Originally posted by alpheios I don't get all the hate. I think it's really important for a camera company to have a set of entry to mid level lenses and a set of pro lenses. More people will be buying into the brand/system if they offer more affordable glass. Not everyone can or wants to spend $900+ on prime lenses when they first buy into a new full frame system. Actually it's a pretty clever move for a company that has limited resources. The FA primes are good and can be made even better with very little money spent on development. Just have a look at what the other big companies offer on the entry level. That's often lens designs that date back to the nineties with a few tweaks and upgrades. My guess and hope is that Ricoh will do the same with the FA 50 F1.7 and maybe other lenses (20/2.8, 135/2.8?).
Of course it is a good thing to have a choice. Problem is, that most of the choice we have now in that "oldie but goldie" lenses, is used stuff, that might be ok, but can be faulty/weared out. Most 20 and so years old lenses, need CLA to work fine. 10years is typicaly a point when a helicoid lube starts to divide into fractions because of its age, that causes lens to get loose, and that might be a starting point of mechanical wear. And its sometimes pain to get it back into good shape with reasonable cost. I've posted about such refreshes few times here years ago, especially both FA's in current line are in need of that kind of action. Old FA50/1.4 should be logical choice for such treatment, lets hope maybe some of discontinued lenses will be remade into newer versions, there are brilliant designs such as old FA*85/1.4, FA*24/2, FA135/2.8 etc that could be remade into newer coating/glass, rounded aperture, quick shift and make a reasonably priced choice(up to 500$) for one that don't want to spend +1000$ on a prime and would like to get brand new products.