[monochrome]

Again, 23 years ago there was an eerie and complete silence before Desert Storm (the first Iraq War). My business thricves on information and I recall being uncomfortable in the information vacuum.

Then January 17, 1991 there was "Shock and Awe," a massive and complete show of force by a coalition of 17 Nations.

Clearly it isn't a perfect analogy - Pentax doesn't have the comparative advantage in war materiel enjoyed by the Coalition Forces. But if you are a little guy and you want the complete attention of your market for a few months - and I do mean complete attention - then you and say Tamron, Sigma and Tokina might drop FF product after product after product on a skeptical market, month after month after month, forcing the eReview publishers, retailers, Forums, fanbois, haters and everyone else to talk about you - and not talk about anyone else - right through the holiday buying season.

Many many small indicators suggest this possibility (real product discontinuations like K-01 to free manufacturing lines, news embargoes, undeclared discontinuations of popular products, hints that are never repeated, a few new B&M distributions in the USA, Clearance Sales of distributor warehouses ---

Maybe, just maybe, I smell a hint of Shock and Awe on the summer breeze.

[Timko]

It would be a big loss. Such beautifull lenses

[Mistral75]

"I had a dream..."

[pakinjapan]

that would be a real Shock and Awe. I just hope they won't end up being like North Korea with all the wrong signal. NK win a lot of attention too, but not in a good way.

Clearly it isn't a perfect analogy - Pentax doesn't have the comparative advantage in war materiel enjoyed by the Coalition Forces. But if you are a little guy and you want the complete attention of your market for a few months - and I do mean complete attention - then you and say Tamron, Sigma and Tokina might drop FF product after product after product on a skeptical market, month after month after month, forcing the eReview publishers, retailers, Forums, fanbois, haters and everyone else to talk about you - and not talk about anyone else - right through the holiday buying season.

[Digitalis]

The '31 & '77 definitely need a coating overhaul to reduce the purple fringing.

From what I have seen purple fringing isn't affected by coatings - it is an optical-electrical thing, the lens design itself affects resolution and aberration control. Coatings are there merely to aid light transmission and improve image contrast and flare tolerance.

[wed7]

I think they do not want to give any false hope for those who want FF.

[boriscleto]

The FA 50 1.4 wasn't in there either. This wasn't the full brochure either and it had typos. This is not an official or complete release, and I highly doubt they will change the FA limited in optical design. Too much wasted money in R&D to improve on something darn near perfect.

The FA 50/1.4 isn't on the lens roadmap. But the FA Limiteds are.

[Mistral75]

The FA 50/1.4 isn't on the lens roadmap. But the FA Limiteds are.

Yes but with a purple blob (and the only ones so), meaning "soon to be discontinued"

[Digitalis]

Yes but with a purple blob (and the only ones so), meaning "soon to be discontinued"

Is that how you are interpreting it? in any case you are wrong: the Purple spot doesn't meant they are going to be discontinued, it is just the mark they use for the FA Limited lenses - the regular D-FA lenses get grey spots. DA and DA limited lenses get green - and DA*lenses get orange.

stop over-analysing things - the FA limited are going to be around for a long time.

[boriscleto]

Is that how you are interpreting it? in any case you are wrong: the Purple spot doesn't meant they are going to be discontinued, it means they are FA Limited lenses - the regular D-FA lenses get grey spots. DA and DA limited lenses get green - and DA*lenses get orange

I think he should have gone with the instead of

[bossa]

Purple fringing isn't' affected by coatings - it is an optical-electrical thing, the lens design itself affects resolution and aberration control. Coatings are there merely to aid light transmission and improve image contrast and flare tolerance.

I understand this argument but from the reading I've done it would seem that the true cause of PF is not all that well understood (or even known). It would seem logical to assume that a lens or filter coating capable of filtering certain frequencies could minimize purple fringing (at least) so I don't buy that rationale altogether. Nothing is perfect but there must be ways of mitigating the affect.

PS: I've just read the Wikipedia explanation for this ... So no need for more explanations thanks.. ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_fringing

[Digitalis]

I think he should have gone with the

ahh sarchasm- I vote that we have a smiley that explicitly indicates sarcasm on PF. I'm thinking of something like this:


In the Leica forums we have one, it has been rather popular actually - especially when we tell fuji photographers the X10 isn't a real camera.

[Harald]

The '31 & '77 definitely need a coating overhaul to reduce the purple fringing.

Are you sure purple fringing is an coating issue?

[Digitalis]

from the reading I've done it would seem that the true cause of PF is not all that well understood (or even known).

Even with my advanced knowledge of optics i'm not 100% on what causes it either, but what I do know is that typically faster lenses have more of a problem with it than slower ones.

[Mistral75]

ahh sarchasm- I vote that we have a smiley that explicitly indicates sarcasm on PF. I'm thinking of something like this:
(...)