> > Boris wrote: > > BL> This is most unusual. My ZX-L for instance, shows aperture value in > BL> the viewfinder if a lens that has "A" position is set to some other > BL> aperture. I thought that it came through electronics, this displayed > BL> value. Why it is not supported in this case? > > Aperture is indeed transmitted digitally to the camera by the F/FA > lenses, so use of aperture set on the lens would have been perfectly > possible with the *istd. But P deliberately invalidated this > functionality through software, as it is forcing its users to abandon > the aperture ring and sets the premise for a complete switch to the > FAJ line.
Personally I find this incessant tirade accusing Pentax of deliberate conspiracies is more than a little tiresome. It's not as if you can't continue to use old A, F and FA lenses - it's just that you have to use the aperture control on the camera, not the aperture ring on the lens. You haven't lost any functionality; you've just lost one style of control for getting at that functionality. So they chose not to support an alternative interface. Oh dear, what a shame. Using the body-mounted control, in fact, is in some ways superior to using the aperture ring; with variable-aperture lenses you don't really know what aperture you'll be getting when you use the aperture ring on the lens. Given the presence of a perfectly functional aperture control on the body, why *should* Pentax invest much effort in supporting alternatives? The more complex the hardware or software, the more expensive it is to manufacture, test, and repair, and the more likely it is to break. If the body doesn't need to read aperture settings from the lens then adding a means to do so (be it mechanical for "A" lenses, or digital for "F" lenses) is just one more thing that could go wrong. Complaining that the *ist-D makes you use the body-mounted control rather than a lens-mounted control is just petulant whining. When the MZ-S dropped the separate body-mounted aperture control, rather than supporting the PZ-1p style of interface there were expressions of displeasure, but then everybody got on with using the tools that were available. The other big complaint about the *ist-D - that it doesn't support metering with older "K" lenses - is all about a loss of functionality. In the absence of the mechanical aperture-sensing lever, and assuming that the lens should normally be left at full aperture for composition, etc., there's no way for the metering to be permanently enabled. But it *would* be possible to program some control (the green button? or the AF button?) to stop the lens down to taking aperture, take an instantaneous reading, and display the over/under exposure bars for as long as the control was being pressed.
