Originally posted by gazonk Why? It's brilliant. Instead of introducing a whole new mount and a complete new lens lineup, you make a couple of these recessed lenses. For longer lenses, a longer flange distance is just an advantage (you're basically reusing a tube that has to be included with every lens on those short-flange systems).
Indeed. Because of this we can still have that nice roadmap with 8 new K-mount lenses in 2 years.
With a new mount, they would have to make not only few wides, but also normal and longer lenses which would otherwise not benefit from the shorter registration distance. Cut the K-mount roadmap to a quarter, and tell me if you like it
About the small ring - someone (I don't remember who, sorry) speculated that it could be for polarizers.