For various reasons, Pentax now designs cameras that require the aperture to be set on the camera. Once one is used to it, this works very well. I am sure you would agree that the time must come at some point where Pentax are justified in abandoning the old mechanical linkage. They think the time is now (or rather, a couple of years ago for some camera bodies). You think the time is not now, but what you are asking them to do is to incur greater manufacturing cost to avoid minor inconvenience for a few users. And I do mean "minor", and I do mean a "few".
I have six M lenses, use them frequently, and find the lack of autofocus to be a much bigger problem than having to press the green button. But then, my eyes are not what they used to be.
Bear in mind, too, that the green button solution is actually quicker and easier to use than the meters on the manual metering cameras. For people upgrading from LXs, MXs, KXs, KMs, and K1000s, the green button is an improvement.
John
On Thu, 16 Sep 2004 20:28:16 -0400, John C. O'Connell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
some of the K/M prime lenses are better than some of of the FA. Newer does not equal better.
Regarding lens life, Well made lenses can last many decades with moderate usage. I have many large format lenses from the 1940's and 50's that still work fine including their shutters. The only reason I don't own any pre-WWII is the lack of coatings...
To compare a SLR lens, non-shuttered no less, with clothes and cars is absurd... Those are used hard and wear out quickly. If well cared for and used seldomly I see no reason why a well made lens cant last the buyer's ENTIRE LIFETIME. So 20 years is nothing...
For the price of what a *istD costs I am not going to buy into the argument that full K/M support would have driven up the cost in any signifigant way because K/M support was provided on many budget cameras, pentax made and third parties. JCO
-----Original Message----- From: Paul Stenquist [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2004 8:08 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: istDs - what a great camera!
Good point, John. I use pigeons instead of sell phones and K glass instead of FA, but I'm right up to date on everything else. <vbg> Paul On Sep 16, 2004, at 7:44 PM, John Forbes wrote:
What rubbish.
How long do you want Pentax to keep supporting a product which is now almost 30 years old? There IS a cost to it, and for most people, there is no benefit. For those who want to use K and M lenses, the green button solution is perfectly adequate. If you want something better, for God's sake buy a newer lens.
Are you still wearing the clothes you bought 30 years ago? Driving the same car? Using the same music system? Calculating with a pencil? Typing on a type-writer? Using pigeons instead of a mobile phone?
I don't think so.
You've had a damn good ride. Please don't put up the cost of my camera because you insist on using ancient glass on yours.
John
On Thu, 16 Sep 2004 18:31:32 -0400, Peter J. Alling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
An interesting rhetorical device, changing the point from the technical and or marketing reason to not include a feature to criticizing the form factor as not being able to contain it. A bush league debating trick which I'm not even going to answer. Simply put
changing the subject doesn't improve you original position. There was no valid technical reason and only the sleaziest of marketing reasons to not include the mechanical coupling. Defending them does you no credit. Backward compatibility may have been an after though but that seems to be a stretch based on Pentax's previous offerings and literature. Personally I plan on buying a *ist-d[x] at some point, it is currently the only game in town if I want to stay with Pentax. However the Current *ist-D is in my opinion overpriced for a
device that leaves off one of my most important features, (and you read my previous post incorrectly if you thought I felt the green button was onerous, it is annoying though since there were even better solutions to the stop down metering problem than it implemented and even more annoying since I believe that the mechanical coupling was dropped after being included in the original design). I am waiting to see if the next *ist-D version has the green button and the high frame rate of the *ist-Ds, at a minimum. Keith Whaley wrote:
Peter J. Alling wrote:
Looks like it's Rob's point, especially since the late and in some quarters lamented MZ-D apparently had full K mount compatibility.
What you're saying is, a digi camera body the size of the MZ-D had the room, and they did it, why not the ist-DS? I don't know how the MZ-D compared to the ist-DS. The -D is considered small, in comparison to a number of cameras. The -DS is even smaller than that...
So, I couldn't judge unless I was privy to a phantom or breakaway view of them, side by side. I think that if the design team had approached the system design with including K-mount capability from the beginning, what you say is true. However, if the design was essentially complete when the question arose--what about the K-mount backward compatibility? Stranger things have happened with new products...
We may someday know the truth.
keith
Rob Studdert wrote:
On 15 Sep 2004 at 19:24, Keith Whaley wrote:
Ha, ha... I knew you'd say that... No disrespect meant, Rob.
You have a background in engineering, can you seriously imagine a reason why it wouldn't have been practical or economical to implement given it's inclusion on most all previous K mount bodies? The camera is essentially a mechanical film body without a
http://www.opera.com/m2/film advance and with an electronic sensor in place of the film. There is no more going on around the mount area than on any previous K mount bodies. The interface to the electronic system would have been a doddle and so would the software integration. Lets face they though it enough of a problem for the punters to implement the "green button" kludge after the fact . I bet that cause some debate and consternation in house, particularly in marketing (as they had essentially won to that point). My speculation only of course but I haven't heard any more logical arguments to date.
Rob Studdert
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