Originally posted by BigMackCam With respect, the thread was always going to go this way - at least, to some extent
However much some folks might appreciate the potential benefits of KAF4 and lenses with full electronic control (I think I do), some - not least, SDM-driven DA* lens owners - also feel that the more technology you place inside the lens, the more there is to go wrong with it - and if the components are proprietary and/or have a limited production scale and lifecycle, future repairability - which is almost certain to require service-center involvement - might be less assured (then again, it might not... but we don't know). Of course, that situation already exists with our camera bodies. With KAF4, it may be increasingly relevant to the lenses too.
As I said previously, progress isn't entirely without potential costs... but that doesn't mean I'm unsupportive of the move to KAF4. Quite the contrary. In terms of precision, functionality and performance, I agree that it's superior
Yes, but I hoped it won't go as far as to the old Takumars...
After all, when discussing what Pentax could/should do, that is about products they can competitively sell; the diminishing number of such old lenses and the joy they bring to a diminishing number of us is irrelevant.
It's too bad we're letting the very first SDM lenses form our opinion about in-lens motors in general.
The KAF4 aperture... I hope they're standardizing to a few sizes. And I'm not expecting too many failures... as the 2 KAF4 lenses we have so far aren't particularly prone to aperture failures.
Lack of progress cost more, I'd say. For example, the slowness with which they migrated towards in-lens motors... how many people were put off, when their first contact with a Pentax DSLR was "screeeeeech! screeeeeech!"?
Say Pentax would launch a camera with very good video capabilities; what if it cannot properly control its aperture on a KAF3 lens?
And perhaps Sigma would've launched a few more lenses for K-mount if they had KAF4 figured out, years ago.