Originally posted by videoman ...
Ricoh has shown it is committed to the brand & it takes a great deal of time & effort to increase the share of market from where Ricoh started. It has done & continues to do so a great job. By doing this, slowly other other third party lenses makers will continue to introduce new lenses, not perhaps at the same rate as for Canon & Nikon but with each one it shows that Pentax is still relevant & growing....
I agree, Ricoh has done marginally better than Hoya... but really it didn't take much to do so ☺
Hoya took control of Pentax with an hostile takeover, digested the meaty part (patents and medical), then spit out an almost empty shell. No more lenses made in Japan, the team that designed the Limiteds lost to the competition, the FF top-line camera postponed again and again, etc, etc, etc.
Ricoh inherited a brand (still prestigious and with a tiny but passionate user base) and few people who actually know how to design camera for photographers, and not home appliances ☺
Ricoh Imaging will restructure, that has already been confirmed. From what I've read all options are on the table, from concentrating even more on high end products, to shutting down or selling.
Japanese optical companies might be a little difficult to "read" from the external, but they know almost everything of each other. They also have a very high level of collaboration, some vintage lenses show it in practice. I've seen the same mechanical parts used by Kino, Komine and Tokina...
Reading the falling number of optics available in PK mount, and the lack of recent high end AF objectives released for Pentax, solely in view of the market share, is not correct, IMHO.
Let's see in practice:
Tamron makes lenses for Ricoh-Pentax, for sure they have an agreement, we'll see no new Tamrons for Pentax for a while, I guess.
Tokina is controlled, at least partially, by the same group that owned Pentax. No surprise they didn't compete for the PKAF market. Only the present and previous owners know about the details of their agreements. It is left open to speculation. My personal opinion is that we won't see Tokina lenses for Pentax in the near future.
The last one is Sigma. The very few other Japanese lens makers still surviving, like Cosina, make objectives for other brands (a pity Voigtlander lenses in PK mount were discontinued).
Sigma explained the shrinking number of lenses available in Pentax bayonet with market share.
Sorry, I'm not taking it as absolute truth.
It can be one of the factors, not the only one.
The many holes in current Pentax lenses line-up, especially for FF, would allow Sigma to substantially own the market niche for PKAF fast primes.
It's not such a small market, comparatively. For other mounts Sigma faces a strong competition, both from the "original" makers and other third party brands.
Personally I have the opinion that some Sigma optics, if made available in Pentax bayonet, would sell by themselves, and I don't think that, as others suggested, the investment in R&D, tooling, etc, would be of any concern for a brand like Sigma. Not-so-new high end zooms work a charm with the AF of my K-1, after the software has been updated. They don't need to reinvent the wheel! ☺
They only thing they need is a clear, unequivocal commitment to the Pentax-K mount and to high-technology, innovative FF and APS-C solutions.
They want to be reasonably certain that the brand will not quietly thread waters, relying on a shrinking user base, and eventually go the Samsung way...
Pentax-A primes are a totally different story. Once you have the optics (much easier than before, with modern computer programs), a decent prime with electric contacts can be made in any Chinese basement, exactly like another myriad of products.
I'd be very curious to know if the Pentax market is so marginal, for brands like Irix, Laowa or even Samyang.
In my opinion, some Chinese optics would sell much, much more, if they had something remotely resembling a distribution of sorts ☺☺
I use Pentax cameras and lenses since the late seventies, I've used the 6x7 professionally, I LOVE my new K-1, and I own > 300 lenses that can be used on my Pentax DSLR cameras... though I'm not a fanboy.
We could buy a new Pentax body, all of us, and it won't make any difference. Not a single new third party lens would magically materialize.
Market share isn't everything.
A niche market is fine, as long as there is very little competition, there is a dedicated user base (Pentax has got it) and a strong, , viable, convincing medium term plan. I doubt even the insiders have a clear idea about that...
Cheers
Paolo