Originally posted by Class A How do you know about the motives of Hirakawa?
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but this seems to me another piece of speculation. Monochrome may remember the rumour 100% correctly, but it still remains a rumour. I've read about it then, but also remember that no one ever knew anything definitive. To the best of my knowledge no authoritative account of what happened between Pentax and Hirakawa has ever been published. Just people speculating this and that.
FWIW, I love the 43/1.9 and 77/1.8 and very much agree with the design philosophy to fine tune the lens according to aesthetic considerations as opposed to optimising performance for certain optical benchmarks. However, I do not like the rendering of the 55/1.4. It may be Hirakawa's work but it appears to me too much emphasis has been given of improving performance at f/1.4 compared to the FA 50/1.4 and too little consideration was given to the quality of the bokeh. Some people like it, I personally find the 55/1.4's bokeh unappealing.
Hirakawa's motives are clearly defined in his technical notes. Not only that, I've heard the " pictures design for the way people take pictures, not the test charts" line from the older Pentax reps, including an old guy from Japan who was at one of the Henry's EXPOsure shows a few years ago at the Pentax exhibit. The line was part of Pentax corporate culture. And was delivered with a certain degree of pride. I doubt that culture still exists, and I doubt that line is being repeated at this point.
Listen, you all can believe whatever you want, it doesn't bother me. My opinions are based on opinions gathered from talking to the few folks I've met who were familiar with Pentax culture. So, I'm not going to change them because of the opinions of those who have no such experience. It may not be they were fired. But they would have happily kept doing their jobs given a choice, and the old Pentax was a different place than the Hoya Pentax, so take out of it what you want. maybe if you don't read between the lines what I do, it's because you haven't read the same lines.
As for the 18-135, it has excellent centre sharpness all through it's range, even at 135mm it achieves excellent center sharpness @ ƒ5.6. If you look at the scores for the 31 limited, it has excellent centre and edge sharpness @ 5.6. The 18-135 has excellent centre and edge sharpness at 24mm. So with both lenses you have at different settings a different style of lens, offering the photographer excellent renditions of different styles depending on how the lens is configured. To me the 18-135 is the 31ltd of zooms… right in the Pentax tradition. Uncompromising when possible, sharp centre and soft edges when trade offs are required by design constrictions, as to tends not to be the case with manufactures like Sigma, who seem to go for a less centre sharp, but more consistent edge to edge philosophy.