[Not a Number]

Vintage glass may not have the FF edge and corner performance that is acceptable given today's digital standards of image quality. These are the parts of the image that get cropped off on an APS-C sensor.

[rawr]

Vintage glass may not have the FF edge and corner performance that is acceptable given today's digital standards of image quality.

And yet vintage glass prices are increasing everywhere as more and more people seek out the older glass mount on their full-frame Sony's (and full-frame Canon DSLR's too) ...

In terms of 'todays digital standards of image quality', the huge popularity of Instagram, VSCO and mobile phone photography suggests that many camera users today are more likely to be interested in the character and 'personality' of a lens than lens corner performance. In a technical sense, todays 'standards' are often very low. But billions of people are happy with that.

[Lowell Goudge]

Hey Lowell,

You're as much a vintage lens guy as myself. As I recall we are both charter members of the SMC Pentax K 300/4 club. What's your take on vinatge Pentax lenses on full frame digital cameras? How well do you think they will or might perform in that format?

Tom G

Based upon using them on a Q I see no issues at all even with much higher resolution sensors the issues will be more as i said, materials improvements etc would make them obsolete. Optically the design would need to change just because you can't put AF on the front group of the K300 it is just too heavy .

It would be interesting to compare the K300/4 head to head with the DA300/4 same body, shooter, situation etc.

The DA would clearly be better on CA and fringing. The K300 shows some of both. But for sharpness I have no issue with the K

[monochrome]

FA lenses while fine, would be too expensive to make again today

A friend just commented to me privately (in regards to what he suggests is a certain FF release), "In the future Pentax premium lenses will be EXPENSIVE, even by today's standards."

[8540tomg]

A friend just commented to me privately (in regards to what he suggests is a certain FF release), "In the future Pentax premium lenses will be EXPENSIVE, even by today's standards."

Thanks Lowell et. al.

If Pentax premium lens are going to be "expensive" I guess we should hang on to our old Takumar, K, M and A series lenses. I was going to in any case.

Imagine what it would cost to make a lens with the build quality of those old screw mount Takumar lenses today? Sadly, in today's disposable world we don't have the inclination or maybe even the skill to build things to last. Remember when a good SLR was supossed to last a lifetime? I have an old K2 and MX that will certainly outlast me.

Tom G

[ElJamoquio]

A friend just commented to me privately (in regards to what he suggests is a certain FF release), "In the future Pentax premium lenses will be EXPENSIVE, even by today's standards."

I hope they double the cost of the lenses again. I should've bought more.

---------- Post added 08-21-14 at 07:54 PM ----------

Based upon using them on a Q I see no issues at all even with much higher resolution sensors the issues will be more as i said, materials improvements etc would make them obsolete. Optically the design would need to change just because you can't put AF on the front group of the K300 it is just too heavy .

It would be interesting to compare the K300/4 head to head with the DA300/4 same body, shooter, situation etc.

The DA would clearly be better on CA and fringing. The K300 shows some of both. But for sharpness I have no issue with the K

Biggest problem on the DA*300/4, far and away, is the A/F speed. I think it still beats the K, though.

[Sagitta]

Almost certainly. The K mount was designed as a full frame mount.

A few years ago I came up with a list of off-the-shelf FF lenses, and there were about 40 from various manufacturers. I think that's down a bit now, though. It was about 10 from Pentax.

Not all of the K-mount lenses would work - for instance, the 15mm would physically fit, and almost certainly would take a picture, but there would be black areas at the corner where the lens didn't project an image.

In practice, all of the primes greater than 35mm would work, and also the 31mm and 35mm F/2.4. None of the zooms have full coverage although the 60-250 comes close.

---------- Post added 08-21-14 at 09:32 AM ----------



They have more lenses now than any new mount is ever released with.

Guarantee: When they release a full frame camera, they will release a normal zoom.
Likely: Perhaps a telephoto zoom.
Guess: They will say another normal zoom is on the way (faster or slower, depending) and a wide angle zoom + prime are on the way.

I stuck my Sigma 10-20 on one of my old bodies, I think it was good to go as far as vignetting was concerned down to somewhere around the 13 or 14mm mark.

[ElJamoquio]

I was speaking to the Pentax lenses only, after the '10 from Pentax' comment. Apologies for the confusion.

[Lowell Goudge]

Thanks Lowell et. al.

If Pentax premium lens are going to be "expensive" I guess we should hang on to our old Takumar, K, M and A series lenses. I was going to in any case.

Imagine what it would cost to make a lens with the build quality of those old screw mount Takumar lenses today?.

Tom G

Tom

As much as I like old glass, I would like to see some more new glass, especially for wild life shooters, (not just the DA 560/5.6) because this is where a cropped sensor really comes into its own, since even with full frame you are cropping down, why not just use a cropped sensor any way.

The point I was making is that while legacy lenses used the best materials available at the time, materials have changed, and what was the best then, is not either necessarily the best now, or potentially even commercially available.

Same goes with the all metal machined designs of the tak's and K mounts. There are some very good and much lighter replacement components today.

Add to that that the technical changes in lens design to allow for HSM focusing (ideally internal with a small group, not moving the entire front group with all it's mass, etc, and the old designs, while good(perhaps great) are just not relevant.

Also add health NAND safety issues and some old materials are no longer used. (Even the 1.7x AF converter falls into that class of products)

So simply put, you can't just dust off the designs, and tooling and cycle up the production AND compete with modern lens designs.

Pentax can make competitive new lenses, the DA 300/4 for example, they just have not made enough varieties yet.

[ElJamoquio]

NAND safety issues

That's why I use XOR.

