Originally posted by JPT I thought it was a fair review
In part, yes. But not in the conclusion, and that's the part most people will read.
The paragraph praising the lens is about twice as short as the one dissing it for LoCA. That has to be deliberate. When I write a review, I do not gloss over the negatives (and did mention the LoCA in my comparison reviews) but I don't spe d all my time raving about it. There is no balance to the comments. And to the rating.
Originally posted by JPT and DPR on the whole seems to giving Pentax/Ricoh more positive coverage recently.
That's because they hired the guys at the Camera Store.
Originally posted by JPT Unfortunately, the comments seem to be taken over by a few defensive Pentax fans. All they’ll achieve is to draw extra attention to the weaker points of the lens and antagonise the reviewers.
The reviewers at DPReview are already antagonist to the Pentax brand.
When one review's conclusions are, shall we say, arguable, that's fair. When it's a few, it gets annoying but no more. When it's systematic, occurs every single frigging time, then it's deliberate.
That trend by DPReview started even before the K-3. Either they obtain results that no one else observes, or when they can't find anything truly bad to complain about, as with the DFA50, they just latch one the one tiny flaw and blow it out of proportions.