On 3/02/06 2:00 PM, "Joseph Tainter", <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Thanks, Ken. You seem to know a lot about this. I have embedded > some follow-up questions, if you don't mind. > ----- Hi Joe, No, I am not an insider or anything, but merely passing some info which I thought would be interesting and useful to fellow PDMLers. Being able to read Japanese helps, taht's all :-). I am not seeking any info but they just come by via various channels. I normally only post the facts and if anything would be rumour or speculations, I would say so. The lens info I posted came from the horse's mouth but was very sketchy, as they did not elaborate further. I only explain what I clearly understood. > 1. DFA100mm Macro. > Pentax provided Tokina with the optical design and Tokina > designed the barrel to implement it. > > ----- > > I assume there is a good source for this information. I am > wondering why Pentax would do this, unless it was just a direct > sale to Tokina. So did Tokina design the quick-shift mechanism > of the D FA 100? Quite some time ago, I posted the reason why Pentax did this. It's about the cost. FA Macro was built like a tank (i.e., costly to build) and they were losing money for each macro lens they sold. In principle, their reasoning for the collaboration with Tokina was the problem they had when they manufacture the lenses at Pentax's cost while having to compete with the prices set by the 3rd party lens makers for the comparable products. They wanted to solve this by collaborating with lens maker (s). Quick-shift mechanism is Pentax's. > ----- > > 2. Optical formula of 12-24 was done by Tokina and Pentax > followed it up with ghostless coating > > ----- > > Okay, there's been a lot of speculation that the 12-24 is a > Tokina design. 12-24 was a Tokina design. > ----- > > 3. Tokina provided DA lenses optical designs and Pentax > implemented them with the barrel design. > ----- > > Ken, which DA lenses do you mean here? All of them or specific > ones? Does this include the DA primes? The DA 16-45? Sorry for the confusion. I was talking only about the 12-24. Pentax took the Tokina optical formula and packaged into DA using their (Pentax's) barrel design. > ----- > > 4. DA FYZ is of course the Pantax design but Tokina might > incorporate it in their products > > ----- > > Do you mean the fisheye? Pentax announced that the optics were > designed jointly with Tokina. What does that mean, and why did > Pentax acknowledge it? What puzzles me is that the fisheye zoom > was a Pentax exclusive (the F 17-28). Now Pentax has given it > away to everyone else. Why would they do that? Was it just for > some quick cash? Or will they get some continuing royalty on > every one of these that is sold to one of the millions of Canon > users? You are asking many questions I cannot answer :-). But some things are confusing. 10-17 FYZ is the exclusive Pentax design. It was NOT jointly designed with Tokina as the press release said. That's why they distinguished the "collaboration" aspect which is quite different from the "joint development". The way Pentax said, they did not seem to mind that Tokina offer this in different mounts. They even said something to the effect that it should be interesting and even beneficial to a lot of people if this could be used on C or N cameras etc. So, sounds like the more sales, so much the better :-). > Thanks, Ken. Any further information you can supply would be > appreciated. They are saying that the collaboration becomes necessary in order to be cost competitive, but there has been no "joint development". They also pointed out that this collaboration is mainly for the budget lenses which have to be competitive in the price market. Taking example of SMC PENTAX-DA 50−200mmF4-5.6 ED, which is Pentax design, but of budget grade. So they have to sell it at lens makers' price while the production cost is Pentax's because the performance has to edge over the lens makers'. They also have to have some sort of aesthetic enhancement over the 3rd party's, such as fancy DA badges, green lines etc. Lens designers do not like those aesthetics, and if there was none of these including the quick shift, the price could have come down another $100. Hope above clarifies some confusions. > So this news makes me hesitate about the forthcoming F2.8 zooms. As I said, above seem to apply only for the budget lenses. Fast lenses I am sure are of purely Pentax's. Ken
