Originally posted by robbiec Bargain if it is going toe to toe with the Zeiss OTUS 1.4/85
, You must remember that Pentax have and should do now, regard themselves as being a premium optic manufacturer and have gone after and bettered Zeiss in the past. It is just that until recently their design philosophy has been to make smaller more discrete designs which bring a different set of compromises. It looks that under Ricoh, that the designers have been told to go for all out optical brilliance and not be constrained by size restrictions in the D FA* line which follows the previous FA* and A* series. So high resolution, high contrast (something I believe that some of the Sigma designs are weaker with) and smooth OOF rendering are the name of the game now. With these new design goals, size will increase and probably price. €2,499 might be a bit high but the OTUS 1.4/85 is in the region of €4,000 so perhaps...
Well said! Pentax certainly does have the ability to better the best of the Zeiss super premium prime lenses.
I would not be surprised if the future Pentax full-frame primes rival the Zeiss OTUS lenses in IQ, at a cheaper than OTUS price (probably
comparable to the Zeiss Milvus line of primes).
I was fortunate enough to purchase a nice Pentax A 85mm f/1.4 lens a few months ago for about $800 USD! It's a wonderful lens. How do I think the new Pentax 85mm full frame prime will compare to my my wonderful A 85/1.4? Well, of course it will have auto-focus (I prefer manual lenses that are made like a tank to less rugged AF lenses). From an IQ standpoint it will likely be a little bit better on most lens characteristics (e.g. aberations, color, contrast, vignetting, bokeh, curvature, etc.). But as with most world-class, super-premium lenses, one really has to pay a lot for their incremental increases in IQ. I won't be replacing my A 85/1.4 lens with a new D-FA* 85mm f1.4 that's 2 times the cost if the I.Q. improvement is only incremental.
But I do hope that all of the new Pentax full frame primes are wildly successful! Having a broader range of high quality, full frame lenses will prompt more to purchase Pentax full frame digital camera systems. That will serve to fund future new products across all models for us Pentaxians.