Ah OK, I assumed B&H had it because it was listed as "In stock"... guess they just have the same problems so many other retailers seem to have in showing whether they have stock or not

I'm surprised there's none available anywhere on the web, as there were a couple of stores here in the UK selling them until fairly recently. As for eBay, actually I would say 3 selling at once does qualify as "not rare", when compared to many other lenses which tend to appear rarely, and disappear quickly when they do. Also you may be aware that the 35mm f/2, though discontinued by Pentax, is now also sold by Samsung (as a "Schneider" lens), so is actually available new if you don't mind having a different name on an otherwise identical lens.

So I wouldn't consider it hard to find, although I can understand why it seems that way... What I should really have said was that it's not rare "by Pentax standards"...

As others have said, it isn't exactly rare but it is discontinued and not as easy to find as a current lens. That said, B&H do apparently have it in stock now. Still a saving of $25 is better than nothing.

Anyway it probably wasn't a great deal for a used one, but having paid £200 for mine I still don't think you can complain at paying $275... not that I want to turn this into another post about how we get ripped off over here

As for quality, it's a very good lens, and as niblue and George have said it's a very good 'standard' lens for your dSLR; a '50mm equivalent' with the advantage of still being a great moderately wide lens on film too. My experience has been that as well as having a great peak performance, it's very good even wide open; more so than the 50mm lenses which are best stopped down a bit more, so the max aperture being 'only' f/2 is not a problem. It's one of my favourite lenses and gets a lot of use on both my film and digital bodies.

While it seems like everyone else except me has completely given up on using 35mm film ever again, for me at least the fact that the Cosina-Voigtländer has an aperture ring and covers the whole 35x24mm format is a fairly significant advantage over the DA.

Actually considering how much fun I have desperately trying to see anything through Canon's viewfinders, I'd say they were just conforming to health & safety laws and doing Canonites a favour by not giving them manual focus lenses

If you're considering the Sigma 70-300mm I'd suggest taking a look at the Tamron 70-300 as a possible alternative. I've tried both and found the Tamron to be better. That it is better is of course just my opinion, but certainly the Tamron is at least as good, and costs less.

Plus Sigma are just being cheeky calling theirs "APO".

Er... no I can't possibly see how they are Schneider designs. Unless Schneider designed the 35mm f/2 several years ago, which seems... unlikely. Seems fairly obvious to me: Samsung slap the Schneider name on their lenses because it looks better than calling them Samsung lenses. Of course it doesn't matter who designed them as long as they're good... but the "Schneider are designing Pentax lenses" theory seems an odd one to me.

PM sent requesting more info

If you don't plan to use it for film too, how about the 70mm limited? Cheaper than the 100mm macro and a lot cheaper than the 77mm.

Hehe... you're not alone there. I did just see the Sigma (DG version) go on another Pentax forum, a day after it was listed. I believe it went for near the price of the new improved closer-focusing HSM one for the other mounts

Personally I still much prefer Pentax overall, especially their camera bodies with the build and feature set they have for the price... and I still have that fondness for Pentax glass (up to and including the FA series anyway)... it will really take a lot to make me switch, so I enjoy using what I can, while I also continue complaining about the stuff I can't get until I can.

On the other hand if you need long fast glass, e.g for important events or professional work, then I can see you might not have much choice. But if you can, I would wait until the New Year at least... the latest rumours have something happening in January... also Tamron's own 70-200mm f/2.8 is also (again unconfirmed) said to be coming before too long. So to my mind it's still worth waiting a bit longer.

In the meantime, the only current option I can think of is the new DA* 50-135mm f/2.8. It does look very good, as long as you are happy with a 70-200mm "digital equivalent" instead of a 70-200.

Sorry, no. I'm sure some Chinese eBay sellers have an adapter (they have ones for virtually any combination regardless of how well they actually work)... but you would lose infinity focus.

Plus the obvious: You'd have no autofocus and would have to use stop-down metering... which would rather defeat the point of having the fast lens