Originally posted by Iberia I say, enough with the cute pancakes…
What Pentax really needs, in my view, is to produce a set of regular (non-limited), fast (DA limited pancakes are slow), * quality (whatever that means), metal bayonet and WR, wide and normal primes that covers the same Field Of View of those for the 24x36 format:
• 16mm f2,8 - similar FOV to Pentax-A 24mm
• 19mm f2,0 (or f2,8) - similar FOV to Pentax-A 28mm
• 24mm f2,0 - similar FOV to Pentax-A 35mm
• 35mm f1,4 and f1,7 (or f1,8) - similar FOV to Pentax-A 50mm
I would also pre-order a regular, non-limited, * quality (whatever that means), metal bayonet and WR, small and light zoom like a 60-120mm f3,5 (90-180mm FOV in FF) or a 50-135 f4,0 (75-200mm FOV in FF).
Cheers,
R
Yes, it would be great to have dozens of new lenses but Pentax isn't going to have a CaNikon lineup with that kind of lens spacing. There is already a fast 14 and a slow 15 so a 16 would never happen. The fast 35 is too close to the FA31 and there are 3 other lenses between 35 and 40mm's. The 24 f2 sort of completes the large(ish) aperture lineup of DA14, DA*24, DA*55, DFA100WR, DA*200, DA*300 and DA560. These aren't all * lenses but there are similarities (large apertures mainly). This would give Pentax 4 different prime lineups (loose groupings). *, FA limited, DA limited and budget (only 2 lenses).
* quality in the Pentax lineup is a loose definition but typically it means large aperture, SDM, weather sealing and expensive. It's kind of a complementary lens lineup to the DA limiteds and the zooms that you describe would fit into the limited lineup better since they are small, light and not large aperture.
The FA*24 would of course be a good starting point for a DA*24. They did an amazing job re-doing the FA 100 macro while retaining FF coverage.