>From: "Herb Chong" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >an option for me, by preference, and if Pentax doesn't have a creditable >high end DSLR announced by then, it's time to switch.
Just out of curiousity, what's not credible about the *istD? I know a lot of pros using Nikon D100s or Canon 10Ds, both of which are very similar featurewise. The feature that I find the *istD lacking most for my style of pro work is a "motor drive", and aside from the LX, MX, and PZ-1P Pentax has never catered to serious motor drive users. (the rest of my "makes me uneasy about using *istD for pro work" list: -build quality compared to top-of-the-line -inconvenient metering functionality with older lenses -inferior readouts and options in firmware compared to Nikon and Canon -lack of USM lenses ) ----- Original Message ----- >From: "Cliff Nietvelt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 11:09 PM >Subject: Re: Pentax plans to focus on digital > Another reason: the lenses that Pentax offer do not > appeal to me: no AF 500mm, 400mm f2.8/4 and no AF > teleconverters or IS or USM. I can live without USM or > IS but to have no AF teleconverters is inexcusible. > How hard can they be to design? Without USM or some other internal-focus-motor, very hard due to the linkages required. Nikon never did it--their AF converters are USM-lenses only. My experience has been that with big glass like that you REALLY want USM anyway. Nikon finally got the clue there, as did Minolta. > However, when shopping for a big lens, I found it > cheaper and more are available from Canon or Nikon. > For example, KEH has had many 300mm f2.8's by both > Nikon/Canon for around $2000 (non IS and some AF-I). > I've seen very few AF 300mm 2.8's from Pentax, and any > manual focus one's cost about $2000 used anyhow. This is true even new. The Pentax big glass is more expensive, because they don't sell many of them. I was pricing this stuff at B&H and KEH last week for kicks. It seems odd to pay KEH $500 for a 300/4 M* because the A* and F*'s are unavailible and the FA is more than $700 new. It's doubly odd given the availibility of 300/4 AF Nikkors for $350 and 300/4.5 MF Nikkors for less. I think a lot of the good Pentax glass is being hoarded, and it is driving up the price. I was a little surprised not to be able to find a K28/3.5, the Nikon and Canon versions of which are plentiful and cheap (and probably worse...) > is true for 500mm's. Any 600mm's I have seen for sale > by Pentax are the A*-600mm f5.6: too slow & no AF. The 500/4.5 Pentax seems availible (except in screw-mount!) and cheap. I can see that for some uses you HAVE to have f/4 or better, but that 600/4 is mighty big, heavy, and expensive no matter what brand you are using. I'd think that a lot of folks could get by with a 600/5.6 or 400/5.6 which are much smaller and cheaper. If you can live with the optical quality loss, I'd think a 1.4x converter would get you more or less to these specs as well. Pentax hasn't really competed for the "guys who buy $6000 lenses" market in a long time. DJE
