I would expect most DA prime lenses in the 24-80mm range, whether DA
or not, could acceptably cover up to 35mm. Acceptable is not
necessarily the same thing as superb quality however.
Zooms are another animal. The gains for zooms in terms of reducing
size and weight by minimizing image circle could be substantial,
particularly wide-ratio zooms.
Frankly, though, I don't care whether Pentax ever produces a "full
frame" DSLR. They've already positioned their 645D as the high-end,
larger sensor camera and I think that was a very sensible choice
since they have an excellent lens line in that mount too. It's too
early to assume anything about the low light performance of the new
sensor, other than what we know of the Nikon D200 using a similar
sensor (if not the same one...).
In that regard, well, one of my photographer friends at Stanford
University just received her D200 so I had a few minutes of hands-on
time with it today. As far as I can see, at ISO 1600 the image
quality is virtually the same as what I see with the *ist DS. Hers
doesn't exhibit any banding at all, not that I can see. I didn't try
ISO 3200, I doubt I'd find it any more acceptable than the DS at that
speed. So I'm pretty confident that the Pentax 10Mpixel 16x24mm
format sensor body will be a fine performer.
Until we have our hands on one, though, it's pretty senseless to
argue about its performance.
Godfrey
On Feb 27, 2006, at 5:21 PM, Bruce Dayton wrote:
That was the thought process I was following. Pentax is committed to
the DA lens size - we just don't know exactly how much bigger than the
APS sized sensor it might support - other than Full Frame isn't in the
short term cards.
