[WWWench]

My K-01 also says "assembled" in the Philippines.

[séamuis]

You realize you live in the year 2011 right?

no, I'm fairly certain he lives in 2012, but may I ask you how you got back to 2011? id like to get back there personally to correct a few mistakes.

[arsn.r3d]

Yeah, the more recent Pentax bodies are assembled in the Philippines. My K-x is. And judging from the mostly good reviews for the K-x, K-7, K-5, K-01 in terms of build quality, am proud of it!

arsn.r3d
Assembled in the Philippines

[séamuis]

Yeah, the more recent Pentax bodies are assembled in the Philippines. My K-x is. And judging from the mostly good reviews for the K-x, K-7, K-5, K-01 in terms of build quality, am proud of it!

arsn.r3d
Assembled in the Philippines

not jut the recent. the pentax philippine assembly plant in Cebu has been assembling Pentax camera bodies since at least the first digital SLR, in 2003.nearly a decade of cameras being assembled there, and people still aren't sure where pentax does this? strange.

[arsn.r3d]

not jut the recent. the pentax philippine assembly plant in Cebu has been assembling Pentax camera bodies since at least the first digital SLR, in 2003.nearly a decade of cameras being assembled there, and people still aren't sure where pentax does this? strange.

Nice. I didn't realize production extended that far back, though. And I was still living there in early 2003, too . Mind you, I'm still fairly new to my K-x (1st dslr, and < 2 years), and this whole photography enthusiast deal...Back then I was still stuck borrowing my relatives' p&s camera and trying to squeeze as much as I can out of 24-36 shots haha!

[Medium FormatPro]

I doubt there's a single computer out there whose components (or a large portion thereof) are not made in China. Same goes for phones, cameras, and any other piece of electronics. It's kinda silly to avoid products made and assembled in China if you go on using products that were still manufactured there, and assembled elsewhere.

For computers in general; please visit Origin PC; not to be confused with Origin EA. Origin makes desktops and laptops in this country; and offers the option of having them either mostly or entirely made out of american components. Unfortunately it is also to my understanding that an entry level Origin laptop goes for about fifteen hundred, but all of the computers that this company makes are of unmatched quality.

I don't wish to brag about it but my second line of work basically demnds an ultra high performance laptop; so I did get an Origin 17X that also unfortunately retails hardware alone for just over 10k.

[RioRico]

I haven't torn apart electronic devices lately; guess I'm getting old and lazy. Back in the day when I *did* involve myself with dis/assembling electronics, I saw many components (chips, transistors, misc stuff) stamped with worldwide origins: N.Ireland, S.Korea, El Salvador, Malaysia, Israel, even USA! Not too much from old Soviet Bloc countries though. (*)

Like money, production is fungible -- bits and pieces come from wherever it's economical to do so. Boycotting China (or any other state) is close to impossible, since so much materials and parts production is there now. Do your chips and batteries contains Rare Earths? Likely from China. Do you eat vitamins? Guess where they came from.

China is intricately connected with the global economic system and can't be removed, no matter how detestable their leadership may be. Other nations have abominable politics too. You may live in one. But I digress.
________________________________

(*) Shall I tell a tale of USSR digital electronics? In the late 1980s BYTE magazine did an issue on EastBloc computers. At the time, commercial Western- or Asian-made hard disks typically contained a list of bad sectors that needed to be mapped around. Entering those sector numbers was part of the 'fun' of configuring such drives. According to a BYTE article, USSR-made CPU chips of the era came with lists of non-functional INSTRUCTIONS per chip. So warez needed to be custom-written for EACH MACHINE to avoid using the funky codes. No XOR on this one, sorry...

[mtansley]

(*) Shall I tell a tale of USSR digital electronics? In the late 1980s BYTE magazine did an issue on EastBloc computers. At the time, commercial Western- or Asian-made hard disks typically contained a list of bad sectors that needed to be mapped around. Entering those sector numbers was part of the 'fun' of configuring such drives. According to a BYTE article, USSR-made CPU chips of the era came with lists of non-functional INSTRUCTIONS per chip. So warez needed to be custom-written for EACH MACHINE to avoid using the funky codes. No XOR on this one, sorry...

That would be an interesting software compiler. "load list of bad instructions...no wait, we can't load the compiler yet because it needs to be written to avoid bad instructions"

[luftfluss]

For computers in general; please visit Origin PC; not to be confused with Origin EA. Origin makes desktops and laptops in this country; and offers the option of having them either mostly or entirely made out of american components. Unfortunately it is also to my understanding that an entry level Origin laptop goes for about fifteen hundred, but all of the computers that this company makes are of unmatched quality.

I don't wish to brag about it but my second line of work basically demnds an ultra high performance laptop; so I did get an Origin 17X that also unfortunately retails hardware alone for just over 10k.

