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| Pentax *istD Body |
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| Pentax K10d Body |
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| Pentax DA* 16-50mm F/2.8 Zoom |
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| Pentax DA 21mm Limited |
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| Pentax DA 50-200mm F/4~F/5.6 Zoom |
Pentax belatedly entered the digital world in 2003 with the *istD digital camera. I bought one fairly promptly as I had Pentax lenses around, and wanted something to provide for better photos for this website, and digital photos are ever so much better than scanned ones on a website. This *istD came out at 6.1 mega pixels, and was replaced by the K10D at 10 mega pixels in 2006. I had to have one of those as well but held off until 2007 to get it (after a price drop or two).
I was a little shocked at the robust size of the K10D, but it is OK. IT turns out that its mass makes some of the heavier lenses I have balance better. A light camera body with a heavy lens is an ugly combination. The auto exposure on the digital bodies is often wrong, apparently because the digital 'tolerance span' is narrowing that the exposure latitude with film. This is compensated for by the fact that you can instantly see the results of your photography and can easily bias the exposure by holding down the exposure bias button and rolling the front control dial. You can do this without even loosening your grip on the camera as it only takes a thumb and finger to do it.
The big thing to understand in the digital family is the 'sensor size'. Point and shoot cameras even though they advertise high pixel counts will NOT provide the same quality photos because their sensors are smaller. Smaller sensors allow for smaller lenses and overall less cost. The ultimate detail in the photo is a combination of the sensor size AND the mega pixels. The Pentax SLR's here do not use a 35mm sensor (now called FF for full frame). They use an APS-C sized sensor -- the size of a failed mini SLR size that the industry tried a few years ago with film. Lenses used with this smaller sensor have a different field of view than they did with 35mm film. Indeed you can add 50% to the focal length in MM and will get the right answer so the first lens listed as a 16mm to 50mm zoom actually when used with a digital body has a field of view consistent with what you saw on a film camera with a 24-75 zoom lens.
Long telephotos are of course longer. More to the point since the sensor is smaller the lens can be smaller and still provide light all over the sensor. This is suppose to mean that lenses can be cheaper, but with the high pixel counts of the sensors, it also means that the optical quality has to be high, as the pixel counts of the sensors are now plenty high enough to 'record' the results of poor optics visibly. The 'DA' series lenses are specifically made for the smaller size sensor and though they will mechanically fit the film cameras, your photos will have 'black corners' as the optical foot print of the DA lenses isn't big enough to reach the corners of the 35mm film.
Also the DA lenses have no 'aperture ring'. You can adjust the aperture if you want with a control wheel on the camera body but the aperture ring has for the most part been set to 'A' since 1983 when the 'A' position was introduced, and now the mechanical aperture control is history.
The bag of tricks here presents 3 very different DA lenses. The 21mm Limited lens is a 'pancake' lens, so called for it very thin physical size. Pentax offers pancake primes in several focal lengths. This just happens to be the wide angle version. On the other hand the DA 50-200 is a low cost and very small f/4.0~f/5.6 zoom. The speed is nothing to write home about, but the size and cost are small and low. It is scarcely larger than a 50mm macro lens. At the other extreme is a new generation DA* 16-50mm F/2.8. The exciting new feature of it is the SDM focusing. Instead of doing the focusing via a cam drive through the lens mount from a motor in the camera body, the lens has its own motor powered by the two barrel mounted contacts of the KAF2 mount. This makes the focus SILENT and fast. No more whirring of gears to get the focus done. Usually the focus happens to quickly that your eye doesn't even notice, and without noise to scare off that which you wish to photograph. Canon uses this method exclusively in their SLR series cameras now and Nikon has like Pentax offered it in some high end lenses. It is expected that it will be offered in high end Pentax lenses in the future but apparently not in all lenses implying that the cam drive focus technology that has been around since 1987 will stay around for a while longer. Presently the SDM lenses wil work with the cam system on digital bodies that do not support SDM which presently include all digital SLR bodies except the K10D and the K100 super.
The digital SLR's have been immensely popular and have been selling in very large numbers of late. By most reports the K10D has been a smash hit because of its high feature content and low cost. However, the digital technology is still evolving rapidly and the feature war is on between manufacturers with a 14MP model expected from Pentax during 2008.
Pentax discontinued their FA line of lenses in 2004 and has been slow to replace them with DA lenses. They now have the the short focal lengths well covered but have been behind in getting long lenses for the DA series into production reportedly because of manufacturing issues with a factory they own in Vietnam. SDM lenses are announced in 200mm F/2.8 and 300m F/4.0 but not yet delivered.