Originally posted by manishved I still fail to understand why Ricoh/Hoya/Pentax never improved the AF speeds over all these years..... Hoping for a much snappier AF performance.
AF speeds are a function of both hardware (CPU included) and software. IIRC, Canon at some point dedicated an entire CPU just to AF in their higher end cameras to solve some of the hardware issues. I don't think Pentax has ever used what would be considered cutting edge technology in the AF department, at least not since the ME-F, which was cutting edge for about 6 months.
Pentax has also been hobbled to a certain extent by their screw drive AF. The lenses can only be accelerated so hard before the gears start shredding, and by the horrid original SDM, which was underpowered to the point that the terms AF and speed could barely be used in the same sentence.
Pentax was pretty much out of the AF game before it started, and then became part of Hoya, who really had little interest in doing anything with the camera division other than asset stripping it and then selling it.
Ricoh has had nearly a decade now to get things rolling, and for sure we have seen improvements. The K3 was as far as I am concerned, the first Pentax with fully functional AF, but I did skip the K5II. My understanding is that the K5II is the camera the K5 would have been had there been adults in the room when it was built.
I think Ricoh has the lens architecture in place now to get world class AF performance. The new SDM seems very good if the three new version lenses I have are typical examples, and while I haven't done more than briefly handle a PLM lens, it did seem quick enough as well.
Retiring the screw drive is a necessity. AF speed cannot improve significantly until that takes place, the older lenses aren't going to get significantly faster. The newer ones could very well get faster though.