New Pentax FA 100mm f2.8 WR D Macro lens was leaked - now official (updated)

The Pentax FA 100mm f2.8 D Macro Weather Resistant (WR) lens is now officially announced! The price will be $850 in the US market with a January 2010 release, and 700 euro in Europe. This is roughly $250 more than the current non-WR Pentax lens. See bottom for more on price-comparison.

Read all about it
+ Yvon's Pentax blog
+ Focus Numerique - with nice diagram
+ Pop Photo
+ Imaging Recourse
+ dpreview
+ dpnow

Update from Japan: 1,000 units per month
The Japanese announcement is out and there we learn that it will come out in Japan in late December 2009 and its initial production output is 1000 units per month (see digitalcamera.jp and DC Watch)

The Leak
There was a timing error at AP UK, and the news of a new Pentax 100mm f2.8 FA weather-resistant (WR) lens came out a little bit early. This follows Canon's recent announcement of their own new 100mm macro lens.

The original story was removed (link not working), but a discussion in the AP UK forums says the official announcement will come at 10pm UK time (world time) - via dpreview forums.

Regular Pentax-world commentator Roland Mabo has this to speculate-say about the new lens.

And if you can't wait, a regular PFF contributor, "OGL" in the PentaxForums points to a complete leak of the press release at pentax.ru (translation). And here is a giant picture of the lens.

Price is not revealed, but the lens will weigh 340g, take 49mm filters, have 9 elements in 8 groups, 30cm minimum focusing distance, 1:1.

This also opens up the debate of whether the announcement of a new 35mmFF lens may (or may not) hint at a 35mm full frame DSLR coming up.

With the price of the new lens being an unknown, let's look at the existing non-WR 100mm f2.8 macro from Pentax. Prices at Amazon show a best price of around $600, while the trusty Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro goes for $400 after a $60 mail-in rebate. So what price can the new lens have in order to convince photographers to go for WR and new-ness instead of the existing options?