Primary components are all made outside of USA. The computers are "built" - that is, assembled - in the USA. Motherboard's from China/Taiwan, CPU is from a combination of USA, China, Israel, Ireland, Malaysia, etc. - many CPU's are in fact fabbed in one country and then assembled in another - LCD from China, S. Korea... "parts is parts".

[Medium FormatPro]

Primary components are all made outside of USA. The computers are "built" - that is, assembled - in the USA. Motherboard's from China/Taiwan, CPU is from a combination of USA, China, Israel, Ireland, Malaysia, etc. - many CPU's are in fact fabbed in one country and then assembled in another - LCD from China, S. Korea... "parts is parts".

My Origin was made to spec; with a motherboard made in "combination" (if that makes sense) between both Japan and here in the usa. It also has a modified screen made in Japan,b ut besides that... Most of the parts outside of those are in fact made in the united states. They are incredibly difficult to find and rather expensive, but it can be done.

I'll post the internal pics of the Origin as soon as I obtain some more macro equipment for the K-01

[jogiba]

I appreciate the replies.

Does the K-01 offer autofocus in movie mode? Also, is the "40mm" kit lens 40mm, or would it be a 60mm with the 1.5x conversion? I ask because it is a DA lens, and I do not know much about them.

Autofocus

Autofocus can be used before and during recording, although while recording, you don't get any sort of confirmation. You can, however, choose which AF mode you'd like to use. While recording, you can only get the camera to focus using the AF button on the back of the camera. Overall, the AF performance during video is mediocre. It's slow and inaccurate for the most part when dealing with moving objects; on wide lenses, it's usable. Obviously, SDM lenses are preferred for video, as they make less noise (though the K-01 does try to keep this to a minimum with screwdrive lenses by turning the focus ring slower than normal).


More Pentax news at: Pentax K-01 Camera Review - Review Introduction - PentaxForums.com

The 40mm lens on the K-01 is 60mm eqiv just like on Pentax DSLRs.

[RioRico]

The 40mm lens on the K-01 is 60mm eqiv just like on Pentax DSLRs.

Any 40mm lens remains a 40mm lens no matter where it is. A lens does not stretch nor shrink because it has been moved. Different-size frames (film or digital) see different amounts of the image the lens projects, is all.

Talking about 'equivalence' makes sense when comparing different photo formats, to previsualize the performance of a given focal length on various systems. So a 40/2.8 lens on 135/FF has AOV and DOF roughly equivalent to 60/4 on APS-C, or 80/5.6 on m4/3, or 32/2.2 on a 645D, or 24/1.7 on a 645 film cam, etc. But merely saying that a 40mm lens is, or is like, 60mm on an APS-C camera, only leads to infinite n00b confusion. Ay yi yi.

[mtansley]

Different-size frames (film or digital) see different amounts of the image the lens projects, is all.

Although I've always theoretically known this, your description above suddenly makes it crystal clear in my mind.

The APS sensor sees less of the edges of the image that a 40mm film or full frame lens was designed to project, therefore a 40mm designed for digital has less image (if any) to project at the edges of the film or full frame sensor style. Correct?

The result is that one combination automatically 'crops' the image and the other combination is that we have dark edges on the photo.

[RioRico]

The result is that one combination automatically 'crops' the image and the other combination is that we have dark edges on the photo.

By George, he's got it!!!

But can I give my frame-size rant anyway? OK, here goes:

Cut out a picture from a magazine. This is like the image projected by a lens. On that picture, draw a rectangle 60x45mm. Inside that, draw a 36x24 rectangle. Inside that, draw a 24x18mm rectangle. These are the sizes of 645, 135/FF, and APS-C frames. The source picture remains the same, but each format sees their own chunk of it. This is exactly what happens if you move a lens from a 645 to a 135/FF to an APS-C camera.

Enough already. Have fun!

[mtansley]

By George, he's got it!!!

But can I give my frame-size rant anyway? OK, here goes:

Cut out a picture from a magazine. This is like the image projected by a lens. On that picture, draw a rectangle 60x45mm. Inside that, draw a 36x24 rectangle. Inside that, draw a 24x18mm rectangle. These are the sizes of 645, 135/FF, and APS-C frames. The source picture remains the same, but each format sees their own chunk of it. This is exactly what happens if you move a lens from a 645 to a 135/FF to an APS-C camera.

Enough already. Have fun!

Nice rant, also a very good description of how it all works. Especially the comment about the source picture staying the same but each format sees it's own chunk. Makes perfect sense.

Just for fun today, I stuck my new Sigma 10-20 (digital version of course) on my K1000 and sure enough, nice black edges all around the viewfinder image. Nothing like seeing and understanding it with your own eyes.

As you said, now enough of this stuff, time to take some photos and not worry about crop ratios and other artificial complexities.