[noelpolar]

Even one top notch wide prime would be a great start. 24mm would seem the logical focal length. Add well-behaved optics for landscape and astrophotography (good edges, low coma and flare resistance) and a maximum aperture of f/1.8 (a compromise between speed and compactness) and it could be a winner.

I have had the DFA15-30 for a week now, and it is proving to be a very fine lens. It is however very big and heavy, and it cost a bomb. The difficulty with filters is also an issue - the front-mounted slot-loading filter kits have just landed at my local B&M, but even they don't know what the retail price will be yet!

I have excellent primes at 20, 24, 28 and 31, and the "long" end of the DA10-17 (de-fished in Lightroom) will suffice if I really need to go wider. If I shot architecture for a living I would keep the 15-30, but given my needs I think I will return it.

Is the FA 20/2.8 worth paying $700- 1,000 for?

[Sandy Hancock]

Is the FA 20/2.8 worth paying $700- 1,000 for?

Hell no! At that price I would definitely wait.

[Enigmaticca]

There's the Sigma 17-35/2.8-4 you may want to consider. It comes up in K-mount from time to time.

[noelpolar]

Hell no! At that price I would definitely wait.

Ok....I will then.....sorta just want something compact but good around 20.....DA 10-17 for now then.

[bilybianca]

Is the FA 20/2.8 worth paying $700- 1,000 for?

The FA 20mm is one of the most expensive second hand lenses I have bought. With today's exchange rate I paid USD 437 for it. A year later I found the extremely rare original hood and paid a hurting USD 60 for that. So around USD 500, pretty expensive but worth it. Works very well with the K-1.

Kjell

[beholder3]

There already is a small, lightweight, filter capable and cheap (can be had for 300-350 EUR) solution if you are fine with stopping down for corner to corner sharpness: The FA 20-35mm F4.

See this thread for a comparison of it with the FA 20:
DigitalFotoNetz.de :: Thema anzeigen - FA 20-35 mm
There are four 100% crop images from the extreme lower left corner to pixelpeep.

The Canon crowd envied the Nikon 14-24 for years as the best FF UWA zoom on the market. The Tamron is at least as good and in many reviews it is even better. According to ephotozine Pentax made it even better. So The DFA 15-30 is probably the best F2.8 UWA on the market today. And it costs money. Surprise, surprise.

[Sandy Hancock]

Hell no! At that price I would definitely wait.

I take it back. I just trawled through my records, and I paid about $750 (AUD) for mine. The deal looked a lot better than that when I committed to it, but buyee.com were not entirely transparent....

Still happy with the purchase though.

[2351HD]

An 18mm f/2.8 or f/3.5 would be good

[noelpolar]

The FA 20 is quite pricey..... so I'm not surprised..... should have got it rather than the DA21..... but such is life. The DFA 15-30 is way to big for my use..... would never have it with me. I can't imagine anything small coming our way as a widish prime....so may just keep an eye out.... for something wide under 300grams....reasonably priced.

[Dan Rentea]

As far as Tamron lenses go, I owned the 24-70 VC for my Canon and shot with their 70-200 VC many times. They matched and easily surpassed the best Canon had to offer.

If you refer to the Tamron lens price then yes, you're right. It's the only aspect where Tamron 24-70mm and 70-200mm can easily surpass Canon lenses.

Have you shot with the K1 at high ISOs (6400 and above)? I have. If you had, you would feel differently about comparing the 5DSR to the K1. I owned Canons for 12 years. Even their best for low ISO, which was the 6D, cannot compare to the K1. Even low ISO landscape photographers shoot high ISO occasionally. I shot a bunch of ISO 6400 portrait images at dusk (my niece's birthday party). Not wanting to use flash, I dialed up the ISO to 6400. The images are magical. The shadows are so clean. 810 maybe, but I doubt 5DSR can touch that.

