I agree completely...why the hell is SLII? What was wrong with SLI series?
Maybe better coating?
That's not so bad for those who don't own them ;-)
An entry level macro might be interesting for beginners in this field, for reasons of price.
Any of these two would tempt me a lot (to subsitute my Tamron SP 2,5/90, that is suffering some mecanical problems with diafragm-control)
No need for AF with macro lenses.
Don't look too much into this. They've always released C, N and P mounts in those series.
I tihnk it says more about how similar the Nikon and Pentax mounts are. Once you've got a Nikon version of the lens, it's only a matter of swapping out the bayonet and a couple of bits of the aperture stop-down mechanism to get a Pentax mount lens. If you can add another mount with very little extra engineering work, why not do it?
What would they care about the (perhaps inflated) market value of lenses they aren't making or selling anymore? Reintroducing the original SLI variant would have much the same effect, too; used lenses wouldn't sell for more than the new ones.
I don't think the 90/3.5 was ever a massive seller in the SLI version, either. However, I fear the market value of my copy will now go down :-( Still, worse things happen at sea!
Agreed, although I think that the branding department probably wants to see all lenses of the same line look the similar to each other.
The main difference concerns the Nikon mount, the SL lenses were Ai while the SLII lenses have the CPU to communicate lens aperture info back to the camera.
No close focus? That's certainly not what it says on the tin ...
Perhaps I should have been a bit more specific: for manual focus lenses, there's not much difference. For AF lenses, it's more involved as the AF mechanics or in-lens motor circuitry likely also need redesign, as does the other in-lens electronics.Pass the word to Sigma and Tokina, will ya?
It is an excellent lens in pretty much every regard. It's very sharp, has essentially no CA (both lateraly and longitudionaly), good contrast and color rendition, and handles very nicely. It's reasonably compact for a long lens, and fast enough for most uses in decent light (but not, of course, great for e.g. indoor sports). I've taken some of my very best pictures with the 180mm f/4, although admittedly the subject and lighting has more to do with it than the lens!
The SL1 version is currently available new from Cameraquest.com (Stephen Gandy).I have the new Zeiss 100MP and love it. I'm looking for something
to complement my 3 Zeiss lens setup - 21, 35 and 100MP.
It seems like the CV 180 would really fit. Now, they have to make one
Except that in the Pentax world, the old ones were KA and the new ones are ... KA.
And the 20/3.5 is the only one that has no SLI twin. The rest are identical optically to their SLI counterparts. And since they're all KA lenses, I stand by my original comment. They need to release a different focal length or autofocus versions of existing lenses to get my interest. I'm not going to buy a 90/3.5 to go with my 90/3.5. The Nikon customers can go for their lives, but if they're going to release a new lens in KA mount that's exactly the same as an old lens in KA mount, what's in it for me?
