[Blue]

@ Samsung.

There are a couple of things about the list. First, 1987 is when Canon screwed over people that had the FD mount and a bunch of glass. Plus, all EF lenses weren't specifically built for digital. Plus, if you count up the number of primes and zooms Pentax has put out since 1987, they aren't off by much considering Canon's market share over the same time period. However, factor in the Pentax has used the K-mount since 1975, there is shift on overall numbers of lenses.

[pingflood]

Is this supposed to be information to be trusted or yet another rumor

I'd classify it as "hope" (the first of many to come part that is, the lens is certainly real enough).

[MikePerham]

SDM issues aside (and believe me, for what Pentax is charging for lenses, there should be no QC or design flaw issues at all), Pentax is making some of the highest quality glass in the business.

True! When I moved up to auto focus and purchased an MZ-S, I also moved to autofocus lenses with a set of Sigma EX glass. Good lenses, but with the move to an DSLR, I moved back to Pentax glass and now the only Sigma lens I have left is my 105mm macro ...with the new Pentax 100mm macro, I think the Sigma's tenure is about to end. I think Pentax make the best APS-C lenses out there right now.

[pingflood]

@ Samsung.

There are a couple of things about the list. First, 1987 is when Canon screwed over people that had the FD mount and a bunch of glass. Plus, all EF lenses weren't specifically built for digital. Plus, if you count up the number of primes and zooms Pentax has put out since 1987, they aren't off by much considering Canon's market share over the same time period. However, factor in the Pentax has used the K-mount since 1975, there is shift on overall numbers of lenses.

They may not have been "specifically built for digital" but lenses like my 400/5.6 perform incredibly well on even the most demanding DSLR sensors. So why care if it was intended for digital? Kind of ironic that a Pentax guy should care about it since part of the appeal there is using all the old glass...

And as far as "screwing over people" -- give me a damn break. I've posted numerous times here about just how "compatible" the competition maintains their lens/camera lineup. Why don't you try sticking a Pentax 17-70 on any body older than the K10D and see how well it autofocuses? Or the new DA55 -- oops, your body is too old to autofocus it, so sorry... Is that "screwing" your customers?

I'm not even going to go into Nikon's plethora of compatibility issues. Meanwhile, every EF lens built works on every EF camera built, metering, autofocus and all.

[Blue]

Being the owner, please quantify your statement.

Good point. We gotten way off track from the OP which wasn't really answered. I think if the OP is losing members, he needs to recruit more members than he loses to be sustainable. It could be that a Pentax dedicated forum is too specialized to maintain in Turkey. 1500 members is quite small in reality.

[Samsungian]

I hear you FD owners, like me got screwed.

I still own 1/4 of my FD System. Though all the white paint lenses are long gone I've selectively kept certain lenses I captured many memories with. I relocated most of my FD system when I added pentax dslrs and glass. I actually broke even on majority of it. Nothing I kept is worth over $600 thesedays, mostly in $250 range. I toy with the idea of getting a GH1 Panasonic to see how my remaining FD optics hold up but $1500 is alot to satisfy my FD curiousity. And I'd rather have GH1 over G1 for half the money. So I wait... for GH2 maybe?

I never thought I'd buy a Canon EOS camera.

Locally in mid 2006 I bought a like new "used" Eos-3 film body and high speed motor drive for $425 and a like new "used" 14mm Tamron f2.8 for $375. I still own them today. Eos-3 is by far the best film camera I've ever owned.

Over the next 18 months I read up on Eos System and my unhappiness with Canon mellowed with time. In March 2008 I began buying new Canon lenses, my first brand new lenses I ever bought.

@ Samsung.

There are a couple of things about the list. First, 1987 is when Canon screwed over people that had the FD mount and a bunch of glass. Plus, all EF lenses weren't specifically built for digital. Plus, if you count up the number of primes and zooms Pentax has put out since 1987, they aren't off by much considering Canon's market share over the same time period. However, factor in the Pentax has used the K-mount since 1975, there is shift on overall numbers of lenses.

[Blue]

They may not have been "specifically built for digital" but lenses like my 400/5.6 perform incredibly well on even the most demanding DSLR sensors. So why care if it was intended for digital? Kind of ironic that a Pentax guy should care about it since part of the appeal there is using all the old glass...

