Pentax: Lens Development Stories

Ricoh Imaging has published two related kinds of first-party lens feature: developer interviews for recent Star-series and Limited lenses, and the older PENTAX STORY product features with engineer-interview sections.

The table follows the lenses' introduction chronology, newest first.

LensOfficial articleSurface & Stop
HD PENTAX-D FA 21mmF2.4 ED Limited DC WRDevelopment StoryD FA 21mmF2.4 Limited
HD PENTAX-DA★ 16–50mmF2.8 ED PLM AWDevelopment Story
HD PENTAX-D FA★ 85mmF1.4 ED SDM AWDevelopment StoryD FA★ 85mmF1.4
HD PENTAX-D FA★ 50mmF1.4 SDM AWDevelopment StoryD FA★ 50mmF1.4
HD PENTAX-D FA★ 70–200mmF2.8ED DC AWPENTAX STORYD FA★ 70–200mmF2.8
HD PENTAX-D FA 150–450mmF4.5–5.6ED DC AWPENTAX STORY

The Surface & Stop DA★ 16–50mm is the earlier SDM design, not the PLM lens discussed in Ricoh's article, so it is deliberately not cross-linked.