Setting aside the rights and wrongs of Pentax's decisions, can we agree that the idea of getting K/M lenses working better on the *istD is interesting? The routes would seem to be:
A) Waiting for Pentax to bring out a body with a non-crippled mount. I doubt that this is going to happen. The *istD is at a high enough price point that if they were planning to do it, they'd have done it on this body. The appearance of lenses without aperture rings also argues against it, just as the appearance of lenses that don't cover a full 35mm frame argues against plans for a full-frame DSLR. [1] B) Software changes on the body to allow stop-down metering. This would probably involve using the DOF preview on the body as a manual-mode meter switch for lenses that weren't detected as being A-mount. The diaphragm actuator would then have to make a full stroke so as to be sure to stop down the lens to the setting on its aperture ring. Doing this for aperture-priority auto would involve a longer delay after pressing the shutter release button to let the camera take a reading before opening the shutter. It doesn't seem practical to allow shutter-priority or programmed modes this way because K and M lenses weren't designed with diaphragms with the correct behaviour. C) Surgery on K or M lenses to effectively make them into A lenses. This is relatively difficult in the general case, although it might well be easier for K/M lenses that are very similar to A lens models. Now, I'm not all that worried about all this, but I do think it's an interesting problem. I was more worried until I began to get used to the *istD, and to feel that I quite liked autofocus. I'd have liked to used my K50/1.2 on the *istD, but autofocus on the FA50/1.4 makes up for the slight loss of aperture. I'd like to use my longer K/M lenses occasionally, but I have screw-mount lenses in the same lengths and I can use those. I may even pick up A or FA ones eventually. There may be technological fun to be had here, and I'm in favour of that. A bit of poking around with Google reveals that previous Pentax digital cameras used an computer operating system called "Digita", so I plan to see if I can discover if the *istD does too, and if I can do anything about (B) with the Digita SDK. But don't rush me, 'cos I have a pretty busy life and I want to take some photos as well. If you know anything much about software, Google for Digita and have a go yourself. As regards (C), I'm not much of a mechanical engineer, but I'm happy to donate lenses for a glorious death at the hands of people who want to have a crack at it. I have an A50/2.0 here which I'm never going to use. The local shops have plenty of low-priced K/M lenses, of which the 50mms are unlikely to ever be put to use. And I like trawling eBay for bargains, but since I got the *istD, the urge to collect old Pentaxes have evaporated. Anyone want to tackle this problem? Cotty? [1] Irrelevantly to the issue at hand, it might have been better in some ways if the *istD had been built with a shorter flange-to-sensor distance than a film body, and supplied with a stand-off tube (which carried all the signals through) to restore the distance for traditional lenses. A shorter flange-to-sensor distance would have made designing serious wideangles simpler. A bit radical for Pentax's marketing department, I suspect. --- John Dallman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
