Originally posted by Art Vandelay II Based off softness I'll grant you the 17-70mm lens was a bad example to use, but obviously all of Pentax's FA lenses would cover it just fine.
Well, there are no 17mm wide angle zooms among Pentax's FA lenses, and excepting four, the FA lenses are not in current production, so there would be no real advantage and your point about 22-86 lenses, or whatever, is moot. You would just be using different lenses, not better or more useful lenses. Even if Pentax reintroduced the FA designs with a new camera, they would also need to redesign the lot to incorporate SDM and weather sealing which is becoming the standard on the fancier lenses nowadays. Pentax can really not afford to do this at this point.
Originally posted by Art Vandelay II And from the FF tests I've seen The DA35, DA40, DA70, DA*200, and DA*300 should all cover ASP-H as well. As far as 3rd party goes, there are still plenty of 3rd party FF lenses that will cover it fine. The only thing that might be missing is a standard zoom.
The 35 Limited does almost certainly not cover FF. The rest, probably, but those four niche lenses are not anywhere close to being a complete line-up. 3rd party FF lenses are dropping one by one in Pentax mount as manufacturers realize that APS-C designed lenses can be more compact, and are what the target audience wants.
Originally posted by Art Vandelay II A square APS-C sensor would also be appealing to me. As I said, just do something different for once. I can already feel the collective moan of "that's it?" when the official specs are finally released after all this hype and teasing. If Pentax wants to "leak" product announcements like this a month in advance to build up discussion and interest that is great, but the product better deliver with the goods.
Well. To me it seems like people are clamoring for "something different" so hard that it becomes a goal in itself, instead of a means to an end that makes sense.
There is nothing wrong with APS-C sensor cameras, they take very good pictures. There is no good reason for APS-H (not to mention this particularly persistent rumour seems to be taken straight out of thin air). You could make a case for full frame, and Pentax will undoubtedly produce an FF camera at some point, but APS-H is the worst of both worlds. It is a temporary stop-gap solution that Canon invented back when good FF sensors were still not economically/technically feasible. It is not a good idea to dig up that particular corpse in 2009 only to "be different."
EDIT: The APS-H and square sensor rumours are also particularly silly since Pentax, out of all digital SLR manufacturers, are the ones that are most fiercely dedicated to APS-C as a format. They have stated this again and again, and make it very clear by introducing lenses like the 50-135 instead of a 70-200, and so forth. Pentax has bet everything on one horse, and they are not about to kill that horse.
EDIT 2: Oh, and the new camera is "different" in the ways that Pentax has already profiled themselves as being "different". Pentax today is about well-built, solid constructions and small form factors. This is going to be a small, well-built, "Limited style", weather sealed body. Pentax is aiming at people who want small, solid cameras and lenses that work in dust and rain, and that is what they are pursuing with the K-7. It is the logical extension of their weather sealed DA* and Limited lens lines.