Dear Pentax

anomaly · 11-30-2007, 08:04 PM

This is a suggestion thread.

It is not intended as a guessin' thread. Or a supposin' thread.. it is a suggestin' thread.

I am encouraging everyone to promote any good ideas they have for products that Pentax could develop and features they could add to their current line.

I'll start:

1. Weather sealed professional flash units. These could use a propriety radio triggering system which would allow control of the light outputs remotely from the camera ( assuming they are off camera). Faster recharge times (2 seconds or less) with a battery pack and a higher guide number if you please.
I mean come on.. you offer me all of that in a flash unit that is 500-700 bucks? My mouth will water and my wallet will open.

2. Expansion Grip. Someone suggested this before and I thought it was a great idea, you could come up with some innovative features to include in a grip. Some suggestions:
- A trigger for those flash units I just talked about
- Wifi connectivity to a computer
- Battery power, not just a battery compartment. When the primary battery in the camera is almost depleted, it would switch to grip power.
- Additional memory card slot for dual writes
- GPS
- Backup hard drive. Think about that! You would be able to go on vacation and be backing up all of your RAW files on a 120gig hard drive in the grip.
- Focus assist laser. This might be alittle tricky though.

Well that is what I have thought of thus far, I know alot of you have very good ideas, feel free to come and share. Hopefully someone from Pentax will see it. If you think your idea is really good you can send it to Pentax, I know I will.

*Peter Zack* · 11-30-2007, 08:16 PM

The grip already does this on the K10D. I do wish it had the OK button on it though to change ISO in P and M modes.

Another thing? Add a sensor to the mirror bucket and have TTL flash metering again like the *istD series has. Then bring back the AF400T's in an upgraded version. Best flash they ever made.

Of course put the FA* series and A* back on the shelf (yeah I know I'm dreaming)

anomaly · 11-30-2007, 08:23 PM

What does the grip do already? I have kinda relegated that to the farthest reaches of my budget.

*Peter Zack* · 11-30-2007, 08:52 PM

The grip has several features. It has a shutter button and DOF preview just like the camera. A green button for exposure. An AE-L button. The front and rear E dials. The base holds a spare SD card, F remote and the (active) extra battery.

It's also weather sealed. I never take the grip off and wouldn't use the camera any other way especially with a longer lens.

clawhammer · 11-30-2007, 08:57 PM

I second Peter Zacks cry for the FA*s. That being said, a true infrared autofocus system that worked perfectly no matter the light conditions would be nice.

anomaly · 12-01-2007, 06:21 AM

I think a Pentax "Classics" line or something like it would be great. They have all those great FA lenses there, the designs ready and people are begging for them.

They could use the exact same lens design and digital coatings and rebadge them as some sort of special line of DFA lenses.

Low cost to develop, great returns.

anomaly · 12-01-2007, 07:45 AM

And by all means.. if they are going to make another grip that is mountable to the K10D, put a PC jack.

ricosuave · 12-01-2007, 02:39 PM

or get a wi-fi sd card.

Andrew Faires · 12-01-2007, 04:15 PM

1-A cold-weather grip. Basically the same as the grip that's here already, but instead of the battery being in the grip, a cord would run from the grip to a battery-pack that could be kept in your coat.

2-DA* 135=400mm f/4.0 lens that's fully sealed and uses SDM

3-Fully sealed flash unit with a GN of 60.

4-dual SD card slots

5-silent mode: Slow the FPS if need be, but make the sound of the mirror/shutter as close to in-audible as possible for photographing wildlife that might otherwise get spooked by camera noises.

6-ISO 25 & 50

7-make a limited series camera body to compliment the limited line of lenses, ie, not nessessarily perfomance driven, but rather a luxury class of camera.....compact, all metal body, S.A. & M modes only.

*Canada_Rockies* · 12-01-2007, 09:27 PM

Originally Posted by Andrew Faires

1-A cold-weather grip. Basically the same as the grip that's here already, but instead of the battery being in the grip, a cord would run from the grip to a battery-pack that could be kept in your coat.

2-DA* 135=400mm f/4.0 lens that's fully sealed and uses SDM

3-Fully sealed flash unit with a GN of 60.

4-dual SD card slots

5-silent mode: Slow the FPS if need be, but make the sound of the mirror/shutter as close to in-audible as possible for photographing wildlife that might otherwise get spooked by camera noises.

6-ISO 25 & 50

7-make a limited series camera body to compliment the limited line of lenses, ie, not nessessarily perfomance driven, but rather a luxury class of camera.....compact, all metal body, S.A. & M modes only.

1. The SF-1 had an accessory grip that had a 1 meter cord for 4 AA batteries that went into the pocket. I still have mine, and the SF-1 it fits. When this winter hits (and it is supposed to the the coldest in 10+ years), I'm ready! Now, if I could get one for my K10D ...

2. You've got my vote for that lens! It might take me a while to get the $$$, and I will need a new backpack - the one I have is not big enough with those fat DA* lenses in it - I've had to put my 70-210/4 A lens in the outside pouch on my LowePro Trekker. (In the soft lens case for my 50-135 DA*).

3. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! And with a stainless steel foot so it won't crack.

