Ron: Facts are insufficient. Reason is insufficient. Though everyone has and is entitled to an opinion and many commenters making posts RE: this lens make some reasonable statements about the
utility of the price / value relationship (who really needs the "Limited" quality of the lens? Just give us the IQ at a lower price) - there remains a group of commenters who have returned to the "Pentax can do no right unless they give stuff away" school of value, or "Pentax isn't Canon" or Pentax must be smoking what the Mayor of Toronto is smoking (actual post on another thread).
Ricoh hasn't yet convinced the market they are ignoring Canon, competing slightly above Nikon and offering a premium product at lower volume for a discerning customer who is willing to pay for:
- Image Quality
- Current-market competitive features
- Higher quality manufacturing tolerances
- Engineering expertise
- Smaller package
- Durability, weather sealing and IBIS
- A bit of intellectual snob appeal, I think
Pentax Pricing is a feature, not, a bug. You'll need to pay up to own Pentax - but it is worth it. Many, many users will scoff at this strategy if it actually plays out - and they will be served well by the consumer grade Canon products. Many other users will scoff at this strategy and they will be served well by Nikon (and Canon) professional products.
But a certain breed of cat - our breed of cat - will find Pentax attractive and will pay for the quality, with an idea that their children will inherit their lenses.
Trying to convince PF readers this is a good idea or a single lens is competitive is a losing proposition - their biases are too deeply ingrained and they've far too long embraced their expectations of Pentax to change them - that it is third-tier (at best) and can never compete as an equal with Canon, Nikon and Sony. Well guess what? Ricoh will bypass that entire rubric and compete
above them (In the wide gulf between Nikon and Leica) by defining their own vision of Good, Better and Best.
So let the Forum have its little spats. Buy the gear, Take your photos. Show your friends what Pentax can do - that's more meaningfuil anyway.
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