[tuco]

I work on UNIX systems all day long without a GUI interface more often than not. What's the problem with it? It separates the men from the boys. But seriously, I feel anyone's pain if computers were not their thing and they were confronted with it.

[mikeSF]

Careful, your nerdiness is showing.
Not sure why you are dwelling on my comment but at no time was I comparing anything to 645 film size. Read the transcript.
Carry on. I made my point and I'm done.

Perhaps if you just look at the sensor size of the 645D vs the film size of the 645 format it may become clear. And is not that the same (but different numbers) as APS-C vs FF when it comes to lenses?

Pentax 645D = 44mm x 33mm area
Pentax 645 film = 56 mm × 41.5 mm area

Note, actual film size projects did not match their format designations exactly ( eg 60mm x 45mm for the 6 x 4.5 centimeter format - aka 645) and varies a small bit from one manufacture to the next. Same with the 6x7 format. Actual film size projection would be slightly less than 60mm x 70mm

[tuco]

Careful, your nerdiness is showing.
Not sure why you are dwelling on my comment but at no time was I comparing anything to 645 film size. Read the transcript.
Carry on. I made my point and I'm done.

I apologize for my mistake but it reads like you said a 75mm is a wide angle on your 645D.

[ElJamoquio]

no, I think you went backwards.
75mm is short tele on APSC, 75 is like a 40mm (APSC) on the 645D. I consider anything less than 50mm(APSC) to be wide angle.

50mm is conventionally the 'normal' size for 35mm. The 77mm F/1.8 on FF is technically your breaking point to 'wide angle' - not a standard definition.

35ish mm is conventionally the 'normal' size for APS-C.

Many definitions of course, and of course 'telephoto' was originally a lens where the length was less than the focal length... which is not possible for 40mm or even really 50mm on a 45mm registration distance. But don't be surprised when people correct you again, I guess.

[ElJamoquio]

I apologize for my mistake but it reads like you said a 75mm is a wide angle on your 645D.

75 would be (very slightly) wide angle by his definition on 35mm.

[Rondec]

I never shot film a whole lot and only had three lenses at the time -- FA 50, FA-J 28-80, and a Sigma 70-300. But I am definitely more used to how lenses behave on APS-C and if that is doing math backward to convert full frame focal lengths and think of what field of view would be comparable on APS-C, then, yes, I do that a lot.

[Erictator]

I never shot film a whole lot and only had three lenses at the time -- FA 50, FA-J 28-80, and a Sigma 70-300. But I am definitely more used to how lenses behave on APS-C and if that is doing math backward to convert full frame focal lengths and think of what field of view would be comparable on APS-C, then, yes, I do that a lot.

I kinda figured that there had to be quite a few of you out there... and I'm not picking on y'all, it just is another sign of the times with a new generation of Pentax shooters.

It does make me wonder if this is why Ricoh/Pentax have not been in such a huge hurry to introduce FF digital...this is one case of better late than never, but why rush now, that horse is out of the barn. They are having to deal with decisions made long ago. Now, if they are finally going to tackle FF, it's going to be in their own unique way as always.

For my wishlist for a new toy, I just hope they do SOMETHING FF this year, just so we can get over it already... it's as bad as one of those 7 year TV shows where they put off the marriage of the main characters until the last episode. Enough drama already! Besides, the sooner they release it, the sooner they get to work on refining it's replacement, which will be the one to get, LOL!

I do have a sinking feeling the new FF is going to be more akin to the Oly OMD1 with FF or the new Sony A7, than to the K3... I hope I'm wrong, but that's my guess. Great. more drama, heh, but that's about the easiest way to keep the small form factor ergonomics we like and still retain the K mount that I can see. But hey, I guess it'll be fun to keep guessing in the mean time.

[Rondec]

I kinda figured that there had to be quite a few of you out there... and I'm not picking on y'all, it just is another sign of the times with a new generation of Pentax shooters.

It does make me wonder if this is why Ricoh/Pentax have not been in such a huge hurry to introduce FF digital...this is one case of better late than never, but why rush now, that horse is out of the barn. They are having to deal with decisions made long ago. Now, if they are finally going to tackle FF, it's going to be in their own unique way as always.

For my wishlist for a new toy, I just hope they do SOMETHING FF this year, just so we can get over it already... it's as bad as one of those 7 year TV shows where they put off the marriage of the main characters until the last episode. Enough drama already! Besides, the sooner they release it, the sooner they get to work on refining it's replacement, which will be the one to get, LOL!

I do have a sinking feeling the new FF is going to be more akin to the Oly OMD1 with FF or the new Sony A7, than to the K3... I hope I'm wrong, but that's my guess. Great. more drama, heh, but that's about the easiest way to keep the small form factor ergonomics we like and still retain the K mount that I can see. But hey, I guess it'll be fun to keep guessing in the mean time.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't like full frame eventually -- for better high iso, better dynamic range, etc. I just will have to get used to shooting it. Most of my primes (except the DA 15 limited) are full frame compatible, so it wouldn't take a bunch of new lenses, but all of them would be different from what I'm used to. I imagine my favorite portrait lens would transition from the DA *55 currently to the FA 77...