4. I'm with you. I shoot RAW - pretty short number even with 4 Gb SanDisk Extreme III.

5. I've never noticed troubles with the noise. Wildlife doesn't seem to consider it a danger. Some birds look, but if I don't move, not a problem. I have one great (film) series of a song sparrow singing that I took from about 5 meters out with the MZ-S and 400/5.6 M lens. Like our canary, he just tried to outshout the camera. I generally photograph within parks; perhaps the wildlife is just used to nuts like me.

6. Dunno. 100 seems pretty clean to me.

7. I don't have any interest in this one, but perhaps others ...

IMNSHO. Great list of Iwannas.

wlachan · 12-01-2007, 10:48 PM

- more intellgent P-TTL flash
- seperate infrared light for low light AF
- faster and more powerful AF
- narrow AF sensors instead of wide sensors
- genuine predictive AF tracking in AF-C mode
- AF won't be fooled by contrasty background
- magnesium alloy bottom plate
- accurate AF & meter sensors alignment
- quiet mirror/shutter
- weathersealed the LCD <grin>
- keep the K10D battery configuration
- make BF/FF history?
- Oh yeah send me a brand new FA*85/1.4 too

grhazelton · 12-06-2007, 02:34 PM

As a happy user of the K10D and of the LX, how about:

In addition to the other great ideas above:

TTL exposure for flash, like the LX.

We already have mirror lockup for sensor cleaning, and with a 3 second delay using the remote, let us have real mirror lockup. Its needed for wildlife closeups, especially waiting for the d****d wind to stop so you can make the exposure.

Along with that, how about TTL exposure, read off the sensor, like the LX?

Or, how about a digital back for the LX??

While I love my K10D, I do miss 5 minute exposures by moonlight with the LX.....

*WMBP* · 12-06-2007, 04:34 PM

Originally Posted by Andrew Faires

1-A cold-weather grip. Basically the same as the grip that's here already, but instead of the battery being in the grip, a cord would run from the grip to a battery-pack that could be kept in your coat.

2-DA* 135=400mm f/4.0 lens that's fully sealed and uses SDM

3-Fully sealed flash unit with a GN of 60.

4-dual SD card slots

5-silent mode: Slow the FPS if need be, but make the sound of the mirror/shutter as close to in-audible as possible for photographing wildlife that might otherwise get spooked by camera noises.

6-ISO 25 & 50

7-make a limited series camera body to compliment the limited line of lenses, ie, not nessessarily perfomance driven, but rather a luxury class of camera.....compact, all metal body, S.A. & M modes only.

Andrew's is one of the best lists I've seen.

I especially like #2 (DA* 135-400 f/4 -- if they release it, I'll buy one so long as it's not too much more expensive than my DA* 50-135 f/2.8). #4 (dual SD card slots) would also be fantastic. I don't care much about very low ISO (#6) or the Rich Hobbyist edition (#7). But I would really like #5 (silent mode). I don't care about scaring away wildlife, but whenever I shoot inside a church I really wish the camera were quieter. I know that it's hard to muffle the sound of the shutter/mirror, but apparently some other cameras (like the Canon 5D) are much quieter than the Pentax K10D.

In addition to the above, my wish list would also include:

-- either better P-TTL or conventional TTL

-- Better/faster auto-focus

-- Ability to shoot DNG compressed, or even better, have a choice between DNG compressed and DNG uncompressed. Right now I shoot PEF to get more images on a card, then I convert to DNG in Lightroom and the resulting DNGs are smaller than the original PEFs. Would like to skip the PEF middleman completely. Uncompressed images seem to allow you to shoot a teeny bit more quickly.

-- I'd like a black and white review mode, where I can see the images on the LCD in black and white by default without having to convert them individually. I don't actually want to have a camera that only captures black and white data -- I like that color channel info -- but I would like to have a quick idea about whether shots I am taking with b&w conversion in mind are actually going to look good that way. Saw this mentioned somewhere else recently and I rather like the idea.

-- Although I have often defended the K10D against the charge of being unusably noisy at higher ISOs, I still would like better high-ISO performance. I don't care about going to 3200 as much as I do about being able to take pretty good shots at 1600.

What I'd really like is perhaps not deliverable: I'd like Pentax to do something that makes me stop wanting a full-frame camera.

Will

-spam- · 12-06-2007, 06:47 PM

Besides bringing the FA* lenses back into production, perhaps implement some sort of weather sealing on the currently available ones like teh 50 1.4 and 35 f2.

A weather sealed flash would be nice too, like others have said.

Also, putting an AF button on the battery grip would be a handy addition. Whats the point in having it on the body and being able to remove AF from the shutter button if there isnt one on the battery grip to use? Always seemed kind of strange to me.

*barondla* · 12-08-2007, 06:05 AM

1. Would like an insert designed to take aa batts in grip
2. Larger buffer. 3fps is fine but want to be able to shoot more than 9 raw.
3. uncripple the KAF mount.
4. Add ttl flash
5. Fix P-ttl to work closer than .7m. My Olympus E300/ fl36 flash does this with ease.
6. Bring out some lens bigger than 300mm!!!! How hard can this be? Doesn't even need to be super fast. Just good quality. Its also a crime theres no 200 mm macro.
7. live view

If they do what I think they might (live view in viewfinder and on back lcd), you will have a perfectly quiet camera option with SDM lenses.
thanks
barondla