Dear all, Some answers, sorry, no time to check when the questions were posted: 1. the new AF-S 28-70 does not keep the same lenght when zoomed in/out. The outer barrel of the lens is fixed, but the inner barrel inside which the glass is mounted protudes 8.5 mm when zoomed out to 70mm (changing the lens lenght from 121.5 to 130 mm). The front lens does not rotate when focussed. I could check it with my own eyes and hands in Tokyo photo show a few weeks ago. 2. the new reflex digital camera based on the Coolpix 950 will derive from the F100. It seems that its resolution will be around 2.5 million pixel. An interesting point here is that the CCD sensor of the 950 (2.11 milion pixel) is very small, about 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch, which means, if am right its evolution will have a resolution of 124 dots/mm on the sensor plane. This is a good 30% higher than the best films currently available. Although it may be difficult to deduce anything from this in terms of what resolution is needed for the lenses, because the location of the CCD may be different from the location of the film, this does probably mean that normal 35 mm lenses (those that are not incredibly superbly sharp) will not be able to make use fully of the CCD's resolution. In my opinion, this fact may explain why Nikon has included ED elements in its new 28-70 AF-S, such elements may be needed for the digital cameras to come soon. This thought is baked up by what a Nikon engineer said about the Coolpix 950 in Las Vegas recently. The main difficulty with the development of the 950 was to develop a lens able to support the resolution of the CCD. (that interview can be found on the Japanese Nikon web site in English). 3. I read the recent post about F5 exposure and white birds and was wondering a bit. Knowing that the exposure latitude of a slide film is more narrow (about 5 stops I believe) than the exposure latitude encountered in many scenes, if I am right, a choice has to be made regarding what part of the scene should be well exposed properly. How could a camera (even the F5) guess if the photographer wants to expose properly 90% of the scene made of nice trees, or a few white spots that could be clouds or anything else? I don't see how, but I may not have understood properly the initial post. The only solution is the variable masking shutter (still to be invented) or to use films with a larger lattitude. 4. Is is really so that nobody outhere that owns a SB-26 doesn't know how FP1 and FP2 mode differ? Thanks in advance for your help if you have a clue. Best regards, Bernard .............................................................. Solvay Automotive Asia KK Sangenjaya - Horisho Bld. 1F, 12-39, Taishido 1-chome Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 154-0004, Japan tel.: 81-3-5433-5561 fax: 81-3-5433-5562 ..............................................................
