Originally posted by Sandy Hancock I agree. But....
....the old 16-50 had significant optical flaws, so a complete re-design was thoroughly justified.
The 50-135 is optically pretty darn good already, so a beefed up DC ring motor might be all that is needed. If it can be made to work with the current optical formula.
Exactly. This is the sort of lens that could bring me back to APS-C a bit. The 24-70 isn't that great and if this cleans up some of the flaws of the old DA *16-50 (slow SDM, tendency to flare, distortion at 16mm, etc) it would be a really awesome lens to shoot.
I am sure we need to temper expectations -- odds are that there will still be quite a bit of distortion at 16mm and odds are good as well that the lens will flare (that much glass just ends up having more flare issues than a prime), but certainly faster auto focus and little improvement in optics would give a very nice package.
As you say, the 50-135 is already very nice and if they took out the screw drive mechanism and installed a faster motor, that would probably good enough for most folks.