On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, John Francis wrote: > > > > > > Well, conspiracy demands the least bit of subtlety, hardly the > > case here: Pentax is playing openly and cynically. They chose to > > disable an existing control on perfectly usable lenses that had > > everything in place to work as before. > > Oh, grow up. They chose not to support a particular technique > because there was a perfectly reasonable alternative. Live with it.
It's not a reasonable alternative if your older lenses don't support it. If Pentax still made some of its "K" series optics like the 18mm 3.5 or the 200mm 2.5 then at least you'd have the option of buying lenses that would talk to the camera. As it is, Pentax no longer makes those lenses or anything like them so the camera really ought to talk to the lenses. > You want to set the aperture on the *ist-D? Use the body control. > Period. No complications introduced by using different techniques > for different series of lenses. This is a valid point--I'm about to buy a Nikon "G" lens which requires aperture to be set from the camera. All my other AF Nikkors have the option of being set from the camera, but I have the camera set to use lens-based aperture control because my MF Nikkors need it. When I add the "G" lens to my kit I'll have to reset the camera every time I switch to an MF lens. At least the D1h allows me to use the old MF lenses, with almost full capability (no matrix meter). >There's no need to bother with > reading the aperture from the lens, because there's no need to > turn the lens off the "A" position. > If you can't live with that technique, then don't buy a *ist-D. > It's not as though Pentax are the first manufacturer to switch > to body-mounted controls. So tell us again just how many 20-year > old lenses work on a EOS-10d? And is the D100 that much better? If I recall correctly, canon AF lenses are not 20 years old, so of course NO 20 year old canon lenses work on the EOS-10D. On the other hand, since canon made its switch from old tech to new tech all in one go as opposed to the "evolution" that Pentax and Nikon are going through EVERY canon AF lens ever made will work on the EOS-10d if I understand it correctly. The Nikon D100 is WORSE, in that it will not meter non-CPU lenses at all, even wide open in Aperture Priority mode. Why Nikon couldn't have at least turned the meter ON in this case I don't know. It is interesting to note that the new Nikon D2H re-introduces matrix metering with older MF lenses, something that the F5 and D1H didn't have but the F4 did. It's certainly just a connection or a firmware tweak, and wasn't that big a deal. It is also maddening that I'd get MORE functionality meter-wise from my old screw-mount lenses on an adapter with the *istD than I would with the equivalent "K" lenses precisely because the "K" lenses do talk to the camera physically. Pro and older amateur Nikons allow the mechanical aperture-follower lever to be disengaged to use lenses in stop-down metering mode, and I wish Pentax could do the same. DJE
