Pentax Announces New DA* Lenses and Other Accessories

[Wethphotography]

That is exciting. However, I remain disappointed that these will be DA and not D FA. I am certain that in the future most DSLR's will be full-frame like Canon has developed. That will make these lenses irrelevent on future DSLRs; so much for backward compatability. I am apprehensive about investing that much money in these lenses for that reason. When you consider how quickly digital photography has advanced in the last 5 years, I would like to see products developed that have a long life and can be adapted to the changes that will be coming.
Nonetheless I will be eagerly awaiting the tests of these new lenses.

[Ed in GA]

Originally Posted by guilherme bauer

I was wondering if the AF will work on K100D and others(older) DSLR. Sure, without the SDM.

Somebody knows anything about this?

From the Pentax Web-site.

When mounted on the PENTAX K10D digital SLR camera body, the focus mode is automatically switched to SDM-assisted autofocusing*. When mounted on other PENTAX digital SLR camera bodies, the conventional autofocus mode using a camera-mounted motor is selected.

[nosnoop]

Originally Posted by Wethphotography

I am certain that in the future most DSLR's will be full-frame like Canon has developed.

I have a different view; I really do not believe FF will ever become main stream. It will remain as a niche high end market, something like the medium format of the film days. Unlike going from P&S to DSLR, the incremental image quality improvement going from APS-C to FF is not immediately obvious to a lot of untrained eyes. And APS-C sensor will remain significantly cheaper than FF sensor for many years to come.

I believe the next evolution of digital cameras will be live preview and elimination of the mirror box. Check out the high speed Sony 1/1.8" sensor - eventually, the same technology will be applied to larger sensor. This is the type of technology which can prompt a new wave of upgrades from consumers, like what we are seeing in the DSLRs today.

Or both of us may be totally wrong. The point is that we do not know what future holds or whether the same lens system can be used in the future.

[txomin]

Originally Posted by guillermovilas

The big question is ..... when ???

...when and how much

[Harald]

Originally Posted by nosnoop

I believe the next evolution of digital cameras will be live preview and elimination of the mirror box.

I hope that this will not happen very soon. Optical viewfinder has such advantages that electronic ones do not have. And electronic ones do not have any advantages I need .

Only remarkable advantage is that they are cheaper to manufacture. Not particularly in my interest. I have been enough wealthy so far (30 years) to buy these optical ones :-)

EVF techonogyn is in its infancy and it takes a long time before it is even adequately good compared to optical solution.

Lets collect pros and cons from photographers point of view (not manufacturers):

Optical:
pros: light speed update rate; as good as possible resolution (eye is limiting factor);
cons: angle finders clumsy;

Electronic:
pros: angle finder can be implemented more flexible way;
cons: what ever solution (even future ones) is used as good resolution and update rate cannot be achieved as optical one has;

What other reasons we have for one or other finder solution?

[FotoPete]

why would they elminate the mirror box and pentamirror/prism combo? Not only would I imagine it to be more costly (more electronics and another sensor) but the battery drain will be noticeably faster.

[wtlwdwgn]

It's been interesting watching the developments of these new lenses as * (star) lenses, however there are no *'s on these lenses that I can see. IMHO there should not be a * on normal production lenses as this would dilute the specialness of those lenses built to a special or star quailty. If by the * Pentax means the color, clarity, and 3-D appearance of the image quality, then by all means, but then Pentax always gave us those qualities in our older non * lenses. There should always be special quality Pentax equipment sold at greater than normal production costs for pro's and LBAers to aspire to. If these new lenses are going to be produced in the quantity and quality required to satisfy the current craving for Pentax lenses they will not be "special." They will "just" be very high quality production lenses. This is will be AOK with me.

[FotoPete]

The world's changed and there is a lot more emphasis on marketing nowadays then ever before. Why Canon and Nikon have grown so much. Why Pentax has been on the steady decline on the camera scene.

