[regken]

The price has dropped by over 300 euros here in Romania. That's quite a bit for a relatively recent product.

Judging from past history of the K10D and the price of the canon 40D it is not that much of a drop in the US. I expected it to be $800-$850 by this time. Nikon D300 stays up there because of demand and Sony is doing a nice job of controlling their dealers on the A 700 pricing.

[zntgrg]

dark age of *ist? Because their marketing was good before?

Pentax always had nice technologies/particularities which they never marketed.
Remember the marketing tornado because the new AF-D Nikkor lenses were reporting distance information to the camera? Well Pentax did it long before.

What Pentax did not however (stupidly) was to use that info for others uses than TTL Flash. But lenses starting from FA (or was it F?) could do this.

Interesting: btw i'm quite new to Pentax and *ist seems to me the rock bottom, with a name so strange it's skipped even by search engines it's difficult to sell someting in the 21st century

[RMabo]

Pentax always had nice technologies/particularities which they never marketed. Remember the marketing tornado because the new AF-D Nikkor lenses were reporting distance information to the camera? Well Pentax did it long before.
What Pentax did not however (stupidly) was to use that info for others uses than TTL Flash. But lenses starting from FA (or was it F?) could do this.

F lenses had distance info, yes from 1987.
MTF-chip came in the FA lenses from 1993, but was also featured in the newer F-lenses (which actually were FA lenses but without powerzoom, and just to confuse everyone Pentax finally made FA lenses without powerzoom and called them FA!).

The distance info was used by the multisegment metering. It was, funny enough, not used by the TTL flash until P-TTL came. And it was used by P-TTL because P-TTL uses the multisegment metering, which read the distance info..

Distance info was also used by the clever Smart Picture Modes, later renamed to Auto Picture Modes. This was another Pentax first (auto-selection of picture modes).

[cyg]

Interesting: btw i'm quite new to Pentax and *ist seems to me the rock bottom, with a name so strange it's skipped even by search engines it's difficult to sell someting in the 21st century

I think this must be one of the most persistent Pentax urban legend of the digital age.

Try "pentax *ist" in Google: it works fine.

Although the name was probably typical Pentax quirkiness and not overly practical ("Hey you got the new ... ist? ... star-ist? ... whatever.")

[thibs]

F lenses had distance info, yes from 1987.
MTF-chip came in the FA lenses from 1993, but was also featured in the newer F-lenses (which actually were FA lenses but without powerzoom, and just to confuse everyone Pentax finally made FA lenses without powerzoom and called them FA!).

Yes indeed.

The distance info was used by the multisegment metering.

Did not know that.

It was, funny enough, not used by the TTL flash until P-TTL came. And it was used by P-TTL because P-TTL uses the multisegment metering, which read the distance info..

AFAIK it was used but not for metering (I did not talk about flash metering), barely checking that the subject was within flash range.
Personally I did not notice anything going in a way or in another so as a matter of fact you may indeed be perfectly right.

[RMabo]

AFAIK it was used but not for metering (I did not talk about flash metering), barely checking that the subject was within flash range.

The flash displayed a distance range, a from - to, and it was calculated using the set focal length and ISO value.

Nikon had 3D flash metering using distance info, Pentax had 3D ambient light metering.

[Venturi]

You know, distance reporting in the view finder and/or top LCD would be rather nifty to have since many of the AF lens' markings are worthless beyond about 10ft.

[stevebrot]

Although the name was probably typical Pentax quirkiness and not overly practical ("Hey you got the new ... ist? ... star-ist? ... whatever.")

In computer programmer's jargon the "*" character is often referred to as a "splat" (much easier than asterisk). So the possible pronunciations may be expanded to include:

Splat-ist

Steve

(Asterisk-ist...???)

[RMabo]

You know, distance reporting in the view finder and/or top LCD would be rather nifty to have since many of the AF lens' markings are worthless beyond about 10ft.

Yes, but I think the distance info in Pentax lenses is no more in-depth than like close, mid, far away, infinity... No exact meters.

[thibs]

Yes, but I think the distance info in Pentax lenses is no more in-depth than like close, mid, far away, infinity... No exact meters.

That's what I think as well.

Probably something like 'between 5meters and 12meters'... not very useful for the user.

[Venturi]

Yes, but I think the distance info in Pentax lenses is no more in-depth than like close, mid, far away, infinity... No exact meters.

Ah good point, and I think you're right. EXIF has "Subject Distance Range" and is expressed as a single digit integer. So if that's the data coming back it's worth less than the barrel markings.