Originally posted by pres589 Yeah I don't know about all that. My M50 1.4 is an all night fringe party when run wide open in the wrong situation. DA50 1.8 seems much better, DA*55 also seems very excellent at not doing the purple & green fringe thing that the older 50 1.4's did.
Choice is good and right now we've got lots. I hope this D-FA50 1.4 does well in the marketplace, in reviews, and in helping pull more into the fold. I hope the old guard doesn't scare these folks away.
I just hope they can sell enough of them to make a go of it. So far, all the DFAs apart from the 28-105 are way out of my price range, and the DFA 28-105 is too expensive (and too good optically) to be called a kit lens. My worry is Pentax putting all this money into expensive glass, they may not be able to sell. The 150-450 should be right up my alley. I would pay $1500 as opposed to 1k for 150-600 Sigma or Tamron,
At Henry's my store of choice
DFA 150-450 - 2749, over 3k with tax. 4k with a KP.
Tamron 150-600 $1,199 plus Nikon D3400 $519 or combined $1718, 2k with Tax.
This is a high risk game Pentax is playing, betting that they can cash in on the high end sales, while providing limited options for the rest of us. SO far so good, but let's hope it continues that way. They have cut out a lot of the market, especially in full frame. I guess the strategy is to continue to push APS-c for the less serious and FF for the big spenders. Which makes a lot more sense than it sounds like. If you buy a $1000 camera you buy $1000 lenses. If you buy a $3000 (CAD) camera you buy $3000 lenses, right?
Others have ridiculed Pentax users for buying $2500 K-1 and sticking a $50 piece of glass on the front. I'm guessing that's what Pentax is reacting to. They want something for the big spenders. I just want to shoot and what I have is just fine. Hence this is way more of a gamble for them. They need more market share to maintain sales of the new generation glass, they need to recruit more folks with more money than their current user base. Us old dudes can't really help out. Hell for many of us we can't even comprehend buying A K-1 and the DFAs, already over 10k and counting. If Pentax is going to be successful with the DFAs, it won't be because of us. But then in 20 years we'll all be dead and what we want won't matter.
To me this is more about product positioning in the market place, more than the needs of more than a few customers. The availability of high end glass makes your cheaper glass look like a better deal. The only thing on my horizon would be the 55-300 PLM. I want to experience that quiet operation and fast focus speed, but from an focal length and aperture perspective, I don't need the lens.
If everyone was like me the lens Pentax would be coming out with would be the 200mm ƒ4 macro. Somehow I guess they'll do better with the 50 1.4.