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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Pentax 560mm f5.6 announced (1 Viewer)

Many of us are eeny'. Asahi-Pentax having so many groundbreaking contributions to phototography over the years, is with great anticipation. Spotmatics, lens coatings...that autofocus lens in early '80s
(well OK maybe not ALL those ideals)
Can only hope "concrete" is a figure of speech....
Gonna be tough(er) on em this time. Shot a couple of LX for along time now,
hard to please, but know they can get it right when they put their minds to it.

Edit: been passing time waiting for intro of 560mm F/5.6 trying to figure out what the heck I did last fall when swapped a roll of 200 ektachrome from LX to an old ZX-L and double exposed tiger swallowtail on tornado damaged feeder in backyard. Cant figure out how film didnt register properly, for life of me, could use little more time.
I notice that the last post in this Pentax thread (as well in the entire Cameras and Photography Pentax Forum) is from 4 June 2012. Oughtn't Pentax to hurry up a little with their 560mm lens as even their other threads have nothing new? Pentax customers are relatively undemanding, being grateful for the crumbs thrown to them by the company, owing to their relatively low prices. And they have a core of loyalists who are ready to draw swords at any slight from supporters of the competition. Pentax should do their bit and oblige by producing something in the +400mm category to justify the customer loyalty which is evidently theirs.
Chhayanat
 
I notice that the last post in this Pentax thread (as well in the entire Cameras and Photography Pentax Forum) is from 4 June 2012. Oughtn't Pentax to hurry up a little with their 560mm lens as even their other threads have nothing new? Pentax customers are relatively undemanding, being grateful for the crumbs thrown to them by the company, owing to their relatively low prices. And they have a core of loyalists who are ready to draw swords at any slight from supporters of the competition. Pentax should do their bit and oblige by producing something in the +400mm category to justify the customer loyalty which is evidently theirs.
Chhayanat

Thats up to folks at corporate. Pretty much a curiousity for me, nothing more. Does take time for tooling of production lines, QA testing, Inventory to build to sufficient numbers before shipping and so on. Die hard, core support for Pentax arent so much the APS shooters, its professionals shooting medium format gear. Its their base, its been there for awhile and will continue to be so.
 
Nice one... for those who cannot wait they can get the very similar Borg 125 or the Black Borg 77EDII apochromatic Refractor telescope. Borg has indeed been in on developing this lens.
 
It's currently appearing on UK retailer sites priced at £5,999 .....ouch!
I'll wait and see how any reviews go and if it comes down (a lot?) in price before even considering it. The Sigma 500mm F4.5 is available at around £3,750, a price drop recently so I wonder if it is getting an update soon. It sure does present a very good alternative to the Pentax long glass though, although I still can't see meyself getting the credit card out. I'll keep buying the lottery tickets in the meantime!
 
Does this lens have a SWD motor? If not the Sigma 500mm looks like a steal! If Sigma updates this lens with HSM, it would be a killer!
 
Does this lens have a SWD motor? If not the Sigma 500mm looks like a steal! If Sigma updates this lens with HSM, it would be a killer!

I wonder, if Sigma does update the 500mm F4.5, will it even be available any longer in Pentax mount? Many updated lenses are no longer available in Pentax fit, which is a great shame as there seem to be plenty of Pentax users wishing they were.
 
WEX & SRS are now listing it at £6,000.

The recently reviewed K5 II with its mass of weather seals does seem attractive for a birding APS-c body, but I'll be sticking with Canon where there's a range of birding lenses, and more affordable used equipment around as well.
 
WEX & SRS are now listing it at £6,000.

The recently reviewed K5 II with its mass of weather seals does seem attractive for a birding APS-c body, but I'll be sticking with Canon where there's a range of birding lenses, and more affordable used equipment around as well.

Pity, 'coz Pentax is the only company apart from Canon that makes an autofocus 400mm 5.6 with in-body SR too. Great 'lil lens, but no longer in production. Makes me wonder why Pentax decided to abandon so many of its FA* autofocus lenses from the film era, the diversity of which easily rivaled Nikon and Canon!
 
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