You may recall my post on a rectilinear 35mm and Pentax making their lenses with smaller stops to increase the DOF. Well, I sent these ideas in detail to Pentax via their Pentax.com site. They promise a response within three working days. We'll see what they think of all this. I would like to see a tilt 200mm or just a regular 200mm with an f/64 stop. Opinions? SR

-- Steve Rasmussen (srasmuss@flash.net), September 04, 1999

Answers

Charles; After World War II the Japanese began a rebuilding plan that used Dr. Deming's philosophy of business management, production and quality techniques. A part of this included listening to your worker's and customer's input to drive the company. If Pentax ignores all suggestions from customers, whether radical innovations or not, they are surely not acting like a modern Japanese company. We'll see just how modern they really are. Their survival may depend upon it. Maybe Nikon will start to build a 6x7, given the rise in popularity in this format in the last ten years. SR

-- Steve Rasmussen (srasmuss@flash.net), September 06, 1999.

To follow up, Pentax did answer my letter but it was their local(US)branch. They said they would submit it to the home office in Japan and that they would consider my ideas. Their lack of direct contact with the customer is really poor in my opinion. My other suggestion to Asahi Optical would be a 600 mm that doesn't color fringe and is also affordable. The solution would be to make it an f/6.7 using modern but not expensive/exotic glass. It would also have to be superachromtic. SR

-- Steve Rasmussen (srasmuss@flash.net), September 10, 1999.

Steve, I think the suggestions for smaller minimum apertures on the medium format Pentax lenses is a good idea, however I think huge companies like this are motivated by profitability in the mass market more than problem solving for serious photographers. I too, think a moderate wide-angle (say 65mm) with tilt capability would be great as would a 200 with at least f45. Even though the P6x7 has gotten extremely popular with pro photographers as an alternative to view cameras (note the price increases of the last 8 or 9 years..it used to be an inexpensive system), I think Pentax Japan would have a hard time justifying such radical innovations for such a relatively small part of their buyers. But you never know, after all Nikon did finally put a tripod collar on their 80~200 2.8 after years of denying it needed one ( I guess gripes and aftermarket makers convinced them). I understand Nikon has announced an 85mm with tilt. If Pentax could just offer a series of specialized optics much like Canon's T&S line for the P6x7, I think many medium and large format users would line up for such an offering.

Cheers, Charles

-- Charles Shoffner (Chasmn@aol.com), September 05, 1999.