Shel Belinkoff a écrit :
Have you noticed any differences between the DS and the DS2 in terms of
speed or function? Is the larger screen on the back a substantial
improvement?
A sad thing about this larger screen is that they only changed its size,
not its resolution. That is, the screen produces exactly the same image,
just bigger... Of course, the bigger the better, as it did not impact
the body size, but I don't think the improvement is so dramatic.
AFAIK, apart from this bigger screen, the only hardware difference with
the DS, that could not be reflected in the firmware upgrade 2.00, is the
retractable autofocus coupling, for manual AF retouching. IMHO, this one
is a much more useful improvement (although I haven't seen this one
working).
Regarding speed differences, I do not work for Pentax, but I do embedded
software development for a living, and I'm pretty confident that DS
(especially 2.00), DL and DS2 firmwares are just 3 different
compilations of the same source code, with some modules added, removed,
or configured differently to cope with slight hardware differences
between the bodies. The only speed improvement would be if they migrated
to a (compatible) faster computing system in the DS2, but that's
something embedded systems designers only do if the sales put a gun on
their heads, that is, if there's a direct impact for the customer that
can be advertised. And there is none here: all speed specifications (as
advertised) are unchanged from the DS. Memory increase could also
improve some image processing algorithms, but the amount of internal
memory also seems to be unchanged (8 JPEG, 5 RAW image buffer).
No wonder Pentax waited for the official retirement of the *ist DS to
release the firmware update 2.00 (which was probably more or less ready
from the day the DS2 was out, if my assumptions are right about the
relation between the DS, DL and DS2 firmwares).
(Just my 2 cents)
Patrice
