On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Nenad Djurdjevic wrote: > reputation of F-lenses comes from people seeing faded, peeling, dirty, > poorly looked after specimens in second-hand shops. I guess the F-lenses > don't stand up as well to abuse as earlier lenses but if you find a > well-looked after, as-new, example I think you may be pleasantly surprised.
Since the lens in question hasn't been made in 15 years the chances of finding a like new speciman is low. I don't like the manual focus feel on the F lenses that I've tried. All have been consumer grade zooms, but this seems to be one too, so I'm not expecting much. A DA version of this lens could be made smaller, and the build quality of the DA 16-45 is better than any F lens that I've used and many of the FA lenses. I like the Quick Focus Clutch mechanism too. alex