fair trade

Rather than deal with the issues that selling many items entails, I packed up a large group and sent them off to a dealer.  I knew that I'd make much less cash that way but I had hoped to swap for a useful lens and still have some funds to put back in the kitty for later.

image from pentaxforums.com

While they were processing  and evaluating, the lens I'd hoped for got away.  When I did hear back I'd found another interesting used lens on their used-gear page, though for more money.  After a brief promise to do better next time about the kitty, I agreed.

And so my next wide-angle lens is one that I've contemplated several times - the DA 10-17mm fish-eye.  Despite the field coverage it's small and light, fast enough, and has Pentax goodies like quick-shift.  It's not weather resistant but no extra-wide lenses are right now except the DA16-85.. and that wasn't available for the trade offer that I received.  Users state that at 17mm it's barely a distorting lens at all compared to 'straight' 17s; we'll see about that soon.  I really liked the 17mm SMC fish-eye in the past; now I'd have it again and a lot more!

Given the 10-70 and 50-135, the 20-40 is the ideal fit for me.  Not yet though, as I caved and bought the absurd-bargain DA17-70.  It's larger and heavier than I'd wish, and not truly WR (with just one seal), but it's a nice solution for the sub-$250 price.  And if rains come hard I still have the underrated 18-55WR lens.  At some point I will acquire the 20-40, but in the meantime I shall put the 17-70 through its paces to see how it compares to other copies.

Now that I look closely at the pentaxforums ratings, I see the only DA zoom lens less liked than the 17-70 is.. the WR kit lens (and the type-1 kit).  That's silly and absurd for several reasons - one of which is that the 18-55II non-WR lens gets better ratings than its optically-identical WR version!  And both are preferred over the 17-70 with f/4 at 50-70mm, a bit wider wide angle and silent SDM motor??  Yes that motor is a fine source of fear and doubt in the Pentax world, but let's be real about it.  I do recognize that value affects ratings; for its average price of $475 I suppose that the 17-70 is a 'weak' lens .. especially if I had paid full price and the focus motor failed.  Also - why am I working at this when even I want to dump this lens!

So the Big Three (plus 2) kit right now is DA 10-17fe, DA17-70, and DA*50-135
with DA18-55wr and DAL55-300 in reserve.. plus K24, A50/2, A100/4 1:2 & M135 primes
 plus the NX300 + 16/2.4, 30/2 +  K-adapter for small-cam shooting and panorama stitching!