Pancakes and FF body?

Hi everyone,

Do Pentax pancakes project full 35mm. image circle? That is, will they be useable should K1D come with FF sensor?
Or are they 1.5 crop by design?
Thanks

They are cropped. I doubt a K1D will be full frame.

Some pancakes can do full frame, the DA pancakes cannot.

JeffSp said:

Hi everyone,
Do Pentax pancakes project full 35mm. image circle? That is, will
they be useable should K1D come with FF sensor?
Or are they 1.5 crop by design?
Thanks

Click to expand...

DA40mm can be used on an FF body. DA21mm, no. DA70mm? Nobody knows yet.

All three new pancakes (28, 40, 70) are DA lenses, designed to cover the full frame of Pentax's chosen 15.7x23.5mm digital SLR format, and not designed to work with the old 24x36mm format of Pentax 35mm film cameras. There is no cropping of these lenses by the sensor, but would probably be severe vignetting of the larger 24x36mm film frame by these lenses.

Pentax is planning to add a new larger format DSLR, in a 33x44mm "digital medium format", but quite clearly Pentax has no plans for using an intermediate sensor size like 24x36mm, which would not work with these or most other new Pentax lenses, most or all of which are DA designs, specifically for 15.7x23.5mm sensor format.

I don't understand what you mean.

The DA Limiteds are designed for Pentax APS-C FF bodies and gives an exceptional performance. If you're asking for a 35mm FF instead of a APS-C FF, then you will be dissapointed. Pentax has no current plans to make a digital 35mm system, they are concentrating on APS-C for consumer and professionals, and a larger "medium format digital" for professionals.

Take care
R

Roland,

why are you using the term "APS-C FF"? That is quite confusing given the usual terms that are used:

FF (full frame) = 35mm (even though this may not be correct given the diversity of formats for photography, this is the usual designation of "full frame" in terms of digital photography)

APS-C (1.5 or 1.6 crop) = = FF

The DA lenses are not designed for full frame (or 35mm) lenses. Some of them may cover the 35mm frame at certain focal lengths, but this is not their intended use.
--
Mike
http://www.michaelhamilton.ca

The DA lenses are made to cover full frame APS-C. APS-C is, from Pentax point of view, full frame = FF. We don't call 35mm as a "cropped format" having a "crop factor" compared to medium format. It's just different formats: medium format, 35mm and APS-C. All are full frame, the "crop" is an illusion. "FF" for 35mm was used in the beginning, where many believed APS-C would only have a short life, they saw APS-C as a short-term solution. Now we can clearly see that APS-C is alive and kicking, it's a fantastic format in it's own right. 35mm is not the standard format for digital as it was the standard format for film. APS-C is standard format for digital, 35mm is a larger format. It would therefore be better to call APS-C as FF and 35mm as 35mm.

Take care
R

Pancake lens isn't new to Pentax. There are old Pentax pancake lenes for old film cameras. I saw quite a few showed up in eBay. It just happens that all the new pancake lenese are DA lens which is designed for APS-C sensors of DLSR.

Pentax uses following designation for its lens:

DA - digital APS-C camera only
FA - film camera/FF. Can be used on DSLR.

D FA - film camera/FF but with special coat to prevent sensor flare when used in DSLR

There are also old F, A, M and K lenes.

I understand what you're saying, Roland, but I still disagree. Most users don't even bother thinking about medium format or large format. The only considerations when talking about lenses are between 35mm film format (full frame) and APS-C. There is still an incredibly long history for consumer use of 35mm. There is little or no recent history of consumer use of medium format. Why confuse people by adding full-frame to both 35mm and APS-C?

Of course APS-C designed lenses cover the full frame of that format. There's no denying that, nor is there any confusion regarding that. However, there is sometimes confusion between the coverage of APS-C designed lenses on 35mm (or full frame) sensors/film. Users that are confused by that have either a) NO knowledge or b) no INTEREST in medium format film or digital backs.

--
Mike
http://www.michaelhamilton.ca

The only time APS-C FF is used correctly is if you had a APS camera from the 90s.

FF means using the full frame of the format the camera was designed too. All pentax DSLRs are 35mm based cameras, thus FF means 36x24. APS-C FF in a 35mm body is horribly incorrect. If Pentax actually uses this definition they need to be slapped.