When first reading the news about the DA* 50 1.4 I was also thinking about, why now?
But now I think it makes perfect sense. Remember when Ricoh stated that they want to introduce new lenses specifically designed for FF of the digital era?
For them the old FA* lenses, even Limiteds do not fall into that category, also the DA* 55 never did.
So from their perspective this lens was missing and is no doubt one of the standard lenses you need to offer for an professional user.
Last year I bought a DA*55 new for ~480€ in Japan, and I knew this lens is not perfect (i.e. freaky bokeh 1.4-1.8 on certain situations, SDM-focus speed a little slow, Longitudinal Chromatic Aberrations).
But therefore it is more affordable, much sharper than i expected (better than my DA35 Ltd., didnt know this was possible before xD), small dimensions and not so heavy for a FF lens.
The new D FA* 50mm will be most probably the king of IQ and AF-speed but therefore it is expensive (pro-level), heavy and large.
On the other hand we have the FA 50 which is even more affordable than the DA* 55 but offers no weather resistance and so on.
So actually for me all these lenses do make sense for different kind of use cases / people.
In my case, I am happy I bought the DA* 55 since I wanted a AWR lens for hiking in all weather conditions, also I do not have unlimited funds to spend on my camera gear as its "only" a hobby.
Buying that DA* 55 has kept me some money I can save up for the roadmapped wide angle lens (hopefully DFA*) for landscape photography.
So for me it was a very good thing seeing pentax offering these newly developed DFA* lenses, which shows me they are really serious concerning there FF lineup.
I think we all can agree on that, right
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