[formercanuck]

I work on UNIX systems all day long without a GUI interface more often than not. What's the problem with it? It separates the men from the boys. But seriously, I feel anyone's pain if computers were not their thing and they were confronted with it.

I have no problem with it - my main 'PC' runs Ubuntu, and I support a few thousand Sun/Linux/HP-UX boxes.

My comparison is that a GUI (Windows like) is similar to having a modern SLR or P&S Superzoom do all of the work for you, and the majority of people don't really know (or care) what goes on to make it work.

[tuco]

If you started photography off with APS-C and move to FF, I think you'll be thinking of in terms of APS-C focal lengths for a long time to come. I shoot a FF primarily for that reason - something APS-C vs FF arguments never really touch on; namely, old-schoolers . I started off with 35mm film. I have a feel what f4 and f5.6 will look like in my head with certain focal lengths when I'm taking pictures of people, for instance.

But really most of my film shooting days was a Pentax 6x7 ( still shoot it, btw). And that is a completely different set of equivalent focal lengths. But I really don't have any trouble when I go back to holding a FF for some reason. It must be that it's so much different perhaps.

If you get a FF and can afford to keep your APS-C, then you can enjoy the best of both worlds. I had a APS-C mirroless and did enjoy the extra DOF for equivalent focal lengths when taking people shots in lower light where I'd rather not stop the lens down too much on a FF.

[ElJamoquio]

I have no problem with it - my main 'PC' runs Ubuntu, and I support a few thousand Sun/Linux/HP-UX boxes.

My comparison is that a GUI (Windows like) is similar to having a modern SLR or P&S Superzoom do all of the work for you, and the majority of people don't really know (or care) what goes on to make it work.

Unix isn't a big mystery
a) if you have the internet or
b) if you have experience with unix

I ran linux in ~1995 but had been running command line stuff almost exclusively to that point. Back in '92 or so the internet... wasn't really there. If someone dropped a unix box in your lap most people wouldn't be able to do anything except turn it on.

[ElJamoquio]

If you started photography off with APS-C and move to FF, I think you'll be thinking of in terms of APS-C focal lengths for a long time to come. I shoot a FF primarily for that reason - something APS-C vs FF arguments never really touch on; namely, old-schoolers . I started off with 35mm film. I have a feel what f4 and f5.6 will look like in my head with certain focal lengths when I'm taking pictures of people, for instance.

But really most of my film shooting days was a Pentax 6x7 ( still shoot it, btw). And that is a completely different set of equivalent focal lengths. But I really don't have any trouble when I go back to holding a FF for some reason. It must be that it's so much different perhaps.

If you get a FF and can afford to keep your APS-C, then you can enjoy the best of both worlds. I had a APS-C mirroless and did enjoy the extra DOF for equivalent focal lengths when taking people shots in lower light where I'd rather not stop the lens down too much on a FF.

When I got my K200D I had to 'translate' focal lengths to it. Now I'm fluent in APS-C and I'm still fairly fluent in FF from 12 to 50 mm but have to do translation back in the 70+ range.

[tuco]

...I support a few thousand Sun/Linux/HP-UX boxes.

Still have HP-UX? We had to migrate our boxes to Linux because HP stop supporting it. And its interesting what schools have UNIX in their curriculum these days. Many interns that come in don't have any UNIX experience. I ask do you have a OSX? Some say yes. Then I say why don't you open the bash shell it comes with and learn!

[formercanuck]

Believe it or not - I haven't used OSX (yet).
I started out on QNX in the 80's on Unisys ICON (people in Ontario Canada may have heard of these), and learned a bit in highschool.
I got into Linux when the jewel cases came out in the 90's and Apache/Samba/Sendmail at the time blew MS Windows out of the water, and was free ( I had a C programming background, so compiling didn't scare me - vi did).
I worked on HP-UX in the late 90's, as well as Vax/micro VAX (ugh) VMS.
After transferring to SoCal from Niagara, I supported a pile of HP-UX servers (T, D, G, K, L class), and a couple of SGI boxes.
On my next gig, I had some more interesting boxes to learn - DEC Ultrix and Tru64 unix tied to EMC.
My more current gig has mostly Linux, some Sun (ancient boxes + M5000's), and a sprinking of HPUX rx3600 on blades. HP-UX is a bit more obscure to support for routine command output (eg. df).

[Paul MaudDib]

Unix isn't a big mystery
a) if you have the internet or
b) if you have experience with unix

I ran linux in ~1995 but had been running command line stuff almost exclusively to that point. Back in '92 or so the internet... wasn't really there. If someone dropped a unix box in your lap most people wouldn't be able to do anything except turn it on.

Yeah, seriously, Ubuntu-based linux is super easy. Mostly it auto-configures itself at this point, and dependency hell has been essentially eliminated. I don't like stock Ubuntu's window manager, so I just use Lubuntu instead.

Learning a few command-line basics is very, very conductive to productivity. Things like regular expressions are really basic language building blocks for computing.