Originally posted by Ole No aperture ring unfortunately means that the lens is useless for macro work with manual extenstion tubes and bellows.
It should be possible to modify the mount area of extension tubes / bellows facing the camera so that it tells the camera a f/2.8 - f/22 lens has been mounted. That should work, shouldn't it? Would work for those who don't want to use many different lenses on their extenders.
The lack of a focus window on the new 100mm Macro doesn't make sense to me at all.
The fact that it is openly advertised as an FF lens seems to be good news. They cannot really not have any FF camera plans. If they didn't then why risk people skip the next APS-C models, thinking there should be an FF camera around the corner? That must have been the rationale behind not officially selling the DA* 55 as an FF lens. The fact that the 100mm Macro is officially FF seems to suggest that now the DA* 55 would be introduced as FF as well and that there is good hope that a future FF Pentax is not too far away.
Imagine they could get the sensor from the Sony alpha 850. It seems to be seriously good (received full marks from a German photo magazine).