This maybe be among their last pushes to keep the company up there with the rest. Already bought by Hoya (who's profits exceeded twice that of Pentax), lens designs outsourced to tokina, what will be left that is genuinely "Pentax"? I really hope Pentax pulls it off with the K1D and these new lenses because things are already looking dim. Canon just released a killer of a professional dSLR just days ago, Olympus' already got their E-3/5 in the works and I'm sure Nikon's going to follow suit. There has been reports that Pentax ranks below all the others (expect sony) when it comes to Sigma's consideration in building their lenses.

[nosnoop]

Originally Posted by FotoPete

lens designs outsourced to tokina

Not True! A few lens were "co-developed" with Tokina. This is a very different from outsourcing. There is both design input from Pentax and Tokina engineers.

And there are also many Pentax only design like the limited lenses, 200 and 300 DA* etc.

[Bophoto]

Question; "but about the smc Pentax-DA 35mm f2.8
Why f2.8 ? The FA one was a f2.0 !"

It´s a macro lens.
Pentax gona make FA35 one more year or so,
we have to wait for a DA 35/1,4.

[nosnoop]

Originally Posted by Harald

Only remarkable advantage is that they are cheaper to manufacture.

Originally Posted by FotoPete

why would they elminate the mirror box and pentamirror/prism combo? Not only would I imagine it to be more costly (more electronics and another sensor) but the battery drain will be noticeably faster.

I agree with Harald, it will be a lot less costly to build. And this is a huge incentive for the manufacturers, don't you think? But the biggest incentive is market acceptance. I truely believe the consumers love live preview on a big screen - remember that the majority of current DSLR buyers are family snapshots shooters, not your definition of true photographers.

Mirror box is a mechanical part which is expensive to manufacture because of labor cost. And the cost would only go up with labor. For electronics parts, the cost would only go down.

EVF techonogyn is in its infancy and it takes a long time before it is even adequately good compared to optical solution.

Yes, I would expect the 1st or 2nd generations would not be very impressive. But as with any electronics, it will progress quickly and will catch up.

To be honest, having grown up with 35mm SLR, I like optical viewfinder. But I don't feel that this is where the future lies.

Optical:
pros: light speed update rate; as good as possible resolution (eye is limiting factor);
cons: angle finders clumsy;

Other cons: Misalignment of AF module causing front or back focus, Misalignment of AF focal point indicator, Dust in mirror or focusing screen (a nuisance though not affecting output), inaccurate exposure metering, inaccurate white balance (vs using the whole sensor and image area for metering), no live preview, large size camera, camera shape dictated by pentaprism and mirror box.

By eliminating the mirror box, in one fell swoop, you eliminate the cost of mechanical parts like mirror, focusing screen, pentaprism, metering sensors, AF modules... And you eliminate time and cost of the alignment/adjustment phase in the manufacturing process for AF module alignment, mirror box and focusing screen/pentaxprism alignment.

And you can have the freedom to design the camera to be in any shape you like, and potentially much smaller in size.

[FotoPete]

Damn I better save off when I get a job and rack up those old *Ist/K bodies that still have viewfinders haha.

Yea I realized that when I saw the Live View capabilities in the new Canon.

About the mechanical parts, the camera still needs the metering sensors and stuff right?

[nosnoop]

Originally Posted by FotoPete

About the mechanical parts, the camera still needs the metering sensors and stuff right?

Nope, for EVF with live view, you only need your CCD Sensor. You can meter right from the CCD sensor with live histogram. As it makes use of all 10MP (or whatever size), full RGB channels and the whole image, it is potentially much more accurate than your typical 16 segments, 200 segments or n segments matrix metering.

[nlex]

i think the futur is not FF and not APS-C but… APS-H !

it just make sense

[Adam]

If Pentax has planned to go with APS-H, they wouldn't have started producing all the DA lenses to date.

IMO, the future is in APS-C, full-frame, or medium format. Also, as I said, I believe the DA*'s have the slightly larger image circle to increase image quality on Pentax bodies and to accomodate for the tokina production line.