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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
11-13-2014, 08:40 AM
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I'm wondering how many people - even people who hate conversion to 135 standard - would welcome this ^^.
It sounds maddening, especially when forming a purchase decision.
You: I want to get a long lens for My Q, what do you have?
Salesrep: We have this "long", these two "very long" and this "ultra long".
You: OK, but how 'long' are the longs?
Salesrep: Oh, they're pretty long.
You: But what equivalent FL are they?
Salesrep. (looking) Hm.. Doesn't say. I'd have to dig out the spec sheet. But they are long, look. (he points at the barrel. You read the word "LONG".)
You. OK. Well. Are these two "very long" lenses the same? One costs more.
Salesrep: Yes, well, one is... longer. But not quite "ultra long".
You: Eh? How much longer?
Salesrep: It doesn't matter to real photographers, they are both categorized as "very long". You're not a FOV nazi, are you!?! Why do you need to know precise things like this?
You: You're right, I forgot that these things shouldn't matter any more. Here's my Visa!
 Quote: (speaking of conversion of *all* focal lengths to angle of view)
What would be gained? How about no more "real" focal length confusion such as has been expressed by the OP of this and several other similar threads in the last few weeks. As for conversion, the unit of measure for FOV (or Angle of View) is degrees of arc. No conversion needed. It works for all formats. The cool thing is that there is no longer any need to talk about equivalence. 45 degrees corner-to-corner is well, 45 degrees. But nothing would really be gained, because everyone would still need to do a conversion in their head - this time to degrees of arc, vs. a standard equivalent FL. It's an arbitrary number, a standard to convert to, and it would mean moving from one well-established standard to another - for no real gain.
If it had been that way from the beginning it would have been fine - and equally arbitrary - but to change now... for what?
Quote: The cool thing is that there is no longer any need to talk about equivalence. Ah. As I suspected. :)
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
11-12-2014, 01:01 PM
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How would it make things any easier, what would be gained?
You're still converting to something. (Serious question, what would be gained by doing that?)
Is "FF" that objectionable at this point that people can't even accept it as a standard that it's been adopted for for over a decade? :)
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
11-12-2014, 12:49 PM
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I have to strongly disagree on a couple counts - first, it's likely that the Q users are mostly ILC customers already, probably still own or have owned aps-c, but possibly FF/film as well.
Second, forcing a new 'standard' based on Q format seems silly. Requiring buyers to learn what "3.8mm" really looks like for example compared to ap-sc, FF, film, another MILC, micro 4/3, etc. It's also likely they're already acclimated to 135mm reference from other formats they've used, which standardize to it.
It's best to do what we're doing now - state the real FL if you wish, but convert everything to a single standard for the sake of comparison so we know what FOV we're talking about. FF/135mm works perfectly fine as this standard.
Imagine the conversation otherwise:
Q: I want to buy this Q, but what FOV does this 3.8mm - 5.9mm lens give me?
A: It's a 3.8mm - 5.9mm lens, that's all you need to know.
Q: But... I want to know if it will be wide & long enough for what I want. What does it compare to?
A: It compares to a 3.8mm - 5.9mm lens. You're shooting Q, you don't need to convert to anything else, much less the odious "FF".
Q: Really, I just want to know what other lenses I might want to buy. Can you help?
A: No. This conversation is terminated.
:)
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