Pentax Lens Price Increase

Or with Canon mount?

I suspect it's less the quality of their lenses and more the exorbitant prices, most of which is due to image stabilisation or absurd speed.

I posited the idea on the 'merican forum that perhaps Pentax should also release it's lenses in Canon and Nikon Mounts. Opens up a much bigger market for Pentax and might even help them sell more bodies once more people know how good the lenses are.

I don't think it's competing with Canon / Nikon lenses Pentax have to worry about as much as 3rd party lens producers.

Sigma have come out with some stunning lenses over the past couple of years, lenses that have received rave reviews from test sites and users alike (the 35/1.4 is now considered the best 35mm out there bar none) and Tamron too e.g. their new 70-200 is incredibly sharp, AF is very fast and the lens supposedly only just lags a tad in some areas behind those of CaNikon, but at a much lower price point.

Sigma have also just announced an APS-C 18-35/1.8 - wow !

I would think all camera manufacturers are watching those two very closely at the moment.

https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/sigma-announces-super-fast-18-35mm-f1-8-dc-hsm-40673/p-0

Yup! very exciting. Many of us are not happy it's not being released in Pentax K-mount.

The same for the new https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/sigma-rumoured-to-announce-135mm-f-1-8-dg-os-art-lens-40745




.

Oh that's a pity. Surely the numbers are there for a simple mount change if they can make it fit the extremes of Canon and Nikon. I really wonder what Sigma have against Pentax of late.

With any luck it'll just be a case of the initial production run(s) catering for the mass (canikon) market first, before moving on to the smaller, more refined market

Maybe the numbers just aren't there. Pentax DSLR market share is small and only a small percentage of those would buy this lens new. Small squared = not worth bothering.

In the prices table on that link, the average percentage increase for the FA lenses is significantly higher than for the DA lenses. Might this indicate that Pentax expect an increasing demand for high quality full-frame K-mount lenses in the near future?

Philip

My reading of the FA price rise was that the original prices seemed ridiculously cheap compared to the UK equivilents where-as the DAs looked much closer. $585 (£420) for the 43 & $990 (£710) for the 31mm in particular!

John.

It's a different tax regime, that makes a big difference. Rises in the US will mean rises over here too.

But the 43 was less than $100 more than the 17-70, it's £200+ more here, similarly it was only $55 more than the 10-17, it's £170 more here. If it was just the tax regime, that would affect them all proportionally.

Either corporate greed or stocks are running low and they do not really want to make any more, but at the same time they do not want to discontinue these lines yet, leaving holes in the line-up. R&D and set-up costs would have been paid for, materials would maybe cost a little bit more, but Vietnamese labour is still cheap.