For me, longing for a de-crippled K mount has nothing to do with legacy glass. It's about having immediate control of each of the exposure settings at your fingertips. I want that functionality for the FA Limiteds. You know, those beautiful little lenses with auto-focus and auto-exposure that Pentax continues to produce today with that funky thingamajig called an aperture ring. And even though that thingamajig was designed way back in the olden times, it turns out it's a great way to conveniently control exposure since your thumb and middle finger naturally cradle the lens right there anyway. How this basic feature for controlling exposure ever came to be considered antiquated is beyond me. I believe it to be just as beneficial as it ever was.
One of the revolutionary new features digital offered was on-the-fly changes to ISO. With this advancement came the possibility of having every one of the exposure parameters at the ready. You'd now be able to instantly control shutter speed and ISO from the e-dials while setting aperture from, of all places, the aperture ring. There's a problem though... That's not possible with a crippled mount.
If only there were a way for the camera body to know what f-stop the lens was set at. Wait, there is! Unfortunately, Pentax has thus far chosen not to implement such a solution. And while the green button is great, it's still fiddly compared to simply being able to twist the aperture ring.
I'm not that old and I'm not that old school but I still want a de-crippled K mount, goddammit! And it's not so I can skip on buying expensive new glass. I would love to see new lenses with aperture rings! I find shooting in manual mode to be the most engaging and gratifying way to do photography. M mode isn't just for manual lenses, folks! I'd manual focus more if my eyes were better but I'd shoot in M all the time if I could just use the aperture ring on my FA Limiteds with normal metering.
I'm going to be disappointed if the FA Limited re-issues don't sport an aperture ring. The omission or inclusion of an aperture ring on any new FA Limited may end up being the clearest indicator of Pentax's intentions for resurrecting, or perhaps reinventing, the step-down coupler.
Last edited by TomTextura; 11-17-2015 at 12:22 AM.