The design actually dates from 1966, with very small tweaks and mostly
to the coatings...
Joseph Tainter wrote:
"Interesting idea that FA lenses could make a comeback. I assumed they
disappeared because of the mandate for lead-free glass: Changing the
glass formulations would change the refractive index index and render
the old designs unusable."
This is the excuse in some circles (Roland Mabo on dpreview), but I
suspect that the real reasons are that they were too expensive to
produce, had an image circle that was larger than needed, and the *
ones didn't sell well. Shifting lens production to Vietnam at the same
time that the *ist D came out gave Pentax an opportunity to start over
with mostly new designs that would be less expensive to produce.
Note that the oldest optical design is the FA 50 F1.4, dating I
believe to 1977. If any of the FA lenses had lead in the glass,
wouldn't it be this one?
Three of the current lenses--the 50 and 100 macros and the 200--are
the same as the FA optical designs, or nearly so. Did the FA originals
have lead?
I suspect that the information on this Chinese web site is a bunch of
malarkey. Pentax does not have the capacity to produce all of those
old FA lenses in a reasonable time, and it would make little sense for
them to do so in the absence of a camera with a 24 x 36 mm sensor. If
they were to, they would be labeled DA or D FA, not FA.
Joe
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