Those are two out of the four I mentioned, the other two being the 10-17mm fish-eye and the 16-45mm.

There is now a 21mm DA Ltd on the way.

Personally, I never had a wider lens than 28mm when I shot film.

G

I am afraid that this is an example of hope triumphing over reason. All the signs are that APS-C will be Pentax's consumer sensor size for the future, and that if APS-C is abandonned, it will be for an even smaller sensor, not a larger one. Why? Because, unless it is only a little larger, they will have to manufacture yet another set of new lenses. I don't see this happening.

Those who want a larger sensor will be able to buy the 645D.

Including the fish-eye, Pentax now has four DA lenses with an AOV (at the wide end) equal to or wider than 24mm on a 35mm film camera, and two more with an AOV equal to or wider than 28MM. I consider that to represent a pretty good choice, and there are more wide lenses on the way.

There are also third party lenses.

There is nothing yet to match the old 15mm, but I wonder how many people actually owned one. Not too many, I suspect.

G

I think it's high time manuafacturers used AOV instead of focal length to describe a lens, but obviously a lens designed to fit cameras with more than one sensor size will need to mention more than one AOV. There's no really easy solution to this problem.

I have the lens roadmap framed and hanging on the wall, where I can contemplate it with a misty gleam in my eye.

But I have to say that I am a bit worried about the future of the Ltd lenses, because a max ap of f2.4 / 3.2 is a tad disappointing on a prime lens, though the pancake format has its attractions. The f2.8 zooms look very tasty, though.

Personally, I hope that either the existing Limiteds continue, or that fast (non-pancake) versions appear in DA format in the future.

G

The sensor is just film in a new guise. 150 years ago, film came in huge sheets. Around 100 years ago, Kodak introduced the "minature" 120 or 126 size (I forget which), and everybody flocked to the new, smaller, lighter, cheaper, format.

Then Oscar Barnack had the idea of using cine film for an even smaller film format, and 35mm still cameras were born.

The quality was much worse than 120, but the convenience of the smaller format outweighed the lower quality.

As time went on, better film technology allowed 35mm to make inroads into even professional niches like fashion.

By about 1970, film technology had got to the point where further development yielded little improvement, and cameras stopped getting smaller (formats such as 110 and APS failed because the smaller sizes resulted in unacceptably lower quality).

Now that digital has arrived, we find that the most popular cameras are smaller again. In fact, some are too small to allow for any manual controls.

So the whole history of photography has been about better film/sensor quality permitting a reduction in the size, weight, and cost of cameras. This trend will continue until cameras become so small that any further reduction will result in them being too small to use conveniently.

Rather than aiming for 35mm sized sensors, my bet is that camera makers will reduce sensor size as soon as quality permits.

I can see a situation in a few years time where Pentax bring out a 4mm DM wide-angle to provide a wide view on its new half-APS sensor, fitted into a body with speech control which will be virtually invisible behind its huge K-mount.

I don't think there is a hope in hell of a Pentax 35mm-sized sensor, and I wouldn't buy it if there was one. I have never needed or wanted 6x6 or 6x7 in the past, and I won't want or need 35mm in the future.

Almost all the FA lenses have been discontinued, and next year I have no doubt that new long DA primes (perhaps 300mm and 500mm) will be announced. That will more or less complete the lens line-up, which is beginning to look pretty impressive (provided the 31mm and 77mm FA Limiteds continue in production).

And finally, a year ago there were three companies making 35mm-sized DSLRs. Now there is one, and Nikon shows no sign of producing a body with a larger sensor than APS. That looks like a trend to me.

G

Upgrading the firmware is very simple, and very quick. I use a card, rather than the cable connection, and although it takes very little time it is obviously inadvisable to do it with batteries that are about to expire.

G

Fine. But not if you're bigger than me!

But that aside, please ignore my jejune utterances and feel free to ask questions. We're a friendly bunch on the whole.

And if it helps to know you're not alone, I have seen people selling Pentax LXs on Ebay who have called them ILXs because Pentax used a slightly weird font with a double ascender to the L.

It was a good way to tell whether the person had used the camera, or was just flogging something that' he'd picked up at a car boot sale.

Best wishes

G

Are you sure it's a Pentax?

In fact, are you sure it's a camera, not a toaster?

Do you know what sort of car you drive?

Forget the sports for a moment, and put your brain in gear. Of all the silly posts on here, this one takes the biscuit.

G

I had a look at the Freecom units in PC World. They cost a bit less than the Western Digital drive that I eventually bought, but unfortunately the Freecoms that I saw only had a USB2 interface, whereas my present laptop has Firewire. Hence I was obliged to buy a unit with both,

But it does have a 12v input.

G

That's a good price, but don't buy too many. The D2 takes SD cards.

G

I did try the DIY method once, but whilst it was cheap, it didn't work very well. The one I have just bought is pretty good, and no doubt when the disk dies, I'll be able to fit another one.

G