be a success in the Pentax mount (they are also making the same lens for Sigma, Canon, and Nikon mounts), I have a Sigma EX DG 24-60 f/2.8 that is quite nice. Will the optical quality be "better"? Well that can be some what subjective. It really depends on what you define as "better".
But you are right, it isn't going to come in for less than $200. From what I've heard it will be in the $400-$500 range, but that will put it in the same range as the Canon's and Nikon's I've seen with the same stats, plus it will have HSM, but probably won't have that nice Pentax weather sealing.