Ned Bunnell please help your loyal Pentaxians

[martin_engineer]

<p>Dear Mr. Bunnell,<br>

Please ask the software / firmware department to enable screw drive focusing on SDM lens' that support it and cameras that should support it. This would elevate Pentax to the only camera company that offers a backup focusing system for the *rare* occasions when the SDM motors fail. <br>

The development and testing cost of the new firmware will surely pay for itself with all the new customers you attract with the redundancy argument. Also you will not loose so many customers do to catastrophic failure. In most cases your existing customers loyalty will be increased when their SDM motor fails and the screw drive kicks in.<br>

In closing I just want to say that I believe Pentax cameras to be superior to the competition in many ways. The few areas that Pentax lacks in, it could easily catch up to the competition with the next generation of SLR's. One principle that most photographers believe in is that reliability should not be sacrificed for value when you are selling 'professional' equipment.<br>

- Martin</p>

<p> </p>

[dshombert]

<p>I echo Martin's sentiments. I've had two SDM lenses fail; the first was fixed under warranty, the second was out of warranty but Pentax offered a substantial discount on the repair. Both are still working fine, but I'm kind of reluctant to buy any more SDM lenses until this issue gets addressed one way or another.<br /> Martin, thanks for posting this. I agree with you about Pentax quality. I hope Mr. Bunnell will take the suggestion to heart.</p>

[s_arena]

<p>Over 778 People feel the same way:<br>

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?593039</p>

[mountainvisions]

<p>I gotta say, I see no possible reason Pentax could have for not letting people use the screw drive either if SDM fails, or if they just want to.</p>

<p>It always seemed odd to me that Pentax put the screw drive into the lenses when only older 6MP cameras could even use most of these lenses. And at that the K100D Super could even use SDM. Considering these were higher level lenses (that is not kit or consumer glass) I would assume most people had already upgraded to (at the time) the cutting edge camera of the year on 3 continents in the K10D.</p>

<p>I think that adding the option in the menus would make everyones shooting a little more stress free, and some people just like the reassuring whine of the screw drive anyway. For me, my only SDM lens is still going strong...but, I occassionally (rarely, as in 1-2 times total in almost 3 years) have it stop working. Solution, manually rotate the focus ring from near focus to infinity. Should start working again, if not, it's dead.</p>

[personalphotos]

<p>You are right Justin. Having SD and not being able to use it makes no sense. Ben K over at the other forum reported his 16-50mm died and they replaced the motor with a <a href="http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/959431-post33.html">new generation version</a>. But there's no word out of Pentax and no confirmation that something has changed.</p>

<p>Silence is not golden in this case.</p>