On Mon, Nov 01, 2010 at 11:26:47PM -0400, Miserere wrote: > On 1 November 2010 23:18, P. J. Alling <webstertwenty...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Nobody thought we'd lose the aperture ring until I stumbled across the FAJ > > lens description on Pentax's site, (I don't remember how many years ago). >
He's wrong, anyway. There was speculation about the aperture ring disappearing pretty much as soon as the PZ series bodies showed up with thumbwheel aperture selection. Then the MZ-S came along, which reverted to the more traditional controls. It was suggested that there were alternating design teams at Pentax; one that favoured the PZ-style control layout, and one that liked the MZ style. As we now know, the MZ-style digital body never made it to market, and so the *ist-D, with PZ-style controls, set the direction for the Pentax DSLRs. At that point it was a foregone conclusion that lenses without aperture rings would show up eventually; the *ist-D had already shown that Pentax were prepared to drop some backwards compatibility. The expectation was that this would first show up on cheaper lenses (such as the kit lenses), but there were predictions that Pentax would eventually drop all of the mechanical lens/body connections, and go with a completely electronic interface much as Canon had done with the EOS. That still hasn't happened; we've still got mechanical aperture coupling (albeit unidirectional) for now. In any case, I reckon Pentax are pretty good as far as compatibility goes. We haven't yet seen a body that drops support for the A-series lenses, although it's almost 20 years since the FA lens family first showed up. I'm sure we'll see such a body eventually, but history suggests that any current lens purchases will be fully usable for the next two decades. New lenses on older bodies aren't quite as good for compatibility; not all of the current lenses are fully compatible with the *ist-D bodies (which can't focus those few lenses lacking a screwdriver coupling) -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
