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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
08-07-2015, 06:02 AM
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I'm hoping there'll be a menu option for auto-APSC/FF vs. manual APSC vs. manual FF. The good thing about firmware updates is that if we bring enough pressure, it can be put there if it wasn't originally present.
Given that a 50mm prime is an almost unavoidable part of a camera system, I wouldn't be surprised to find you right. However, it might take more than a couple of years because the FA 50/1.4 is still in production. Thus if the FF were released tomorrow there would already be a 50mm prime ready to go on it, and no screaming hurry to make another.
They can afford to take their time and see what the general opinion is about the quality of the FA50/1.4 on the full-frame. If enough people are displeased with it, they would have justification to go on and make a D-FA version with HD coatings etc. and maybe even a new lens formula, but if it stood up well and produced good enough results, they would probably just increase production to satisfy the demand from those who aren't prepared to buy a second-hand lens (either because of snobbery or because they want warranty protection and are willing to pay new-lens prices for it). My guess is that we might get an interim version which is just the FA50/1.4 with HD coatings and then a fully-fledged D-FA redesigned from the ground up.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
08-07-2015, 04:20 AM
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I'd be willing to forego the metal mount, unless it's impossible to have WR without it, but that seems like a pretty good package. It's almost certain to get the HD coatings, of course. But in order to keep lens weight, volume and cost down, I think lenses like this need to stick with screw drive.
The DA 50 and DA 35/2.4 (the former by experience, the latter by reputation) are IMO models of how to build a plastic-bodied lens well. Certainly the fifty changed my mind on plastic mounts for low-level consumer lenses. I wouldn't mind seeing the entire FA line of wide to normal primes brought back inside a skin like theirs. Longer primes should probably have metal mounts; I'm still not completely happy that a D-FA 135/2.8 (for example) wouldn't put too much strain on the mount to work well with plastic.
The other thing I wouldn't mind (vain and expensive, yes, but probably achievable) is for the FA Limiteds or perhaps the D-FA* series to be brought back inside a Super Takumar-like skin. Looks like a Tak on the outside, but on the inside would be all the goodies we've come to expect from the autofocus-era Limiteds, with a KAF-2 or KAF-3 mount at the back. After all, if we're going to do the all-metal thing and we're willing to pay extra for quality and workmanship, let's give it back some retro class (and I notice that the zoom ring on the 20-40 Limited is very Takumar-like, so maybe Pentax are heading that way already?). Speaking of which, next to its 28 and 135mm brethren my SMC Tak 55/2.0 is very much the odd man out in this respect, having focus and aperture knobs that are halfway to looking like those on their K mount successors. Maybe I should have bought an earlier model? Oh no, there goes my LBA again!
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
08-06-2015, 04:13 AM
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True, but science marches on, and what was once the province of cutting-edge experiment is now in our homes for mass entertainment. He'll get his lens eventually, but it might take 20 years or so. ;)
Agree completely. There are a couple I want, and will almost certainly get... but I know I don't actually need them - for 99% of what I do with a fifty, the DA50/1.8 is more than enough.
---------- Post added 06-08-15 at 08:44 ----------
I think what he means is that there is no duplication in his collection - each is different from all the others.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
08-05-2015, 11:00 AM
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I suspect it's not going to be sorted out in practice until someone puts a copy of, e.g., the 18-35 Art on the full-frame and see how it goes. (IIRC the K mount version is APS-C, but the FF is supposed to have a crop mode, which will hopefully either work with third-party APS-C lenses or can be manually selected to deal with them.)
The fact that Pentax does actually currently make two f/1.4 lenses (the FA 50 and the DA* 55), and there are not long, complainy, heated threads about how much their focusing sucks or doesn't suck, would seem to indicate that it's not an impossible ask. :p
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
08-05-2015, 10:03 AM
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NIkon certainly thought so, hence their "Holy Trinity" of lenses, and IIRC we have something similar coming to cover 28-200 as a pair.
I'm not sure that the extra aperture is unwelcome or unneeded for DOF effect; some people like it razor-thin, and the wider apertures will certainly do that - at f/1.8, the DA50 won't even keep the entirety of a coffee cup in focus at minimum distance. However, just because you CAN push the ISO to levels film could only dream of doesn't mean you always should - and there are always people who will need or want those wide apertures to give them faster shutter speeds at any ISO. However, you may be right in one respect - given the improvements in high ISO processing since the birth of digital, I suspect those of us hoping for a DA, D-FA, or D-FA* 50mm f/1.2 lens will probably wind up disappointed. (Note that I would be VERY happy to be proved wrong on this score.)
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
08-04-2015, 12:21 PM
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What I meant was, they broke the bank to get their nine year old camera when it was new or near-new, and there was no such thing as a K-5, K-30 or K-01 to get, let alone a used one. Such a person would stretch the use of their camera as long as they could, saving the big purchases for carefully selected glass.
For anyone looking to buy today, I agree - used K-5's are dirt cheap, relatively speaking, to the point where they are almost the ideal entry-level Pentax DSLR. I like mine so much that if it died tomorrow I'd almost rather have another K-5 than a K-3, even though the -3 is currently far cheaper than what I paid for the -5.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
08-04-2015, 11:19 AM
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It used to be that the "current generation" of lenses worked with cameras that were far, far older than nine years. Pentax took the belt-and-braces approach for the combined SDM/screw-drive lenses, and it's just as well they did. Why make us pay for an autofocus motor with every lens we buy? At least they still have the shake reduction in the body - they haven't been so unutterably stupid as to think about changing that yet. (Or have they?)
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
08-04-2015, 10:29 AM
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The 50mm DA and some of the kit zooms are substantially less than your $500 right now, and they are current production. Why should someone with an older camera be cut off from the next generation of such lenses?
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
08-04-2015, 09:11 AM
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Not if they can't afford one, no. I reckon there's some people who hocked the farm (perhaps not literally) to get their dream camera, and why should they be forced to give it up and buy another if it's still working, in order to use newer and better optics? Why should ANYONE be forced to do that, regardless of their income?
It's bad enough that we have the DA/FA discrepancy. At least my film bodies can handle any DA lenses which cover the full frame, thanks to their (admittedly basic) program modes.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
08-04-2015, 07:18 AM
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The last thing we need is more and more lenses that leave the earlier DSLRs unable to autofocus, especially at the kit-lens level.
Give me screwdrive plus DC freely selectable in firmware, thank you, or preferably just screwdrive (except perhaps for the really huge lenses). This new habit of putting the motors in the lenses without some sort of in-body reversion is IMO something Ricoh/Pentax are going to regret.
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