Originally posted by Wheatfield To be fair, there isn't a shred of evidence that your guess is close to true either.
No , but it could be true. That's all we are saying here. There is however evidence that their hasn't been a production run of SMC glass since 1213, and probably quite bit before then. As I said, the only question is, has all FA stock been previously assembled, or are they still doing small hand assembled batches. The dates of manufacture for SMC glass, are pretty much known as to when the last batches were run. HD started in 2013. Just that gives you frame of reference for understanding how many production runs Pentax has pm a year,, how many old designs, how many new designs, and therefore a sense of "are they ever going to make the lens I want?" and the odds around that.
Or to put it another way, my desire for a new light weight 20mm prime given that the 50 and 85 are announced, new 35s 40s 70s 135s 20s and 24 are not announced. So if my guess is right and those will be the next 6 primes, the next year will be for producing 50s and 85s, we are almost guaranteed a 35 and 135 will come before the 20 and 24 we are looking at at least 2 years away before a 20-24 is even considered, And probably 3 or 4 before it arrives, if all my assumptions are correct, and they actually are going to produce those lenses. There could just as easily be a 22, a 28, a 30 1.4, a macro of some kind, a 150 or 180, there pretty much be any dam thing because they currently have almost nothing. But with shocking developments like the DA* 11-18, I don't think anyone has a clue what they're thinking. Why would they have 8-12 equivalent lens available in APS-c when most landscape people would prefer to shot UWA with a full frame? It's mystifying. The APS_c crowd already has the 12-24. They are duplicating APS-c lenses while ignoring UWA on FF, to me it makes no sense.
I just have to be positive and assume they re doing the best they can with what they have to work with. And given falling DSLR sales, what they have to work with is likely to include fewer production runs over the next 10 years, than there were over the last 10. Given that at least 20 viable lenses, both zooms and primes that would fill gaps in their line up are conservatively needed, at 2 per year, what are the odds fo them coming out with your dream lens? You are much better going with what's already out there, than dreaming about what might come.
Or to be even more to the point, if I really want a modern UWA I just have to cough up the doh for a 15-30 and quit dreaming about something else. Apart from the weight thing it sounds fantastic. There is probably no 15-30 ƒ4 ) -r 20 3.5 or 24mm coming, There are too many other gaps to fill and too few resources to fill them with.
Pentax should tap into Zeiss like Sony and Panasonic did. It might be their last shot at actually having a line up of modern lenses where a photographer can go too work with glass, all less than 10 years old in ti's design and concentrating more on the efficiencies of small scale production runs. More smaller shorter runs, more fvarities of glass a year, instead of long runs producing glass to last 10 years in a warehouse.
Last edited by normhead; 01-18-2018 at 02:47 PM.