I'd be willing to bet money that Pentax leaves off the aperture ring on the new f2.8 tele zoom. The AF cameras that people would use this lens on either have crippled mounts or can set the aperture via the body, so why encourage people to use old bodies when they could spend money upgrading to the latest and greatest?
This explains why they didn't upgrade the sorely out-of-date 80-200/2.8 earlier. Now that the DSLR is out, they have a good excuse for leaving off the aperture ring. If they had to make something in the mount electronic, why couldn't it be the focusing? At least then they'd only be 5 years behind Canon's AF technology instead of 10. :) To give Pentax credit, they held off making fundamental changes to their bayonet mount when other companies like Canon and Minolta radically altered theirs with the introduction of AF cameras. And even now, while we can't stop FAJ lenses down manually, they at least can be mounted on crippled AF cameras and used wide open if you need to. And at least we can still mount all Pentax lenses on the new crippled cameras, even if we lose functionality with the M-series and earlier lenses. It's not much, but it's something. That being said, I find it inexplicably stupid for Pentax to remove the aperture ring at this point in time. They're turning their great AF lenses into crippled tools designed for people who can't be bothered to use an aperture ring. In doing so, they're alienating the people who use Pentax because of its body/lens compatibility, and who like using MF bodies or lenses with new equipment. The big problem is that Pentax is also alienating those people who like using good AF equipment, since they don't seem to be in any hurry to introduce USM/AF-S/HSM, or IS/VR, or useful things like lock-on focus tracking, etc. So if Pentax can't attract the technology lovers, and is alienating the people who like using older technology, who do they have left? Beginners looking for an easy-to-use SLR, I guess. While I'm whining about Pentax, I should also point out that they don't make an ultra-wide f2.8 zoom like Canon's 16-35/2.8 L USM or Nikon's AF-S 17-35/2.8 ED-IF. Should be fun trying to sell a DSLR priced the same as (or slighter higher than) a D100/10D with fewer good lenses available for it. Just so I don't come across as a total Pentax basher, I still think they make some of the best MF and MedF stuff out there, and I like their unique approach to AF cameras (Z-1p, MZ-5n/3, etc.). However, they do manage to piss me off a lot, so think of this like a photo critique... pointing out the bad as well as the good. chris On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, [iso-8859-1] R�diger Neumann wrote: > Will there be a replacement of the 2.8/80-200 ??? hopefully a FA* 4/70-200 > which is not so heavy and cheeper.