And as far as "screwing over people" -- give me a damn break. I've posted numerous times here about just how "compatible" the competition maintains their lens/camera lineup. Why don't you try sticking a Pentax 17-70 on any body older than the K10D and see how well it autofocuses? Or the new DA55 -- oops, your body is too old to autofocus it, so sorry... Is that "screwing" your customers?

I'm not even going to go into Nikon's plethora of compatibility issues. Meanwhile, every EF lens built works on every EF camera built, metering, autofocus and all.

I'm not going to give you a "damn break" because I was talking to Samsungian. However, you are ignorant if you think there isn't a huge wall between FD and EF. You can brag about how many brands of lenses you can use on Canon all you want because there is very limited use of FD on EF. I know, I have some of the Canon brand FD-EOS adapters. I also have Canon FD and EF (for film macro lenses) as well as FD bellows. I even have an authentic Tamron adaptall 2 mount for EOS as well as FD. I can use my Sigma 105mm macro (1.5 years old) on my K20d or my SuperProgram. Do that with any Canon AF lens on a mf body.

To summarize my point so you can keep up with it: it is easier to use most Pentax glass including m42 on Canon EOS (EF) mount than it is FD! Period. You can ferret out the exception all you want. As far as your made for "film" argument doesn't matter on Canon, then why should the F and FA lenses being made for film matter on Pentax? For the record, I have used my FA 50mm f1.4 and FA 77mm on the SuperProgram as well.

---

Last edited by Blue; 12-10-2009 at 09:50 AM.

[Wheatfield]

They may not have been "specifically built for digital" but lenses like my 400/5.6 perform incredibly well on even the most demanding DSLR sensors. So why care if it was intended for digital? Kind of ironic that a Pentax guy should care about it since part of the appeal there is using all the old glass...

And as far as "screwing over people" -- give me a damn break. I've posted numerous times here about just how "compatible" the competition maintains their lens/camera lineup. Why don't you try sticking a Pentax 17-70 on any body older than the K10D and see how well it autofocuses? Or the new DA55 -- oops, your body is too old to autofocus it, so sorry... Is that "screwing" your customers?

I'm not even going to go into Nikon's plethora of compatibility issues. Meanwhile, every EF lens built works on every EF camera built, metering, autofocus and all.

Try putting one of your EF lenses onto an F1n and see how screwed you are.
At least with Pentax, there is both forwards and backwards usability, though there are certainly some issues with newer lenses going onto older bodies.
OTOH, older lenses going onto newer bodies, which is much more the norm is pretty seamless.

Regarding Canon screwing their user base, I have a friend who was a long time Canon user. He has a raft of FD lenses, some of which were very expensive indeed.
When he went to a digital SLR, he remembered Canon for what they were, and bought a Nikon.
He won't get fooled again.
There are some known compatibility issues with some EF lenses (EF-S?) not mounting on some bodies or some such, so it isn't all roses and whipped cream over in Canonville.

[Blue]

I hear you FD owners, like me got screwed.

I still own 1/4 of my FD System. Though all the white paint lenses are lone gone I've selectively kept certain lenses I captured many memories with. I relocated most of my FD system when I added pentax dslrs and glass. I actually broke even on majority of it. Nothing I kept is worth over $600 thesedays, mostly in $250 range. I toy with the idea of getting a GH1 Panasonic to see how my remaining FD optics hold up but $1500 is alot to satisfy my FD curiousity. And I'd rather have GH1 over G1 for half the money. So I wait... for GH2 maybe?

I never thought I'd buy a Canon EOS camera.

Locally in mid 2006 I bought a like new "used" Eos-3 film body and high speed motor drive for $425 and a like new "used" 14mm Tamron f2.8 for $375. I still own them today. Eos-3 is by far the best film camera I've ever owned.

Over the next 18 months I read up on Eos System and my unhappiness with Canon mellowed with time. In March 2008 I began buying new Canon lenses, my first brand new lenses I ever bought.

Based on your list, it seems that Canon is releasing an "average" of 4-5 lenses per year.
There is 1 Canon EF lens that I would like to have,MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x. My first AF body which I still have was an EOS 10s and my second was an A2.

