On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 03:41:36PM -0500, Aaron Reynolds wrote: > On Mar 20, 2006, at 3:17 PM, jtainter wrote: > > >Even if the new lenses do have the drive shaft, for how long will this > >be the case? Will Pentax eventually drop the AF drive shaft, just as > >they dropped the mechanical aperture linkage from many recent lenses? > > How many years did they support the mechanical aperture linkage even > though the cameras and lenses they were producing no longer needed it? > If you want to use that as a reference you've got, what, 20 years left? > 25? When did the A-series first come out? > > -Aaron
I bought my Super Program in 1983, together with my first "A" lens. But it wan't until I bought a PZ-1p (in 1995) that I first had a camera that allowed me to set the aperture without using the lens aperture ring. So, for the first ten years or so, I still needed those aperture rings (as I did, some years later, with the MZ-S, and other MZ-series owners did with their cameras). The digital cameras are a special case, because the DA lenses aren't meant for use on film bodies. But, apart from DA lenses, have Pentax dropped the aperture ring from any lenses yet? I don't believe so, despite the fact that it's been some time since they last offered a body that needed the aperture ring (I think the MZ-S was the last to rely on it). [Of course they've just dropped a whole lot of the lenses, so there aren't all that many lenses still being sold with aperture rings. And I believe the only 'new' lenses with aperture rings are the D-FA macro lenses.] I'd expect DA lenses to retain mechanical focus systems for at least 10 years. But I'd also expect all new bodies to offer both electronic and mechanical operation of focus (and/or aperture) from now on. So in 10 years time the only bodies that won't be able to use hypothetical lenses without mechanical focus would be the current *ist-D range. Just how many of those will still be in operation 10 years from now? And, rather more to the point, how many people who are still using ten-year-old cameras will be considering buying new lenses?