[jsherman999]

As for myself I'm less interested in wifi than compatibility with my old lenses although I can see the attraction. I'd hate to see all my great old lenses sent to the landfill. I know there have been advances in lens coatings but optically I think many of my old lenses (K 200/2.5, M 50/4 macro, M 50/1.4, A 100/2.8 macro etc. see signature) stand up pretty well.

There's always talk about how Pentax needs to update their lenses if they go FF, but it's really more something they have to do for themselves, so they can sell new lenses and make the FF ROI work better. In terms of IQ, many (natch not all) older existing lenses are good enough for even high-MP FF.

Something folks should remember - almost every lens resolves more on more MP. A lens would have to be truly, truly bad to not resolve more at 36MP than it does at say 12 or 16MP. There have been a lot of physical/mathematical-centered discussions on dpreview about why this is so, and it takes some folks by surprise, but you can count on seeing more lp/ph in your image with any lens on more MP and higher system MTF scores with those combos. Truly great lenses (Zeiss, etc) maximize this potential, but you don't need to maximize it to get better results than you ever got before. There are going to be some fantastic bang/buck combos with some of these older lenses on FF.

There's the question of edge performance, but generally if a lens was designed for 35mm it's going to serviceable at the edges on FF, and perhaps very good stopped down. IMO this concern is overblown.

Pentax was the leader in coatings in the film days - that SMC is going to keep your lenses more contrasty and flare-free on FF than a lot of lenses of the same generation from Canon/Nikon.

And Tom, both you and I have had our share of Taks, M,s, etc - and we both know that M 50 f4 macro for example would blow folks away on 36MP+ FF

.

---------- Post added 08-22-14 at 08:55 AM ----------

That's why I use XOR.

[Lowell Goudge]

There's always talk about how Pentax needs to update their lenses if they go FF, but it's really more something they have to do for themselves, so they can sell new lenses and make the FF ROI work better. In terms of IQ, many (natch not all) older existing lenses are good enough for even high-MP FF.

Something folks should remember - almost every lens resolves more on more MP. A lens would have to be truly, truly bad to not resolve more at 36MP than it does at say 12 or 16MP. There have been a lot of physical/mathematical-centered discussions on dpreview about why this is so, and it takes some folks by surprise, but you can count on seeing more lp/ph in your image with any lens on more MP and higher system MTF scores with those combos. Truly great lenses (Zeiss, etc) maximize this potential, but you don't need to maximize it to get better results than you ever got before. There are going to be some fantastic bang/buck combos with some of these older lenses on FF.

This is why every time somebody discusses whether old lenses are good enough for high MP full frame cameras, I point them back to the examples of legacy lenses on the Q. With a resolution of 170Mp equivalent on APS C or 300MP equivalent on FF there is not an issue of resolving power.

The biggest issue I see, and this will show up, is many older lenses suffered from loss of sharpness at the edge, BUT at the time, these tests were largely done in B&W, and the real culprit was lateral CA. Which on color becomes much more obvious.

It can, however be corrected as I demonstrated several years ago, but it still comes back to the fact that while the designs were excellent for their time, newer and better optical materials designs and processes exist now that make simple reproduction of these great lenses impractical. It is better to move forward with new designs than relive the past.

Backwards compatibility is a stop gap measure to retain user base in the interim while new designs are developed, not a means do dusting off 15-30'year old designs

[8540tomg]

Lowell, Jay et. al.

Good discussion guys. While I admit I'm wedded to a lot of my old lenses I'm well aware Ricoh/Pentax can't exist without selling new products. Technology doesn't stand still and companies which don't innovate won't be around for long. No one would be more pleased than myself to see them come out with a full frame camera and some more prime lenses expecially longer telephotos. Hopefully they would come in at a price I could afford. I'm pretty sure a number of my old lenses would work quite well in a full frame scenario. Certainly the CAs and PF which affict the K 300/4 and many older designs can be corrected in post processing. I just hope Pentax continues to support the K mount so we can continue to use our old glass. If they abandon it, for whatever reason, when they go full frame I doubt very much my next camera would be a Pentax.

Tom G

[Lowell Goudge]

Lowell, Jay et. al.

Good discussion guys. While I admit I'm wedded to a lot of my old lenses I'm well aware Ricoh/Pentax can't exist without selling new products. Technology doesn't stand still and companies which don't innovate won't be around for long. No one would be more pleased than myself to see them come out with a full frame camera and some more prime lenses expecially longer telephotos. Hopefully they would come in at a price I could afford. I'm pretty sure a number of my old lenses would work quite well in a full frame scenario. Certainly the CAs and PF which affict the K 300/4 and many older designs can be corrected in post processing. I just hope Pentax continues to support the K mount so we can continue to use our old glass. If they abandon it, for whatever reason, when they go full frame I doubt very much my next camera would be a Pentax.

Tom G

tom

i am personally failly confident that if and when pentax come out with a full frame it woud be a K mount, this is not due to anything other than looking at a simple indisputable fact. they simply do not have the pro base who can afford to recycle their entire system every 2 years as it gets worn out / abused, or the consumer base such that they can afford to simply dictate every one must buy into a new mount, as canon has done twice now in the past. it would be simple corporate suicide for recoh/pentax to pull a stunt like that.

No one is that dumb. Even the 645D uses the old 645 mount.

technically and as others have offered, the mount does not restrict full frame, so why change

[8540tomg]

it would be simple corporate suicide for recoh/pentax to pull a stunt like that.

No one is that dumb. Even the 645D uses the old 645 mount.

technically and as others have offered, the mount does not restrict full frame, so why change

I agree Lowell although such a change is not without precident. Pentax was one of the leading camera/lens makers in the 1970s. When they changed from the old screwmount to K mount they upset and lost a many of their old customers. They never regained the success they enjoyed up to that point. There is some debate that they remained loyal to the screwmount too long and lost market share for this reason.

Tom G