As someone who is obviously compensating for a small pee pee, I think I should add my thoughts on the whole FF question.
Yes I own a D700. Yes it's full frame. Did I buy it because it's full frame. No, not really. I bought it for several reasons. The main one being it's much publicised low noise characteristics & high ISO performance. One of the contributing factors to low noise is sensor temperature. In all of the Pentax DSLRs I've used ( *istD, K10D & K20D) heat build up in the sensor has been a problem. Now this isn't an issue for most shooters, but at the time I was initially looking at the D700 I was fighting the K10/20D and spending lots of time in Photoshop cleaning up long exposure night shots that had huge magenta smears on them. Also for some time I had been dissatisfied with the AF & exposure performance of the K10/20D & until the announcement & release of the D700 I had been considering the D300. But while the D300's AF was excellent & very accurate exposure wise, I knew it had the same sensor amp glow issues with long exposure as my Pentax's. So while I was tempted to jump ship, I wasn't gaining the one thing I wanted most. At this point I'll admit that when the 5D first came out, I was very tempted & almost bought one on a couple of occasions, just because it was full frame. But at that time I was still the limiting factor when it came to picture making. Not the hardware. Practicality and common sense overruled my initial FF desires. I attended the official Perth launch for the D700 in '08 and I spent a solid 2 hours wandering around with the camera putting it through it's paces. I was bloody impressed (and I still am). AF, exposure & handling are all top notch. People around me kept commenting on the size of the viewfinder, but that wasn't something I wasn't paying attention to. I spent the next 4 weeks um'ing & ah'ing before I finally pulled the trigger. I don't for one second regret the decision. The technology & handling of that camera is several magnitudes above anything from Pentax. Given the D700's (ie, the D3) & it's price, that shouldn't be a surprise. Ultimately I bought the camera, because it was better spec'ed & the better tool for the kind of photography I'm interested in. Not because it was FF. And this is what any future Pentax FF DSLR has to live up too. It wouldn't be enough to just put a FF sensor in a camera with the K20D or K7 level of technology. Pentax would have to, IMHO, raise their technical standards much higher than they have previously. As I've said in the past, it doesn't matter how sharp a lens is, or how beautiful the bokeh, or how well the lens handles flare if the fucking photo is out of focus because the AF couldn't keep up or there is so much noise it looks like the shot was taken during a sand storm. Pentax has got away for a lot of years on the reputation of it's lenses (and it's a well deserved reputation. I know, I have some of their best glass). And back in the film days that wasn't such an issue, but the DSLR is such a pivotal part of image capture & ultimately image quality, that the Penatx faithful should be demanding much better. Not shrugging their shoulders and saying "thats the Pentax way" Now I hope they do release a 35mm FF camera some day. But I don't think it likely. They just aren't a big enough company to manufacture APS, digi MF & 35mm FF systems. Cheers, Dave On 23 February 2010 06:42, Boris Liberman <[email protected]> wrote: > Hey there. > > Just my opinion, really. I've spent good day and a half with my Minoltian > friend just recently. He's got Sony A850 and assortment of Minolta FF > lenses, such as 50/1.7, beercan, and some more. Well, I admit - I am > envious. The look and the technical qualities of the pics are pretty darn > amazing. Well, whatever you say about the full or fool format - I say it is > full and not fool. > > Let's hope Pentax does what I would like them to do ;-). > > Boris -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
