New Walkabout lens recommendation

I would be surprised if they go to low end bodies without the screw drive in the next year or so.

This is because the low end bodies tend to be the smallest, and therefore pair well to the screw driven Limited pancakes.

Also even once the 17-70 comes out there will be very few SDM lenses available, and almost all of them will be very expensive.

If they want to drop screw drive support from the cameras, they'll need to build up a decent range of inexpensive SDM lenses, at least covering the typical newbie range of ~18-200.

I notice a couple other new lenses on the roadmap have SDM, like the 50mm replacement. Not sure if it's a good thing that these drop the screw drive. backwards compatibility is one of the things Pentax has been known for.

My mark II is sharper at the borders than my mark I (which I have now sold). Sorry I didn't keep copies of my test pics. Hopefully there will be some professional reviews soon.

The 18-55 II is still a cheap lens to manufacture so it keeps the price of the kit down. I'm not sure the average punter would appreciate the value of a better lens enough when comparing the price of the whole kit to the competition's. Also it's nice to have such a compact lightweight option.

I may be a nitwit, but I'm not on DPReview.

G

Have I missed something? Are you saying that these lenses won't work with non-SDM bodies?

G

Just had a look there, couldn't see any mention of the 16-50. Is there a review of it on there?

Dan

So far all the SDM lenses work with the screw AF drive, how do you know it won't be the case in the future?

Dan

The info on this lens has been leaked:
http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/205348-post47.html

Nice food too.

No. The nearest, I think, is the Nikon fit of the Tokina version: http://tinyurl.com/2waxtm

If that's true, I'm astonished.

G

I think they did test one but the lens was a duff example I hear, so they opted not to report the findings until they had a better lens to try....

that's what I heard...

Yes, I think Photozone had difficulty finding a good DA* 16-50mm, same as other folk. The info is buried in their forums, which I don't read that often.

The info on the 17-70mm was repeated from at least one other source. I guess removing the screw drive saves manufacturing costs and only affects compatibility with older bodies. All of a sudden the K100D Super makes a lot more sense. I always wondered why it was worth releasing an entire new model with what would appear to be very modest upgrades.

But yes, I'm still hoping that it is not true!