Hi, Falconeye
I guess it will be unfair and wendyb-ish from my part to pretend I know what I don't especially since I kind of know other stuff
But it's a fair assumption that Pentax will go for D300s throat with this camera and virtually obliterate the still "young" 40D. And the basis of my prediction is quite logical:
- the presence of a larger screen hi res LCD is made possible by the new body and it will be a grave mistake to miss this feature in an end of 2008 camera in the semi pro segment. Also Samsung it's a world leader in LCD technology and I won't be surprised if they will bring the first OLED display on a high end camera;
- I believe the new mirror - shutter system will be at pro levels in timings and reliability (estimated number of shots). So at least 1/8000 it's more than likely;
- a new mettering system is 100% my guess with no info what so ever. But considering the scale of the updates it's 99% unlikely that Pentax will compromise on that;
- "Prime 2" it's necessary since the older one cannot sustain the 5-8 fps minimum that this camera will have let alone the data volume of a FF. I have 2 theories about this:
1) They will refine the technological process and by that bump the speed of the Prime ASIC combined with some refinements in design also - 15% probability;
2) Make a new ASIC with Pentax design expertise and Samsung lithography expertise and put the laying stone of a family in the digic, expeed, venus, bionz etc kind of way for many cameras including compacts - 85% probability IMO.
As a "pet prevision" of mine I also think that the new camera will be the first in the world with some GBs of very high speed flash memory incorporated as a buffer that will allow shooting raw at full fps until the card it's full
Radu