I was just wondering....

I was just wondering what will happen to all the DA lenses if Pentax releases a full frame camera one day.

The way I understand it, the DA lenses are only useful for the smaller size sensors.

I am sure one day (soon?) there will be a full frame Pentax.
Cannon and Nikon have one; and if they become less expensive. Pentax will again fall behind and look like a toy camera if it hasn't a full frame model.

I suppose a new series of lenses will be released with a big fanfare.
The F and FA lenses will get more expensive on the second-hand market.

Regards, Horst

first some da lenses are ff, just not marketed that way.
second... there is nothing to prevent an aps-c lens from working on a ff camera IF the camera simply crops down to the right size image circle as part of the firmware...

lastly ff isn't be all end all... when it comes, Pentax will no doubt stick to it's long held tradition of backward compatibility. Which is kind considering how many other big camera makers deliberately make their old products obsolete when coming out with new products.

There are a number of studies. I believe that DA zooms are incompatible, wide primes are incompatible, most other primes are compatible. So plenty of useful lenses. If Pentax go FF and I'm sure they will, then I'd only need a wide FF zoom for a good range of quality FF lenses.

When the K system was introduced in the 1970s a mass of lenses were released all at once. The same happened with the M system, A system, the F system, etc.

So it is possible. If being planned for a year or two ahead design and even tooling might be underway already, who knows.

The strength of Pentax's position is their huge back catalogue of great full frame lens designs, all fully patented. In fact the last few DA primes were actually tweaked and repackaged lenses from the film era. They work just great on digital.

They haven't patented any FF lenses for yonks....
Just some for the K-01

And presumably it would'nt take much for the independants to repackage their FF models in Pentax fit? Must be plenty of high quality Sigmas, Tamrons, Tokinas etc being used on fullframe C's & N's. . A 24-70mm zoom on FF is a good allrounder, and this is cheaper than the extreme wide angles needed for APS-C.

My guess is that Pentax would release a small number of new FF lenses, optimised for Digital, to sell with a new F camera. Hopefully we would then have a choice to buy them or look at independant alternatives.

I think (?) my new Samyang 14mm prime is actually full frame, which would give a spectacular field of view on a new Pentax F DSLR.

Hi,
the question still remains, what will happen to the DA lenses specially made for the APS-c size.
I can see 2 scenarios:

1.) The full frame Pentax has a list of these lenses and only the APC equivalent size of the sensor is addressed, as mentioned by Don. However the advantage of the full frame is lost.

2.)They are used as full frame lenses with maybe a bit less quality on the edges.

It probably would be worth while to test this lenses on a film camera
to see how they perform.
maybe they are good enough for the not over critical photographer like myself, but are not good enough for the professional.

I had a look through the viewfinder of my SFX
with the 18-55mm DA lens attached and could not see any problems. However on the wide-angle setting the original lens hood caused quit a bit of vignetting which it doesn’t on a APC size camera.

Horst

As I understand it (I've always assumed), if you stuck a DA APS-C lens on a FF camera, then you'd have black space around the edges, because the image projected is a smaller circle than the sensor is recording. Pentax may be the only brand that this could be tested on I think, because the other brands have different mounts for the two types (Eg Canon Ef / EF-S).

A lens has a coverage that fades gradually as you move from the centre axis, so you get vignetting rather than a sharp cut off.

Depending on how quickly the lens vignettes will dictate what format it is suitable for with adequate coverage. Some high quality lenses will hold their quality enough to use on full frame even if not designed for it, but only if the manufacturer has generously only used part of the available image circle and not cut it off as well with the lens body construction.