[lesmore49]

When I attach my ASP-C Limited lenses...21, 40 and 70mm...on my K-1 body and press the shutter button, the cropping frame immediately comes into the viewfinder display. The cropping frame reminds me very much of the Leica M4 that I used, many moons ago . With the Leica when I attached a Leitz 28, 50 or 90mm lens...a different frame (one for 28, one for 50, one for 90) would be displayed in the Leica viewfinder...showing me the borders where the lens coverage would be.

Similar to the old Leica, the Pentax cropping frame shows the angle of view of whatever ASP-C lens I have...compared to the 35mm full frame, as per the manual (p.43). I get that...if I install my 21mm ...the cropping frame shows me...in the viewfinder...what coverage the 21mm (ASP-C) will provide.

My question is....by using a ASP-C lens on the K-1.....do I still get full benefit of the 36 MP sensor .....or ?

BTW, I have not put my dial indicator knob onto 'crop' mode when doing this.

[arnold]

.do I still get full benefit of the 36 MP sensor .....or ?

No, you will only get the pixels in the crop area, about 15mp, close to K5 size

[Tas]

My question is....by using a ASP-C lens on the K-1.....do I still get full benefit of the 36 MP sensor .....or ?

Select FF mode. This will mean that APSC lenses fitted will take an image with the whole sensor, but will provide some vignetting. As I understand it the 21mm will vignette heavily. I believe the 40mm is FF compatible and I know the DA70 LTD is FF compatible as I use it on my K-1. The caveat though is the 70mm does vignette and some consider the edges are too soft. YMMV and all that stuff as I like how it works on the K-1: Free Spirit | Larger view on black (arrows, F11, click on th? | Flickr FYI, I added to the vignetting in this image so this doesn't represent what the DA70/K-1 combo looks like in FF mode. Here's three more K-1/DA70 images: Bluesy Rider | best viewed by clicking on the arrows in the ? | Flickr just click the right arrow to go to the images of the cyclists.

The recommendation to switch to FF should also mean that if the 21 has usable image area between the K-1 crop and the vignetting you could potentially gain more than 15Mpx with that lens. Give the square crop a go too as that might work with the 21mm too. The benefit of this camera is the choice is yours as to what framing you want to use; crop, square or FF.

Have a trawl through here too, there's probably some example photos of each lens: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/54-pentax-lens-articles/31629-da-lenses-...ts-thread.html

Tas