5DsR it's not a camera designed for sports and certainly not for high ISO (although, at ISO 3200 Canon files are more than usable). And I doubt K-1 images at ISO 6400 (with no flash) are so magical in terms of noise compared to competition.

For studio/commercial work 5DsR it is unmatched by any other full frame camera. The details and resolution from 5DsR are simply amazing. But, you can buy two Pentax K-1 at the price of one 5DsR. And yes, 5DsR is not 2 times better than K-1.

Pentax has done a great job releasing the 4 amigos (15-30mm f2.8, 24-70mm f2.8, 70-200mm f2.8 and 150-450mm f4.5-f5.6). Now he needs to come up with some fast primes, such as:
- 20mm f1.8 or a 24mm f1.8
- 50mm f1.4
- 85mm f1.4 or a 135mm f2

and it's pretty much covered. For enthusiastic photographers Ricoh need to release some f4 zoom lenses (more compact, not so heavy as the f2.8 ones and cheaper). I hope in 2 or 3 years they will cover those areas.

[Wheatfield]

The problem is the DFA15-30 is 1.6x the price of the Tamron 15-30, and the Zeiss 21 (not available in K mount) is way better than the Tamron zoom. So, I can't shoot FF uwa this year? Annoying.

You bought a K1 knowing what lenses were available. Be annoyed with yourself.

[biz-engineer]

You bought a K1 knowing what lenses were available. Be annoyed with yourself.

Thank you. I like.

I knew what lenses where available new. But I counted on reusing my the FF K mount lenses that I had, that's essentially why I bought a K1 in the first place instead of another mount (saving money by using the K mount lenses I already had). Bad luck, when I tried them, one of them was de-centered, and others had more vignetting than I expected, so, I bought a DFA24-70 as a replacement, I hadn't planned so.

[Na Horuk]

You bought a K1 knowing what lenses were available. Be annoyed with yourself.

Yeah, lol The lens lineup is known, there are even charts of the future lens release plans, and every user knows what they already have.
In my humble opinion OP (because they always seem to find so many negative things about Pentax) can go buy a Samyang 14mm and shove it way up their K-mount to satisfy all ultra wide angle FF prime needs. Or Irix, or Venus, or legacy Zeiss, Sigma, Zenitar, Mitakon, etc.

Lot of us would like new primes between 20mm and 28mm, but we deal with it. Either you get third party lenses, you get legacy lenses, or you switch systems. We even had threads about these, and Ricoh sent out surveys some months ago about wide angle primes. I would expect them to materialize 2017, 2018. In the mean time, feel free to write to Sigma, Tokina, Tamron to make their glass more available for Kmount

[biz-engineer]

Samyang 14mm and shove it way up their K-mount to satisfy all ultra wide angle FF prime needs. Or Irix, or Venus, or legacy Zeiss, Sigma, Zenitar, Mitakon, etc.

Yes, that's my plan.

There is what lenses are supposed to be compatible, and then there is the experience of using them on FF that does not necessarily lead to the same conclusion. If you get a K1, you'll see for yourself how your current lenses perform, you may have some good or bad surprises, which lead to unplanned changes in your lens lineup, even if on paper, in theory you did not need to change lenses, and what will you feel when someone else from PF will say that you should have known it so be annoyed with yourself: there is so much human intelligence in this sentence, I appreciate (not sure if we talk to strangers with this kind of tone in Europe..).

[Na Horuk]

even if on paper, in theory you did not need to change lenses, and what will you feel when someone else from PF will say that you should have known it so be annoyed with yourself: very smart answer, I appreciate.

But don't pretty much all lenses only gain resolution when used on higher resolution sensor? A lens only appears worse at 100% crops. If you make A4 prints of a photo taken with the same lens, the ones with the higher MP sensor will have more detail - even if the sensor outresolves the lens.
That said, camera like K-3 has higher pixel density. Maybe edges are a problem, but you can use CA correction, sharpening tool, and other PP things