What John said, but add high-speed flash synch.
> Shel Belinkoff mused: > > > > It seems that Pentax may soon be coming out with a replacement for the > > istD. How many istD owners would be interested in trading in the D for the > > newer camera, and what features or improvements would be needed in order to > > make that choice? > > I have no interest in trading up, but I'd like a second digital body. > (Or, more accurately, a primary digital body, with the D as backup). > > I expect the next announcement from Pentax to be a digital body that > accepts the 645/67 lenses. Apart from that I don't expect to see any > body above the D for at least a year, from what I've seen reported > from conversations with Pentax spokesbeings. > > There are a lot of features I'd like to see. I doubt if all of them > will find their way into a new body, but I expect enough of them will > that I'd find it to be a worthwhile improvement. > > o The one single factor that would sway me the most, even if every > other factor were missing, would be support for IS & USM lenses > (or body-mounted IS, if it proves to be effective). An IS body > would be nice - it would mean all my existing lenses suddenly > became IS. But if Pentax go with lens-mounted IS, I hope they > also begin moving towards electronic focus coupling. > > o Anti-dust technology, such as that in the Olympus E-series. > This might actually be one reason that body-mounted IS would > be preferable; you could probably use the same transducers > to shake the dust off the sensor. > > o RAW+JPEG, or (preferably) control of the quality of the embedded > JPEG that's already present in the RAW file. > > o Faster frame rate, larger buffer size, more pixels, yada, yada. > These will happen, just to keep up with the marketplace. For my > purposes I'd rarely want more than 6MP, but I'd expect any new > body a year from now would have at least 8, and probably 10. > > o HyperProgram/HyperManual, with two control dials. That's one > of the major reasons why I'm not considering getting a DS. > > o Shares media with the D. I don't expect to see SD catch up > with CF capacity (for the next year or so, at least), so CF > is going to be the high-end choice. If Pentax want to add > SD support as well, fine; just not as a replacement for CF. > > o Battery/Vertical grip (but fix the 'low battery' problems). > For extra credit, add wireless download capabilities. > > o Get the extra functions (ISO, WB, ...) off the mode dial. > There are two classes of *ist-D/DS users; those that have > missed a shot because they had the mode dial set to one of > those positions, and those that are going to. This control > modality destroys the 'always ready to shoot' paradigm. > > Etc., etc. I'm not too bothered; I don't expect to see any such > body announced for at least a year. Then it will be another six > months before the camera ships, which will be plenty of time to > evaluate the features, and decide whether I'm going to buy it. > And, of course, plentry of time for the PDML to be flooded with > posts from people complaining that Pentax got it wrong because > their own particular favourite feature got left off. Including > the aperture simulator, of course; I don't expect it to return. >
