Actually the very early 'F' lenses already have distance data.
Alan Chan http://www.pbase.com/wlachan
I think FA lenses also transmit the distance the lens is focused at, which can influence the multi segment metering in some situations and also the "smart program" decision the cameras make (at least for cameras with that feature, i.e. portrait, macro, landscape, etc.).
There may be exceptions, however -- I do know that the cheapie 35-80 F zoom (standard on MZ/ZX-10, perhaps?) is marked as an F lens, but actually does transmit the focus distance, since I manually focused the lens to different distances and saw the camera change its "smart program" choice as a result. Is this true of other "SMC-F" marked lenses that have been produced since the FA lenses came out in the early '90s?
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