Ricoh officially announces weather-sealed, ultra-wide zoom for Pentax medium-format cameras

posted Monday, August 4, 2014 at 9:55 PM EDT

Back when we published our Pentax 645Z preview earlier this year, we mentioned that Ricoh -- the company behind the Pentax brand -- had three more zoom lenses still on the roadmap on top of the 17 lenses (12 primes and five zooms) that were already available. Well, we now know the identity of one of those three lenses, courtesy of an announcement from the company today.

The ultra-wide angle zoom lens on the roadmap is now identified as the HD PENTAX-DA645 28-45mmF4.5ED AW SR, a weather-sealed optic with a 1.6x zoom ratio, and a focal length range equivalent to a 22 to 35.5mm lens on a 35mm camera. The new lens includes eleven dust- and water-resistant seals throughout, and a complex 17-element, 12-group optical formula. Of these, two elements are high-performance aspherics, and two are extra-low dispersion elements.

Also included are Pentax's in-lens Shake Reduction system -- said to be good for 3.5 stops of correction -- as well as its Aero Bright and HD lens coatings. Priced at around US$5,000, the HD PENTAX-DA645 28-45mmF4.5ED AW SR lens goes on sale from August 2014.

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