what i want from pentax

a longer telephoto da-limited.

something like the voigtlander 180/4, but with autofocus. compact, well built, excellent optics, and with a bit of speed taken off to keep the bulk down. it would be in keeping with their current strategy with regards to their primes, and i'd certainly be among the first to preorder one if it were announced.

anyone else think the same?

I know its not a prime but the 60-250mm meets all those requirements imo.

The 60-250 is not compact!!! it is bigger and heavier than the DA*300!

If you want compact the DA*200 is very good and fairly small and light or the DA*50-135 which is compact and wonderful!

Define compact .. the 60-250mm is smaller than my 100-300mm, smaller than my 70-200mm and smaller than my 300mm f2.8.

Its actually not that much bigger than the 200mm.

Personally I have no problems carrying it around.

The 50-135mm is not 180mm or anywhere near it so really its not even an option.

Depends if you want the FoV of a 180 f4 or an actual 180 f4...

@ Mike-P

i take the 60-250mm to be way too big. i did mention the 180/4 cv as an example of what i want.

@ Tyr

i want an actual 180mm or 200mm lens at a speed about f/4. i don't want to start confusing things by talking of crop factors etc., so i always talk in terms of the actual focal length of the lens.

i already own a 200/2.8. taking one stop away would bring the bulk down very considerably. something like a modern version of the old 200/4 m-series, or the 150/3.5 type size. that sort of thing as a limited would be great.

not only is it what i want, but it is consistent with a large part of pentax's design philosophy with what they started with the da limiteds. it just makes a lot of sense to me for them to release such a lens.

I do think there's a gap in the market for a sanely priced 200mm f4 or thereabouts - how does £200-£250 sound? Samyang are able to make an excellent 85mm f1.4 for about this much after all.

Pentax appear to have decided that zooms are good enough for those of us not willing or able to stump up £500 or more for a single lens, aside from the 35/2.4 they just don't seem interested in making primes for the serious amateur on a budget.

Sadly not, Canon have a nice 200 F2.8 L for under £700.

Lack of Primes could be something to do with consumers wanting all singing all dancing super zooms with mediocre IQ.

The days of Pentax doing anything for people on a budget are pretty much gone now I would say. When I started with them a few years back they were the brand for anyone wanting lenses at sensible prices but that is in the past.

You only have to look at the new 18-135mm.

i don't mind pentax's high prices for the da limiteds and da* lenses. they are quality. and, in the case of the da-limiteds, utterly unique.

Same here, all the lenses were reasonably priced. They became very expensive but are coming down a little. I can remember getting the DA*300 for about £800 and it went to over £1500 at one point!

Nothing wrong with Pentax glass, it is all very good and produces pleasing bokeh. Cheap Canon lenses with 5 flat aperture blades are just pentagons galore.

Pentax was always bad at marketing. They thought the way to compete with Canon was by way of low prices. That's a reasonable strategy when you have high volumes, but not when you don't.

Hoya realised that there was a market for Pentax that placed emphasis on design, quality, and ergonomics, as opposed to price.

In the K5 we now have the market-leading enthusiast's DSLR, and a range of lenses that, except at the top end, provides for almost everybody.

Sadly, it would be unreasonable to expect low prices too.

G

I have the Pentax-A 200mm f4 and to be honest the only thing missing is AF. It'll knock spots off a modern 200mm zoom and cropped images from it are almost as sharp as full size ones from my Pentax-F 100-300mm, not bad considering it's 100mm shorter!

There's no reason for Pentax not to offer budget lenses as well as the top of the range models. A lot of "premium" brands also offer entry level products and it does them no harm at all.

We don't need more "Limited" lenses. That price level is well catered for. What we need are more 35/2.4s to tempt people over from other brands. The 35mm makes a lot more sense than the cheap 50mm that CaNikony users can buy as it's a more useful focal length on cropped sensors.

I distinctly remember reading excerpts from an interview with someone high-up at Hoya saying that they wanted to keep Pentax expensive. Sorry, but that is commercial suicide. LGB and Marklin model trains both tried that and effectively went bankrupt due to cheaper competition pulling the market from under them (and indifferent quality control in their cases). For every LX Pentax sold in the '80s there would have been a lot more MV1s and MGs finding buyers, which in turn supported the production of slower sellers.