Missouri,

APS size sensor digital lenses have a number of advantages: they are in general smaller, lighter and less expensive than their 35mm equivalents. They also can, but not necessarily have to be optimized to work better with the digtial sensor. Because the sensor is highly reflective light bounces off them and may cause flaring in the lens elements, which can be counteracted by adding extra coatings on the rear lens elements. Sensors are also less sensitive in the areas away from the center because of this reflection and some lenses are claimed to be designed to reduce this problem. However, it doesn't mean that 35mm lenses are not a good choice for APS size digital cameras. MY advice is to not buy other lenses for now and see if you like the results with the 35mm lenses. You might not even be able to see a quality difference if you did a side-by-side comparison. Of course, if you started from scratch then it would make a lot of sense to buy the "digital" lenses because of the advantages I mentiones. My son has a Pentax *ist DS and the results are very impressive.

Frans Waterlander
pixographer

Thank you Frans. I had not been able to find any info on this topic, so your comments are very welcome and make sense.

Well, if you're on a tight budget:

Pentax Offers Most Affordable Digital SLR: *ist DL Kit Now $599. Pentax has announced a significant price adjustment on the *ist DL digital SLR camera with 18-55 DA lens kit. The price reduction from $799.95 US to $599.95 US takes effect February 1, 2006.

Peter Burian, Shutterbug Contributor

Thanks. I wasn't aware of the $200 reduction.