------------------------------ Tom C. said: >IMO, the whole marketing of APS digital lenses is a shennanigan. Knowing >what I know (which may not be alot), if I was buying into Pentax digital >for >the first time and had no existing lenses, I still would not buy the APS >matched lenses.
I'm not sure it's a shennanigan. I think it's a necessary stopgap. I also think that the APS-format might be here to stay even when 35mm-format is more affordable. APS-format lenses are only being put out at ultra-wide focal lengths where the smaller coverage circle is a real help in producing a lens with very short focal length that has market-acceptable specs. The only other APS-format lenses are cheap kit-lenses that are also ultra-wide at one end and presumably are taking advantage of the lesser coverage area to make smaller cheaper lenses, as fits a kit-lens. This suggests that manufacturers consider it a stopgap, or we'd see more APS-optimized lenses. Eventually, I should think that manufacturers would be able to put out 35mm-format sensors at a reasonable price point, but it's going to be a couple of years. For those folks who need an ultra-wide NOW the APS-format ones are a useful stopgap and/or a cheaper solution than buying a 35mm-format ultrawide. I'm also not convinced that the general photography market needs 35mm-format sensors in its digital cameras. Most pros seem to be willing to buy a 14mm lens to get their ultra-wide view back, and are really glad to have the 1.3-1.6x magnification factor on their teles. You can get basically 28mm field-of-view with standard 20mm lenses and 17 or 18-xx zooms, and most amateurs don't seem to need anything wider than 28mm FOV. >From what I've seen, most amateurs more often can't get close enough, rather than can't get far enough away, so the crop factor is a bonus. It seems rare that amateurs enlarge much to or past 8x10, often much less, so even with some cropping the current 6MP cameras have got enough quality, especially compared to 110 or APS film. I suspect that 12mp or so is starting to hit the limit of acceptable noise in an APS-sized sensor with the current technology, so if the standard for pro and semi-pro resolution keeps climbing the manufacturers will either have to go to 35mm-format (it'd be dumb to go with something BETWEEN 1.5 and 1.0x, invalidating those APS-format lenses) or improve the technology to allow higher sensor density while maintaining acceptable noise. Otherwise, APS-format is probably going to remain the standard because it is cheaper, allows design of smaller and cheaper lenses, allows use of smaller and cheaper lenses (would you rather carry a 200/2.8 or a 300/2.8?), and the 1.5x crop actually helps most users. DJE
