24-90

Hello all

I am looking for an upgrade to the18-55 da.

Have posted a want for a 16-45 (pentax or samsung).

Is the 24-90 also a viable alternative? If so I have £85 cash waiting- via paypal. (negotiable!)

Mac

How about my FA 28-70 f4 and you'll have £50 change left towards your next aquisition

Both are really good optically and I own both but fell for the 16-45mm because I prefer the wider angle. It depends which aspect is more important. The 24-90mm is a better portrait lens.

I have the DA16-45, FA24-90, DA*16-50, and have had the DA17-70

The bokeh on the FA24-90 is smoother than the DA16-45, IMHO. It's very close to the FA50/1.4 and DA*16-50. The DA16-45 has a busier bokeh (and personally I don't always like it!). FWIW, the DA17-70 has similar bokeh to the FA24-90 etc. I once compared the FA24-90 with the Limited 31mm - at f/8 there was practically nothing between them in terms of sharpness and colour rendition! (But the construction of the 31mm is sublime, whereas the FA24-90 is plastic).

I've seen DA16-45 going for £160-ish (especially the Samsung variant).
The FA24-90 is worth more than that (have seen it go for over £300 on eBay!) - mine's for sale at the right price

Matt

That's interesting I did a comparison of the 16-45 and 16-50 when it was released and didn't like the 16-50 as much.

FA24-90 is worth a good deal more than £85! Good luck!

I love the 16-50mm I was put off buying it for so long because of a lot of negative comments on is and the other forum, yet I personally find it a great compliment to the 50-135mm.

Ditto

Couldn't agree more. I went from 18-55> 16-45> 17-70> 16-50, and the improvement seemed obvious to my eyes at each move.

Best thing that ever happened to my DA*s were the SDM failures - when they work properly they are superb....both came back from JPS like new lenses

How much was it to repair SDM or was it warranty??..

This has developed into a lens chat so I've moved it into lenses.

I haven't seen a 24-90mm for sale for a long time. I did have one once and it's an excellent lens, but I never found 24-90mm to be useful on digital. I was going to use it with the 12-24mm, but unfortunately all my image making was around the overlap area, so I was forever changing lenses.

The 18-135mm serves me much better, and has the crisp look that I like.

60-250 was warranty and the 16-50 occurred 5 years after purchase....it was a £180 I could have done without and came close to getting a 17-70 from Jessops to keep me going while it was in for repair only to find the 17-70 had the same fault!!

The 16-50 and 60-250 combination suits me well.

If Pentax were to include a DA*35-70 1:2.8 in their lens lineup and remake the DA*60-250mm as a 1:2.8 instead of 1:4, the 16-50, 35-70, and 60-250 would satisfy 95% or more of my photographic needs.

A 35-70mm would plug that 10mm gap between the 16-50 and 60-250mm and have some crossover between both. My 50-135mm would then be redundant.

As that's not likely to happen, I'm considering the fast Sigma EX lenses instead and have already bought the 70-200mm and 150-500mm , though the latter is not in the EX range, neither is it very fast. I'm looking at the Sigma 24-70mm EX DG OS HSM now for the shorter focal lengths, which might be more readily available than the Pentax FA 24-90mm and of some interest to the OP.

Imagine how big and heavy a 60-250mm 2.8 would be never mind the cost