On Sun, 24 Nov 2002, Bob Walkden wrote: > your thinking is all upside down! Each increase in complexity just > makes it more likely that the thing will go wrong. This is a good > reason to eliminate unnecessary complexity, which is one of the main > reasons why most of the mainstream operating systems are so bad.
I'm not arguing that adding the tiny bit of communication between the main control dial (which would still exist even without aperture functionality) and the lens adds one more thing to go wrong. I'm arguing that the very, very small chance of it affecting anything is more than outweighed by the benefits of being able to use either method. While few people want Pentax to abandon their aperture rings, think about the times when some people find it beneficial to use a body-based control: When they want their exposure functions controlled by one hand. One finger for the shutter, one for the aperture, and your whole left hand is free. Now you can use that hand to support a long lens without needing to continually slide your hand back and forth and back and forth to change apertures. Now, too, you can focus manually if you prefer without having to move your hand all around the lens to set your aperture, focus, and support the lens at the same time. There's a reason why C/N/M switched over to body-based aperture controls, and why most photographers find them useful in some situations. At least Pentax still offered us a choice in the Z1-p. chris