[matiki]

Is this supposed to be information to be trusted or yet another rumor

Head over to pentaximaging.com and see for yourself.

A tad pricey for my taste, but I'm going to try to save for it nonetheless.

[Samsungian]

I've never handled MP-E though at times I considered it, like last fall when it was $829 at B&H. I've pretty much got the macro side of things covered via canon made fd-eos macro adapter, FD autobellows, royal microscope thread mount lenses, ect. So other than it being a handy size, I pass on it.

The Eos-3 is my only eos film body. I considered selling it but the eye control focus works fine for me, my recently discovered ability to autofocus f8 via my 300mm f4 IS and 2xII Teleconverter makes me keep it. It activates image stabilization on my two IS lenses also. Well and its worth maybe a bit more than half of the price I paid. It works well so it stays. Kinda crazy, my Eos-3 build date code is from 1999 so its just 10 years old. The imaging world sure has changed in past decade.

Based on your list, it seems that Canon is releasing an "average" of 4-5 lenses per year.
There is 1 Canon EF lens that I would like to have,MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x. My first AF body which I still have was an EOS 10s and my second was an A2.

[thibs]

I'm not even going to go into Nikon's plethora of compatibility issues. Meanwhile, every EF lens built works on every EF camera built, metering, autofocus and all.

Any F and later lenses work on any later cameras, build, metering and AF etc. as well. And? Oh, you forgot EF-S
If you don't take EF-S on FF into account, don't take DA on FF into account.

Note that just for the sake of being pedantic and pulling your legs (really, I mean, I'm not serious, I just found THE counter example), being the mighty standard zoom Canon produced for the EOS700, which will not allow manual focus on other bodies... That's funny (and other manufacturers attempts are funny as well.. Pentax? Minolta? )

[thibs]

Head over to pentaximaging.com and see for yourself.

I know that lens is real, I was refering to Jogiba's point

The first of many D FA FF WR lenses to come.

[juu]

At least in Japan I knew the wokring folks were paid well and had good jobs. For that I WILL pay an extra $100/lens...but not when the engineer designing the new lenses is making $500/mo at the new HQ. Kinda tough to rationalize that away.

I guess it can be hard to accept that Hoya is simply making a bigger margin on those lenses now and not passing any savings on to you.

However, the Vietnamese workers would probably be better off if you kept buying the lenses they make instead of buying Japanese for extra $100/lens.

Strange how the world works.

And, oh, do NOT get me going on HoyaTax's MAP agreements every retailer is required to sign or no HoyaTax gear to sell, this artifically elevates prices across the board.

Agree, if they want to make sure they products are not sold cheap (which is fair) they should just raise the dealer prices. If instead they try to ensure the minimum retail price is 1.5x dealer prices then they distort the market by favoring the biggest dealers and not letting dealers compete on price and lower overheads (stifling efficiency) and thus present a worse deal to the customer.

It is a very shortsighted requirement.

You call it a Hoya thing - were the agreements different in Pentax times?

[juu]

They undervalued their (underperforming) equipment for years to try to get customers to buy the stuff, and now what they have for a customer base is a bunch of cheap @ss whack jobs

I agree and I feel like this is very spot on about me. I bought Pentax because the K100D represented the best value for money at the time.

So probably did many who bought a K-x recently.

who, had they any brains, would have bought Canon Rebels.

This part on the other hand is unfair. I don't think you should blame the customers if the company has it's positioning all over the place.

This is like, say, Honda suddenly deciding to take its brand even further upmarket and including any spare parts (assume no aftermarket manufacturers) in that. So you bought your Honda thinking the continued maintenance will be at Honda-levels but instead it suddenly costs as much as a Lamborghini. Is it your fault as a customer you didn't predict that?

I have great concerns that Hoya will simply take Pentax upmarket and make it a Leica-light to squeeze the last profit until it gets killed. I doubt you would actually enjoy it much either.

The rest of your rant trivializes the issue further. There was a comparison at the "other forums" recently showing how lens price differences in the UK and the US are all over the place, even accounting for VAT differences.

Basically, the Pentax marketing is a mess. It starts with positioning, continues with product decisions and ends with pricing.

I wonder to what part it is a attempt at the Gillette/printer manufacturer model w/ subsidized bodies and expensive lenses, but I feel Hoya are taking it too far.