Originally posted by Pål Jensen You said exactly the same thing about Pentax being unable to make a more advanced camera than the K20D smaller due to weather sealing and SR. It is not true. The seals hardly take any space and electronics can be made very small indeed; particularly now when theres no restrictions from the film spool and path....
Wheather sealing is no problem for the Limited lenses and I'll expect the next generation of these lenses to have that feature.....
The K200D is a K100D body with weather sealing, and it is bigger than a K100D body.
Why? The anwer is simple - beacuse of the weather sealing. You can't even use CR-V3 batteries in the K200D because of the extra seals in the battery compartment, in contrast to the K100D. This is has been explained officially by Mr John Carson of Pentax US.
So seals takes upp space. This means that in order to have seals without the camera getting bigger, other things must be shrinked in order to compensate for the extra size the seals adds to the product.
When Pentax made the K20D, Pentax wasn't able to make a smaller camera with seals so my statement was absolutely correct. At that time, Pentax did not have the needed technology for shrinking circuit boards and the electronics down to a level that could compensate for the added size by the seals.
A sealed camera is much harder to make small than a non sealed camera, the manufacturer must simply work harder on minimizing technology to compensate for the seals.
And what we can see now is that yes technology advances so the circuit board in the K-7 is now tighter packed with new components, not available at the time of the K20D was designed, which means the circuit board has shrinked so the seals are now compensated. Also the SR mechanism has shrinked thank's to new technology developments, this also helps in compensating the extra size from the sealing.
We can also see that the K-7 does not have tilit/swivel LCD. Why? because the mechanism this would take up extra space, and the K-7 is so tightly packed there is no room for the flip-out mechanism for the backLCD.
If the Limiteds are getting seals, this means optics and mechanics must shrink. New thinner materials for the outer casing and new optics to make a smaller and more compact lens. All this cost quite much money, and I have my doubts about Pentax preparing to invest in luxury extra thin materials and extra small optics with top performance just to get seals to the Limiteds, and I have my doubts about the user preparing to spend the extra money needed for this luxury research and development.