Photoclubalpha

This site lists the SAL-1870 and SAL-55200 as "Archived" and places them apart from the rest of Sony's lenses. When you click on the lenses, a little "" sign shows up next to them.

http://www.sony.com.sg/productcategory/ ... ew/retired

I guess we'll be seeing replacements as soon as the next bodies roll out!

Discontinuing the 18-70 is a dumb move. Make it better if need be, but having that extra bit of reach gives newbies another reason to go Sony over the competition.

When trying to differentiate your product from the others, every additional 'bonus' of your model over the others helps you win sales.

Dusty

Discontinuing it doesn't mean taking it out of circulation or dumping what's in their warehouses, nor does it mean yanking it out of the kit's that are already boxed and bundled. This lens will stay in circulation for a long long time and, if the replacement isn't favorable, the market will still be flooded with used copies. I, for one, am all for a replacement, even with a shorter zoom range, if it is of better optical quality. How about a filter ring that doesn't turn?

Nothing wrong with sony adding in lens motors to the kit lenses. However, I would urge them to not even think about doing a D40 and ripping the in body AF motor out of low end bodies, that won't go down well, in fact it would spell the goodbye kiss for some folks.

For some reason sony seemed to mess up the 18-70mm, no idea why. Let's hope the new 18-55mm is good, however, it's lame and boring to follow exactly what everyone else is doing, far better IMO to have made a better 18-70mm kit lens, it's got "we are a bit different about it". This is my biggest gripe with Sony as a whole, yes in many ways they have done a good job, but they cannot seem to decide if they are the "new minolta" (aka a continuation of their ideas), or if they should "do their own sony thing"

Examples of this are:
No on-board flash A900
Multi tier flash system esp with regards ratio and the 58 flash, only top bodies get full functionality.
Design choices for bodies and lenses (everyone hates the ribs on the lenses!)
Odd choices for new lenses, 30mm macro, the lens nobody was ever thinking/talking of!
Refusal to do jpeg processing properly (how about hitting the colour noise, not the luminance)
A sony blog that has lots of posts, and almost no replies.

Starting to wonder if we have a bunch of folks who really don't listen to users, and stubbornly stick to their own guns. I believe the fragmentation of the flash system is a disaster for multi body users.