Originally posted by kenyee I'm puzzled. What pattern do you mean?
The horizontal/vertical line thing looks like a sensor readout bug to me...nothing related to HSM...
Sorry I know I was not all that concise in my comment. I was on the edge of sleep when the idea hit me. What sort of came to me, is I doubt Pentax would break HSM compatibility as the 3rd party lenses help sell bodies and eventually Pentax lenses. I doubt Sigma changed anything on their end, though of the two I could see them deciding to drop Pentax mounts should there need to be a firmware upgrade/update to all current pentax mount. I mean if that it really was the goal of Pentax to break compatibility 'accidentally on purpose".
But what I really sense is with the, admitted by Pentax, heat related issue on the new sensor in the K7, is it not so much a flaw in the sensor but rather a heat issue in the body. Heating of components can cause inconsistent behavior or even failure in random fashion. What of the heat issue was affecting the AF signal by inducing noise in one of the circuits which control the AF. Yet at the same time, I sense that Pentax SDM lenses would suffer the same as Sigma HSM...but without any evidence of more widespread issues we won't know.
Sigma reverse engineers their interface for all their lenses and I have long suspected the newer versions can contain vastly different firmware from early copies but consumers will never know. but this would be where breaking the compatibility will require Sigma to either go back to the boards and mode their firmware for just one camera or they can just give up. Many Sigma lenses represent a price point threat to HoyaTax lenses, if eliminated from the equation someone somewhere might consider that a good idea...I doubt it is the case but it came to mine...so I was just 'typing out loud' but wasn't terribly complete.
And nope not a tinfoil hat sorta guy, I just never trust the visible motivation by corporations anymore. Especially those who have a well know reputation for attempting to not quite price fix but rather enforce minimum advertised prices as Hoya has done not long ago. This resulted in a rather confrontational situation with one of their vendors. And along the way the Hoya folks pretty much admitted the goal was to ensure all sellers were going to get the same price and not need to compete on price. It is an end around on existing regs as laws. And even might be illegal in a few states and probably all others in short order thanks to a Maryland Supreme court ruling that such agreements were illegal not just within the state of Maryland but also for web based companies doing business with buyer in Maryland...hence I have a jaundiced eye toward HoyaTax but that all needs to shake out...and also why I even considered the accidentally intentional break in compatibility should this spread to more lenses or just the lenses which compete with current Pentax models.
Sooo, maybe I do need a tinfoil hat and a bucket of Abilify after all hehehehe...or maybe it is just an unexpected issue with one, or a few, lens(es)...it happens...