"Digital-ready" lenses really do contain a difference and it's most evidenced with wide-angle lenses. It has to do with the angle used to provide full coverage. Specifically, straightening out the large angles so that light hits the sensor more vertically. This impoves greately the image quality toward the outside of the sensor. Schneider has been concentrating on this characteristic for several years in the LF arena, but I've not heard talk about it in medium format circles. (When you look at the rear cell to film plane distance perhaps there's less a concern in medium format. LF, on the other hand, likes to emphasize the superiority of the best lenses and so has had to adjust.)
For Pentax this would one-up Nikon as they've gone with the smaller-coverage approach. For that the users will pay dearly in the future when larger sensors become more popular/pleantiful. Let's just hope Pentax can ship enough to cover the Christmas/holiday rush. I anticipate sales of DSLR units to be 5x greater than anyone expects. Right now, for the D100 & 10D, people are buying about as many as are in the stores. Collin -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ .
