[Barry Pearson]

Just noticed the 20ish to 30ish zoom listed in the road map. (Looks like English and Japanese maps are identical now)
Does anyone have info on this?[/ATTACH]

That was on the January 2012 roadmap too. (In fact, all those lenses were, except that the "DA Zoom" used to be "DA* Zoom").

[ak_kiwi]

That was on the January 2012 roadmap too. (In fact, all those lenses were, except that the "DA Zoom" used to be "DA* Zoom").

Thanks for that Barry - I couldn't remember which one was changed from the "*" designation.

[AndrewG NY]

Well, some Ltd designs were based on old lenses.

I don't think so. Most have no direct matches for focal length or max aperture. Even though the 40/2.8 has the same number of elements/groups and max aperture, they're not the same -- different minimum focus distance, and significantly different performance as well.

The FA20-35/4 is a pretty good lens, but performance-wise, still pretty close to the DA16-45 and even 18-55 in the overlapping range. A few years ago I was using it as a compact kit with my old DS2 -- I liked its sort of stubby handling -- but doubt it was much of an improvement over these lenses, and its hood isn't a good match for APS-C. To get the limited tag and have a hope at selling more than a few examples, I think it has to be faster than f/4 (my guess would be f/3.2 or f/3.5), and would have to beat these lenses in performance. I think there are some (including myself) who would be willing to sacrifice max aperture and focal length zoom range for size/weight and performance. I think it might be thought of as a substitute for the primes in this range that Pentax has been thus far reluctant to produce, and reflects a reality where it is difficult to make an exceptional APS-C SLR prime in this rough focal length range (<30mm) that outperforms modern zooms, is faster than those zooms, and remains compact.

[Clinton]

f/1.8-4 = 2.3 stops

Yup, you're correct. I was thinking 3 stops plus the half, but it's two stops plus the third.

So, in other words, it can gather 5.3 times the amount of light that an F4 lens can gather. ((2x2)x1.3333); unless my abillity to count is off again. Just sayin

[robjmitchell]

It could be that ricoh has scrapped the * designation. I'm hoping to see a HD AW lens like the 560mm.