[RGlasel]

It appears they're making a professional play for wedding with the K-1.

The only growing market for paid photography is weddings. Print media (and print advertising with it) are in a tailspin, so the market for freelancers is shrivelling up, and stock photography is a way for starving students to pay for a burger and fries, maybe. Somebody at Pentax in Japan gets this and the successful launch of the 645Z, especially to photographers new to the brand, paved the way for the K-1. As was pointed out earlier in this thread, wedding photographers prefer zooms, for some pretty simple reasons. Wedding photographers have to work with the space and time constraints of the client, not the other way around.

[normhead]

It certainly is a challenge to figure them out. It appears they're making a professional play for wedding with the K-1. In 2011, before Ricoh the parent's financial setback, the immediate idea was to rapidly go after the professional market. Then Ricoh's investment bankers explained how much it would cost to make Pentax fully competitive, forecasted the decline of the pns market and suggested a conservative, incremental strategy for Pentax.

I'll bet if they announced a *24 and the *50 a different group would be moaning about no *85 or *135. If they announced 4 *lenses, someone would want f/4 zooms. And so on.

My point is, whatever it is, it's never enough or never the right lens, or not the flagship, or not retro, or not mirrorless, or not 645, or not Q, or not small, or not fast enough, or not priced low enough, or or or. And Fuji is eating their lunch.

Pentax is a tiny company. Mistral75 sent me a long, well-researched PM pretty well proving Pentax sales are roughly half Leica's. They just cannot do everything at once - they have to choose what comes first and what comes next. By definition, then, many people are disappointed every time something is announced.

I just wish we didn't have to rehearse the same tired refrain every damned time.

But you gotta admit, not having an Ultra Wide Angle prime for a "field" camera, is a bit weird.

[clackers]

If memory serves me well, the DA 14 does't match the DA 15

If that's your argument, you don't have an argument.

You're normally such a logical person, @normhead, but it sounds like you need to take that lens design course again!

Small size and cost are *limitations* on lens IQ.

Here's the DxO comparison of the DA14, DA15 and Samyang 14mm (last one on the Nikon D7000, to get the same sensor as the K-50):

https://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Compare/Side-by-side/smc-DA-14mm-F2.8-on-Pent...37_890_366_680

They score the DA14 the same as the DA15 but the DA15 can't get past f4.

The Samyang shows what you can do if you put even more glass in there.

This is just physics, not badmouthing the DA15. I shoot with one ... I'm one of the 'mind-controlled'.

[clackers]

Sure, I'd be interested to see that article if you can find it.

Of course ... https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2011/03/the-development-of-wide-angle-lenses/

[clackers]

I'm trying to practice being polite on the intertubes in 2017. Agree to disagree and whatnot. clackers could definitely be right, however I would argue one could be serious about landscapes, but also be willing to take a slight IQ hit and not hike around a big piece of glass. Priorities.

Sure, but the tradeoff is image quality.

I speak as a happy owner of not just the DA15, but the Voigtlander 20mm f3.5, which is effectively a pancake for my K-1.

And as a fan of @Pinholecam, who did a bike tour of Western Australia with the M20 f4 as his UWA.

We would both say these two are lenses you stop down to f11 and you'll still never really get the corners right, but they take up so little room in the bag.

[ffking]

It certainly is a challenge to figure them out. It appears they're making a professional play for wedding with the K-1. In 2011, before Ricoh the parent's financial setback, the immediate idea was to rapidly go after the professional market. Then Ricoh's investment bankers explained how much it would cost to make Pentax fully competitive, forecasted the decline of the pns market and suggested a conservative, incremental strategy for Pentax.

I'll bet if they announced a *24 and the *50 a different group would be moaning about no *85 or *135. If they announced 4 *lenses, someone would want f/4 zooms. And so on.

My point is, whatever it is, it's never enough or never the right lens, or not the flagship, or not retro, or not mirrorless, or not 645, or not Q, or not small, or not fast enough, or not priced low enough, or or or. And Fuji is eating their lunch.

Pentax is a tiny company. Mistral75 sent me a long, well-researched PM pretty well proving Pentax sales are roughly half Leica's. They just cannot do everything at once - they have to choose what comes first and what comes next. By definition, then, many people are disappointed every time something is announced.

I just wish we didn't have to rehearse the same tired refrain every damned time.

The trouble is that being small is a vicious circle which you have to break out of - and listening to bankers isn't the way

[clackers]

There's no necessary connection between distortion and vignetting. Some of the high-end m43 lenses suffer from quite a bit of distortion and vignetting, yet are quite sharper edge to edge (sharper edge to edge than most Pentax DA lenses). ..

m43 is probably guilty of a whole lotta RAW corrections in that lookup table they have in each lens, Greg ... I'd like to see them measured on optical benches like LensRentals use, not DxO where they use a camera in between.

