[veato]

Ricoh announced today that Phil's divorce has been delayed until 2019. In a statement released to the media they said "by delaying the DA 11-18 until 2019 we can guarantee a few more months of marriage for Phil. Upon its eventual release though we fully expect Phil to cave in, buy the lens, then be immediately kicked out of his home by a furious wife."

[fsge]

2019 is only a few months away.........

Very true, not so much of a big deal if it is only a 6 month delay

[DimC]

2019 is only a few months away.........

... +/- 12 months

[fsge]

Ricoh announced today that Phil's divorce has been delayed until 2019. In a statement released to the media they said "by delaying the DA 11-18 until 2019 we can guarantee a few more months of marriage for Phil. Upon its eventual release though we fully expect Phil to cave in, buy the lens, then be immediately kicked out of his home by a furious wife."

I know it is not right but I decided some time ago not to discuss every single purchase with wife so that she doesnt switch into fury mode.
It was the right decision as I purchased a FA* macro since then...

[08amczb]

While I think this lens will fill a gap in the lineup, I don't think I ever would choose this instead of the Sigma 10-20 F3.5 considering the expected price differences. Altough I rearly use ultra wide lenses.

[fsge]

Sigma 10-20 is very capable, with no doubt price difference will be huge ...

[Belnan]

Well this is unfortunate but not unexpected.

[RobA_Oz]

The system still has no cheap DFA50/1.7(1.8), 85 mm lenses and no any FF wide-angle primes shorter than 31 mm. The wide angle are covered with huge and expensive zoom Tamron design DFA15-30/2.8, very old FA31/1.8 and FA35/2. It's all. It's sad and funny.

You’re right on the dearth of wide-angle lenses, of course, but the FA50/1.4 is priced currently in the sort of territory that you’d expect a sub-professional lens to be. Has there been any indication that Ricoh plans to ditch this lens?

[monochrome]

I just wonder how many people are involved in this. How easy is it to shift resources from developing one lens to another. I'd like to see the management of such a process. Mostly, what we get is an interview with one person, the chief, holding a lens and telling us how good it is. I'd really appreciate some information on - for example - why exactly this lens was delayed. Was it an optical problem or a mechanical one, what type and magnitude. Of course, I don't need insight into business secrets, but just to know how they took one hurdle.

It could well be the lens is ready but the production schedule is full due to the production issues with the D FA*50/1.4. Recall there is some kind of issue running a machine at full production speed for * quality lenses. They might have other lenses ahead in planned production

[D1N0]

Ricoh forever delays everything. But Pentax used to do that too.

[RobA_Oz]

It could well be the lens is ready but the production schedule is full due to the production issues with the D FA*50/1.4. Recall there is some kind of issue running a machine at full production speed for * quality lenses. They might have other lenses ahead in planned production

You may well be right there, but of course we can only guess at which lenses are being produced at the moment. I note that the Australian distributor has no stock of quite a number of lenses, including the D FA 28-105, D FA 70-200 and D FA 150-450, among others such as the FA 31 Limited, if that’s any indication.

[monochrome]

You may well be right there, but of course we can only guess at which lenses are being produced at the moment. I note that the Australian distributor has no stock of quite a number of lenses, including the D FA 28-105, D FA 70-200 and D FA 150-450, among others such as the FA 31 Limited, if that’s any indication.

Most lenses aren’t in continuous production, rather a batch is run and held in inventory sufficient to meet demand for many, many months - or even years. I find it highly unlikely Ricoh Imaging concurrently has no inventory on hand of those four lenses. Rather, I suspect your distributor - which is not owned by Ricoh - is accumulating stock orders until they hit a volume breakpoint.

I don’t know, but I think my supposition is more likely.

:.

[RobA_Oz]

Most lenses aren’t in continuous production, rather a batch is run and held in inventory sufficient to meet demand for many, many months - or even years. I find it highly unlikely Ricoh Imaging concurrently has no inventory on hand of those four lenses. Rather, I suspect your distributor - which is not owned by Ricoh - is accumulating stock orders until they hit a volume breakpoint.

I don’t know, but I think my supposition is more likely.

:.

A combination of both is another possibility. Checking on stocks held by other distributors would be interesting, but selling out of the high-priced lenses was the thing that caught my eye. Hopefully, it means Ricoh is selling more of them than they anticipated, but it could be more with our distributor’s order than Ricoh’s production. I’d be surprised if any Pentax lens was on continuous production.

[ffking]

Asahi Man reckons on another thread that the delay is until next Feb, probably - could have been a lot worse, given 2019

[reh321]

The system still has no cheap DFA50/1.7(1.8), 85 mm lenses and no any FF wide-angle primes shorter than 31 mm. The wide angle are covered with huge and expensive zoom Tamron design DFA15-30/2.8, very old FA31/1.8 and FA35/2. It's all. It's sad and funny.

All this complaining is sad .... but not very funny. I am a retired engineer; I have experienced pressure to get something out "now", and I have seen my boss go to his bosses to tell them their timeline is unrealistic. Designing the lens is difficult; designing a reliable production process is difficult. Let them do their jobs properly!!