Or alternatively
https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/da--16-50-sdm-failure-55356

Sadly I have become a member of the club
It's been suffering for a few weeks and I've pondering whether to send it for repair. However after reading article about the lens not liking being left idle I decided to mount it and see if I could "wake it up". I gave the focus ring some good fast twisting manually to cover it's full range and then started pointing it to the lights on my ceiling trying the focus then the floor to focus there and suddenly it lurched back into life
It does seem that the the lens doesn't like to be left unused for long periods - SDM = Sleepy Dozy Motor
I wonder how much has been spent over the years on unnecessary repairs

Number 4 great image

I am pretty sure it will be covered under tariff 7 at £131.99. I've sent a 70-200 f2.8 off to them twice for a friend and both times they charged tariff 6, the second time they even changed the whole barrel.

Surely that lens comes under tariff no.7 at £131.99 at Sigma

Great shots Neil, which lenny did you use for these? And were they manual focus?

A superb walkabout lens, I love mine

2nd vote for a 50mm f1.7 straight or reversed

Add the new 1.4x HD TC to the DA*300 they make an epic pairing. These were taken in some pretty poor light, and this way you'll save yourself a fair amount of money

It's only stupid if you don't use it, I have for the Astrotracer function and it is superb, and as far as I know only Pentax offer it.
The key to good Astro photography is length of exposure, with the Astrotracer you can have an exposure of up to 5 minutes depending on focal length. A Canon will give you a max of 20 seconds at 20mm. Imagine how much more info your sensor can absorb with a 5 minute exposure...
Most of these had an exposure of 90secs One of them, the M42 gas cloud, is 420mm and 20seconds!
These are all 90 second exposures and I could have comfortably gone much longer.
No faffing around with stacking and dark frames, and I didn't need thousands of pounds worth of extra equipment including a motorised computer controlled arm to follow the rotation of the earth.
Also other manufacturers have GPS, if Pentax didn't they'd be left behind.