Alan,
I don't know if it was just a rhetorical question or not.
Until recently, I had thought that "Limited" designation was limited
[sic!] to primes lenses. And for the "*" designation zooms had to have
constant aperture and be parfocal (as opposed to varifocal).
(Of course, those criteria were in addition to the great optical and
build quality.)
The recent introduction of 20-40 f/2.8-4 lens broke both of those rules.
So, I think both of those designations now mean close to what "reserve"
means for wines: "We thought we can charge extra for this product, and we
hope this designation will help the sales".
Also, I thought the lenses had to be fast in their class. But 21mm-f/3.2
was pushing that criterion as well.
Still, I would be surprised to see any of those designations on a
f/3.5-5.6 lens.
Also, the 16-85/3.5-5.6 is suspiciously similar in the specs to
the one from Nikon. By any chance, - do they share the design?
(I.e. is it possible that the lens optical design was done by the same
3rd party? I do not see any discussion about that upon a quick search in
Google.)
Igor
Alan C Wed, 28 Oct 2015 21:26:10 -0700 wrote:
Very erudite reasoning. I also have the 18-55/55-300 combo which gives
perfectly acceptable results in most circumstances. Although I do have
other lenses, they are all inferior optically except for the Pentax M 50mm
1.7 & the Sunactinon A 28mm 2.8. The 16-85 is so highly rated one wonders
how it missed "limited" or "*" status.
Alan C
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