Wow, very passionate replies! I kind of thought this would be like kicking the hornet's nest.
So, a bit more background here...
My father believes that the heyday of Pentax has come and gone. Come due its high quality, robust designs in the past and gone due to a string of bad luck and bad decisions. They missed their chance to get on the digital bandwagon, missed the target when they aimed for it, and having been bought and sold and bought and sold they couldn't focus on their products like they probably should have. Internal budgets went down and along with that new product innovation. While Pentax was gasping for air, Nikon and Canon surged ahead. Fortunately Pentax didn't get swallowed up like Minolta or broken down like Kodak. Pentax is probably on the path to recovery but it will be a long journey. So sayeth the father.
I took a quick minute (which turned into a long minute) to Google this on my own and I found some articles and opinions posted that seem to confirm the shaky ground Pentax is standing on. Canon and Nikon do indeed take up the lion's share of the market followed by a decent portion held by Sony, Olympus, and Panasonic. Pentax just barely shows up in some cases and when it does the share is in the low single digits. Professionals have run away from Pentax to the other camps. High end enthusiasts have run away from them. If I was a third party vendor trying to place a bet on who to make accessories/lenses for and I saw how small of a market Pentax then I would probably would run away too. The big bucks and market seem to be elsewhere at the moment, along with the broadest selection of top-rated lenses and product development investment (Canon seems to have taken that spot).
What was interesting to me was that I found articles and posts all around saying how much everyone
wants Pentax to make a comeback. It's a favorable brand it seems and people
want flock to it but with only three official DSLR models there's not much to flock to. And if there's not a lot of money coming in from what little there is to flock to then there is a danger of little more being developed. Nikon, Canon, and Sony seem to have more models (even if it's just repackaging the same guts - marketing works!) so they have a bigger presence. Popularity builds popularity as one article stated. So the question is, can Pentax produce their equivalent of an iPod/iPhone/iPad that will catapult them back to the top which would give them the capital to develop a modern line up of lenses for multi-generational use as owners move from one DSLR to another? The K-30 and K-5 seem to be starting an almost cult-like following with many passionate owners. Are the few models that Pentax produces today planting the seeds of passionate ownership of tomorrow? We could be feeling the development of yester-year today. When Pentax held a leadership role in the 70s and 80s there were millions of lenses made for the K-mount. We see K-mount lenses
everywhere today that were top-notch in their day (and probably still good today)!
Personally, I agree with the idea that I should think about what I want to photograph and find the right lens to do it with. A company need not have the best of everything. Gaps are OK as long as only a few want what would fill the gap. Stop splitting hairs, end the "paralysis by analysis", and just enjoy the hobby. Could Pentax disappear like the Twinkie? Sure, but the Twinkie was big enough that the market could not let it completely disappear. Pentax and the K-mount system will always exist in some capacity, if even under a different name. It may not have the "best" lens according to the data or the smallest package in product line-up comparison but there will always be great options for those who want it.
I guess I have a good discussion coming up with dear old Dad when we talk on the phone next time.
-=- Boris