"......Both distort what you would consider a "normal" view..."

True, but a 'fisheye' design gives both geometric and optical distortion while a 'rectilinear' design only gives geometric distortion (ie., distorion due to the actual geometry of a wide view and not in any way due to any shortcoming of the lens design).....

Being among the 'numerically dyslexic' I am in no position to question your facts and figures,....nor, for that matter, am I interested in doing so. What interests and concerns me in this context is image quality.

I don't, as yet, own a K10D but this is only because of poor lens choices and waiting to see if pentax is going to get asset stripped of it's camera element. However, you can rest assured that I of all people would not be seriously considering 'going digital' unless I had taken the time and trouble to find out exactly what can and can't be done with the 'Wunderplastik'.

My experiments with a borrowed Nikon D70 have shown that while it will never satisfy my eye for a 'real' camera and is irritatingly and pointlessly complex, it cannot be critcised against a 35mm camera in terms of image quality, and this is only a 6 mil model. The 'plastic blob' has got 35mm consistently beaten in all real world elements and issues. provided you keep in mind basic technique, such as you need with any photographic system. you can easily turn out large inkjets which knock any 35mm print into a cocked hat! I don't care if you DO need 30 to 40 mil pixels (depending on the anger of the particular film users calulator!) you just have to sling down a couple of A3's on any clients desk to see this.

I have just been looking at some 12" x 24" prints made from the middle of the frames showing a complete stage cast which I recently shot using the Nikon as they knelt across the stage,...I have never seen anything like it from ANY 35mm camera/film Some of the shots were with the 'milk bottle' zoom which came with the camera!!...admittedly taking the panorama out of the middle of the frame meant losing the soft corners.

It IS true that I have not used 35mm for 25 odd years since rejecting the Canon EOS system, However, I can't believe that 35mm emulsion technology has improved THAT much!!

"........What a load of rubbish... Do people still not paint portraits? Carve furniture by hand? Cook on open fires? All because they choose to do so? Is chemical film not higher resolution than CCD/CMOS?..."

Well, a few people do. Then again a mate of mine uses a traction engine! However, me personally; I'm not getting any younger and I don't have the time to mess about frankly! I've been using film since I started with the Box Brownie at age 11, but if theres a better system without the time honoured ceremony of 'deving 'n printing' then the film stock is coming out of the fridge and going into the black sack by the door.....

I'm not expecting any Wunderplastik to stick it up my 4X5,....well. not this year anyway....

120 roll film never was replaced by 35mm. 120 is still being used by a significant number of serious photographers including me. Some of us actually rejected 35mm film! In fairness, both types have their uses and users but 120 roll film has arguably been the most important 'pro' film size for over 60 years until this last couple of years.

In the 1960's there used to be lots of photo mag articles along the lines of '35mm is just as good as 120 and much cheaper and more convenient'. I have had four attemtpts at trying 35mm wit various systems and at different times over the last 40 years,...I don't think i ever succeeded in taking a shot that pleased me, whereas, I have many 120 negs taken in my teens which I still like and am quite proud of. I have just been printing a Tri-X shot taken with a tele-Rolleiflex of Dusty Springfield which I took in 1965 during a rehearsal of the 'Ready, Steady Go!' TV programme,...it's a great shot, if I say so myself, and could never have been made with 35mm.

I found it a moderately interesting article,...but not as interesting as some of the excellent debate about it here.

As far as I'm concerned, trying to see into the future is essentially a 'fools errand' because the future has the nack of tossing in a key factor at the last moment that completely spoils the prediction.

However, I DO think that we shall see more and more blurring of still digital and what we presently call video.

Further, one of the important factors that has not been mentioned so far is exactly how images will be used in the next few years. I actually think there may well be very big changes in media such that the distinction between still and video will effectively be lost by means of blurring between, say, books and TV. LCD screens are getting bigger, better and cheaper and there have been some key patent applications recently such as that by Minolta for 'LCD fabric' which can be folded up and used to cover rigid surfaces. Once the TV screen / monitor is wall sized then there will be no need for printers and prints or for newspapers and magazines, or visits to art galleries etc. Up to now electronic newspapers, such as there have been, have tended to fail because the physicality of unfolding a newspaper on a train or at the breakfast table has not tranfered well to a screen. Once you can sit over your toast and read the paper on the wall without getting the corner of the morning paper in your tea cup!.......or read the headlines on the side of your breifcase in the train, Then the whole media world could well be very different, and that would include much more use of video clips rather like the pictures in Harry Potter's newspaper.

Once the media world has been turned upside down, will people still view still images in the same way?....Who can tell?

Once video becomes a much bigger part of this 'new' media, will camera makers be happy or able to make wholly 'still' cameras.

I have long felt that the current DSLR models are actually transitional designs,...film cameras with sensors. I have no doubt that eventually the mould will be broken and second generation serious digital imaging systems will appear,..whether coventional still photographers like us will still want to use them, and whether we will have the chance to stay with dedicated still cameras remains to be seen.......

I've been wading thru the K10 manual.

Is it possible / likely to upset the camera setting in RAW mode by inadvertently pressing the green button or 'RAW button'...... Is it possible to make RAW capture mode securely set?....ie., inadvertent JPEG capture be made impossible?

Dan,..thanks for the reply,

".........compared to 6x6 or sheet film, you'd get much more depth of field at all apertures..."

Yes!......thats one of the bits I'm really looking forward to with a K10

"........I would've thought the maths were fairly straight foward... "

You may well be right,.......one of the numerically dyslexic here I'm afraid!!

However, while it's easy enough to correct perspective digitally in the editing software it remains impossible to alter depth of field / focus easily. The only way with most of the common editors is to use several images with different focus points from the same camera position to make up one 'sharp' image.

There IS software which can synthesize a sharp area from an unsharp one and thus 'increase' depth of focus,....I read a review of it on the web a few months back but it looked tricky to use,...to the extent that I can't remember what it was called!

'Spider and Roger,...thank you for your replies, but unless i'm missing something I think these lenses are 'shift' only items as neither mention any 'tilt' facility. I am reliably informed that most editing software has provision for the correction of perspective, so it would seem that these lenses are more or less obsolete for digital use. As yet, digital 'tilt' is still very much in it's infancy so a 'tilt' lens will go some way towards filling in for lost camera movements.

What I wouod like to know is; did Pentax make any 'tilt' lenses and/or are there any others for Pentax 'k' mount.

Or, is this the only one;

http://www.araxfoto.com/specials/tilt-shift-35/

Are there any shift and tilt lenses for pentax 'k' mount. The 'tilt' is the bit I need.

I know that 'shift' lenses were once made by pentax but these look very rare now to me.

I do already know about the ARAX 35mm lens.

Any other tilt lenses that anyone knows about please?