Originally posted by Gimbal Yes that is a good example of marketing selling us stuff that might not be entirely true. Thanks to the fact sheet it is a widespread understanding that the K100/K10/k20 can do rotational compensation, but they cant. As Thibs wrote Pentax has stated that it indeed was a translation error (from Japanese to English I guess) and thus the myth began. The k-7 is the first camera that actually does rotational SR.
It is mentioned here
Pentax K-7 Digital Camera - Full Review - The Imaging Resource!
"(though we've reported that this was a feature of Shake Reduction back to the K100D, Pentax informs us that this was a result of a translation error back in 2006)."
The new SR can not do rotational SR though, at least not as it is described in the patent.
Check out Sonys system
Sony Global - Technology - SteadyShot INSIDE
Looks a bit like the "new" patent, another type of linear motors seems to be the major difference.
Thanks for the link. I now see why Thibs made his statement above. All I can say is if we could not trust an article from that website (Imaging Resources) or possibly Pentax back in 2006, how are we supposed to trust them now to be giving us the straight goods regarding their SR.
If there is a new marketing idea that would take the cake, I guess it would be this one - claim that the new buyer will get a new feature by claiming this feature that was supposed to be there with the older product were not there after all due to some interpretation error. If this is true, I could see some lawyers reading this smell a class action suit. These kind of marketing materials generally have to go thru many level of company review and approval for correctness before they are released just so that they don't get sued later for product mis-representation. Are we supposed to believe that Pentax marketing and legal department are that incompetent?
In any case, looking at the design of the original SR used in the K100D, there is no technical reason for it not to be able to account for rotational movement unless Pentax did not implement it. Since the document specifically stated that the SR system uses an "angular" sensor to detect movement. My guess is that it is more likely it was compensating for rotational movement only but not for true lateral only movement. So it is actually more believable that they have fixed this in the K7 by adding lateral only movement compensation. Just like Canon did with their hybrid IS lens announced in July 2009. I can see from a marketing stand point back in 2006, if your camera can account for rotational movement, you could kind of claim that it can account for vertical and horizontal movement because a rotation is a combination of vertical and horizontal movement. However it gets into trouble if it is really an vertical only or horizontal only movement.
Like I said above, I don't see any technical reason why the new SR can not account for rotational movement unless the designer choose not to implement it. A rotational movement is just a combination of vertical and horizontal movement.
I agree the Pentax new SR system is more like an incremental improvement over Sony's SR system. Pentax managed to eliminate a couple of guide rails to make its new SR more compact.