Bigger is only better when all else is held equal...

Of course ... I'm all for 'controlling variables'!

---

Last edited by clackers; 02-28-2017 at 05:19 PM.

[monochrome]

The trouble is that being small is a vicious circle which you have to break out of - and listening to bankers isn't the way

Investment Bankers are an entirely different breed of cat than the Wall Street bank executives who caused the financial crisis.

Investment Bankers present facts and studies and make business plan recommendations to achieve objectives and goals within the general value set of the client corporation. The client then decides how to implement the recommendations. Apparently the steps necessary to 'break Imaging out of' its market share band did not fit with Ricoh's fairly conservative, value-oriented culture.

[ffking]

nvestment Bankers are an entirely different breed of cat than the Wall Street bank executives who caused the financial crisis.

Investment Bankers present facts and studies and make business plan recommendations to achieve objectives and goals within the general value set of the client corporation. The client then decides how to implement the recommendations. Apparently the steps necessary to 'break Imaging out of' its market share band did not fit with Ricoh's fairly conservative, value-oriented culture.

What I mean is that looking first at the money isn't the way to grow a business - you have to have a passion and share it. You can't expect new customers to commit to a system you aren't showing commitment to yourself. I thought Ricoh were doing it right, but if what you suggest in the earlier post is true, then there's a problem - and that problem would explain an apparent slow down. Kenspo said that 2017 was going to be the year of the prime - one or two primes doesn't make a year of the prime. I've no doubt that the D-FA* lenses will be stellar, but the glacial rate of release which seems to be the new plan isn't going to win converts and may lose people who can't wait. Add that to the fact that they are trying to run four camera systems under the Pentax name, but don't seem able to work on more than one at a time, and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't concerned. They know how to make great kit - they just have to do it.

[monochrome]

What I mean is that looking first at the money isn't the way to grow a business - you have to have a passion and share it. You can't expect new customers to commit to a system you aren't showing commitment to yourself. I thought Ricoh were doing it right, but if what you suggest in the earlier post is true, then there's a problem - and that problem would explain an apparent slow down. Kenspo said that 2017 was going to be the year of the prime - one or two primes doesn't make a year of the prime. I've no doubt that the D-FA* lenses will be stellar, but the glacial rate of release which seems to be the new plan isn't going to win converts and may lose people who can't wait. Add that to the fact that they are trying to run four camera systems under the Pentax name, but don't seem able to work on more than one at a time, and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't concerned. They know how to make great kit - they just have to do it.

I was giving historical information from 2013. Ricoh grew from nothing to the largest global copier maker in 30 years by patiently, systematically and intentionally growing their business 12-15% a year. For the first 20 years you couldn't really see growth. Then the power of compounding kicked in.

I believe they're doing the same thing with Imaging. What we're seeing isn't a change of the plan, it is the plan.

[ffking]

I was giving historical information from 2013. Ricoh grew from nothing to the largest global copier maker in 30 years by patiently, systematically and intentionally growing their business 12-15% a year. For the first 20 years you couldn't really see growth. Then the power of compounding kicked in.

I believe they're doing the same thing with Imaging. What we're seeing isn't a change of the plan, it is the plan.

well OK - but people don't have an emotional relationship with their photocopiers

[LennyBloke]

well OK - but people don't have an emotional relationship with their photocopiers

Haven't you been to an office Christmas party

[Kerrowdown]

I'm a patient Pentaxian

Me too, I waited a wee while for the K1.

[ffking]

Haven't you been to an office Christmas party

(note to self: keep away from Worcestershire)

[cali92rs]

Yeah, it's kind of ironic- I ordered a new KP to make better use of my telephoto lenses, but with a DA 15 it will be my best choice for landscapes for now. If I had seen this coming I might have held out on the K1!

Oh man, I thought I was the only one. That is almost exactly what happened to me.
I re-bought a K-3II so I can get more reach...but then I saw a 8-16mm and a 16-85mm for sale in the marketplace for decent prices and i had to snatch them up. I had both of those lenses a few years ago and really missed them.
I require my "walk around" lens to start at no longer than 24mm (16mm on APS-C). Plus I never really connected with my 15-30mm the way I did with my Sigma 8-16mm. The 15-30mm is MUCH bigger and does not go as wide.

So for the time being, my K-1 is my specialized kit while my APS-C is my all-arounder/travel kit.
But that is fine, Pentax/Ricoh has spent many years fleshing out their crop kit and has only barely started their FF kit.