Chase around the web. I bought my first *ist D from a company called Aden Camera in Canada. Very smooth and swift delivery to the UK, and much cheaper than if I had bought it here even after paying taxes.

You should be able to find a D somewhere, and it is a great camera.

G

Howesbn said:

"Personally, I'm just holding out for the full frame betamax so I can keep the field-of-view that is the very reason I bought a 28mm and that's all i was trying to say and it's all I will say."

Actually, Howesbn, it's not all you said. Read your original post. You made a number of statements which you are now quite rightly (IMO) backing away from.

You're entitled to express your views, but if the arguments you use to support them don't add up, then you must expect people to disagree. And when you make clearly derogatory remarks about our favourite camera manufacturer like "that excuse", then you must expect people to disagree strongly.

Anyway, no hard feelings. You're a Pentax user, so you can't be all bad!

George

PS: Buy a *ist DS (or D) now. You'll have a lot of fun and gain a lot of experience while waiting for your full-frame body.

Matt, please, don't bring logic and facts into this!

Taking up your point about lenses; there are two downsides to using 35mm lenses on APS digital, and two compensating upsides. You know all this of course, but I'm repeating it anyway!

First is the obvious point that your nice wide 24mm lens becomes a less wide 36mm (in angle of view terms). So you need to invest in a new wide-angle.

But at the other end your bog-standard 200mm f4 is suddenly a 300mm f4. Good 300mm lenses cost a lot of money. And in between, your cheap 50mm is now a superb portrait lens at a fraction of the price people pay for fast 85mm lenses.

The second downside is that the smaller sensor size means that the picture has to be enlarged more, and this means that the lens has to be considerably sharper than it needs to be for 35mm. (Which incidentally, is why 35mm lenses tend to be much sharper than MF lenses).

But the second upside is that because the sensor ignores the outer part of the image circle, lenses which are good at the centre but poor at the edges (which is most of them!) are suddenly transformed. You've cropped away the nasty bits.

The main reason manufacturers are bringing out so-called digital lenses is because they can be made much smaller, lighter, and more cheaply than 35mm lenses, and, of course, to plug the gaps at the wide end.

There is also the alleged fact that some 35mm lenses can cause chromatic aberration on digital cameras. Obviously such problems will be magnified on a small sensor, but I have to say that I have observed no CA on the majority of my 20 or so Pentax lenses, and where I have seen it, it has been so minor as to be not worth changing lenses for.

On the other hand, a no-brand 300mm shows terrible CA, but, as it cost £9.00 and is now used as a doorstop, I'm not too worried.

Whether CA really is any worse with digital I don't know. I don't have a good loupe to examine my slides at high magnification.

So yes, if you have cheap lenses (did I hear someone mention Sigma?), a DSLR may call for a trip down to your friendly local Ebay for a new glass injection.

George

John,

I take your point.

G

Howesbn said:

"Full frame 11mp sensors will only ever come down in price, so before long Pentax won't be able to use that excuse any more.

What's the point in paying through the nose for a FA Limited 31mm (I wish), only to find it becomes a very overpriced standard lens on an *istD/S ?

Until I can use my Pentax glass as intended on a DSLR, I'm not going digital. So come on Pentax, give the users what they want, not what happens to be cheap to make."

What an illogical trio of statements!

First, WHEN & IF sensors of that size do come down to a price most people can afford, then it would be reasonable for Pentax to produce a full-frame SLR. Until then, your contemptuous use of the phrase "that excuse" is ridiculous. It's FACT, not an excuse, that large sensors are currently too expensive to put into cameras that people can afford.

Second, what on earth is the point of your second paragraph? Yes, on a DSLR the 31mm has an angle of view similar to a 50mm on a 35mm body. So what? You can see by the second-hand prices that most sensible photographers are delighted that there is such a splendid lens available to be a standard lens on a DSLR. Nikon and Canon have nothing that comes close.

Third, why on earth do you want to use your lenses "as intended"? What does this statement actually mean? The fact is, good lenses work well on digital, so why hold back? It makes no sense whatsoever.

JR says " digital SLRs handle IMHO better with the lenses they are designed for". I don't know what he means by this since digital lenses handle exactly the same way FA lenses handle. He may mean that the latest zooms are very good. They are, but I think that owes more to advances in zoom lens design than to anything specifically digital.

Finally, one of the main things buyers want is affordable cameras. And that rules out full-frame, at least for a year or two. My personal bet is that it will never happen. Why? Because APS is good enough.

Over the last two or three years there have been loads of posts from film diehards coming up with one reason or another to hate digital. Eventually they take the leap, and find that it isn't so bad after all.

George

Pentax makes K-mount cameras for enthusiasts, not pro's.

They have only made one proper professional camera in the K mount since the introduction of the K mount, and that was the LX, introduced in 1980.

They have now announced the D645, which will replace both the 645 and the 67 as their professional camera.

There will obviously be more advanced APS DSLRs than the D and DS, but they are most unlikely to be pro-spec cameras, at least in the foreseeable future.

George

You could always try looking for an alarm clock that takes pictures. And makes a cup of coffee. And irons a shirt. In fact, why stop there? Give your wife a camera. Then you'll have a true multi-function device.

G (Not being too serious tonight)

Thanks, John M,

That was just the sort of practical advice I needed.

George

Problem is: I can't try it if I don't have the card, and I don't want to buy the card until I know the answer. Snookered.

G

What I would like to know is: what is the limiting factor when it comes to writing to the card? At what point does the camera provide the bottleneck, so that it is not worth buying cards of a higher speed?

George