[jake14mw]

I have a question. Do price graphs exist of the K-20, K-7 and K-x? I'm wondering how long after launch it took for initial price drops for those. I guess the most important one is the K-7. I'm one of the many who would love a K-5 but would not dream of paying $1600 for one.

[Rondec]

The D700 is on Amazon for $1199...the K5 for $1599. You don't need to be a Rocket Scientist to figure this one out....the Nikon will trounce the K5. Someone might want to mention to Hoya that there is a worldwide recession in progress, Nikon is much better well known that Pentax, and $400 is a lot of cash difference to the majority of people worldwide.

No way I will buy the K5 at $1599, and if it stays there I will never own one. It isn't the $1599, an easy expense for my budget, but I don't ever enjoy being shafted, and that is exactly what Pentax is trying to do here.....Congratulations Pentax, you figured out how to grab failure from the jaws of success!
Best Regards!

Between inflation and the lousy dollar, expecting to pay the same or less than you did for similar products in the past is silly. I do expect Pentax to eventually sell for similar to the D7000, but the idea that Pentax has to sell for less than Nikon is what has killed Pentax in the past and continues to kill them. There has to be a significant profit made in order to just keep up with regard to R and D. With less cameras being sold over all, the price will have to be a little higher just to break even.

[falconeye]

I have a question. Do price graphs exist of the K-20, K-7 and K-x? I'm wondering how long after launch it took for initial price drops for those. I guess the most important one is the K-7. I'm one of the many who would love a K-5 but would not dream of paying $1600 for one.

You've heard of Google, did You?

below is K-7 body in Euro incl. 19% German VAT.

[Parallax]

So from May 22nd to October to October 30th, it dropped 30%.
If that holds for the K5 it should be about $1100.00 by the end of March.

[Michaelina2]

K-5, 7D and D7000 therefore are the 3 combatans right now. Wouldn't it have been cool if K-7 would have been called K-5 then and the new one K-7 now

Isn't "Be Different" Pentax's tag line.... Let the consumer confuse Canon with Nikon. Their "7" is such a last year's number, anyway... eh?

Pentax redefined year's number as 5... so bye, bye 7.

K-5 = Brilliant

Cheers...

[jheu02]

For what it's worth, I also agree that the K5 is a bit pricey at 1600 (in comparison to either the D7000 or the K7/Kr). I also prefer not to get shafted, and have never paid more than $800 for a DSLR body, so purchasing the K5 was a bit out of character for me. That said, for the past 6 months I have to said to myself that if Pentax puts out a DSLR that has a K7 body/features with a sensor as good as or better than the Kx (with respect to high ISO) and came make some improvements in the AF, then I would buy regardless of price. Now I was hoping that the "regardless of price" price would have been closer to 1100-1200, but it wasn't. Now my only conern is that the K5 lives up to my (possibly inflated) expectations

I hope your expectations aren't too high either and you're satisfied with your purchase. The K-5's price right now is beyond what I'd spend for a camera since photography is a hobby for me, but I'm not going to bash Pentax for that if it's performance is better than anything they've had before. That's just silly.

If I was making money off my shots and felt the K-5 would be a good business investment, I'd order it as soon as it was needed (i.e. wedding shoot coming up and I wanted the High ISO performance). For those who have to have the latest and greatest right when it comes out guess what...youll almost always pay more than if you wait a little bit. Companies know that some people just never progress to the delayed gratification stage in their development.

[jheu02]

So from May 22nd to October to October 30th, it dropped 30%.
If that holds for the K5 it should be about $1100.00 by the end of March.

Not necessarily. The K-7 had a well known shortcoming in High ISO performance which had to turn some away from buying it. Unless the K-5 is found to have some serious flaw, I don't think it will drop in price as fast as most here would like. People should expect to pay more for quality, though marketing and status perception can also get people to pay more for crap.

[QueMike]

I have a question. Do price graphs exist of the K-20, K-7 and K-x? I'm wondering how long after launch it took for initial price drops for those. I guess the most important one is the K-7. I'm one of the many who would love a K-5 but would not dream of paying $1600 for one.

Here's another price graph for the K-7 US market. It shows the high,average, and low prices tracked.

[dgaies]

I hope your expectations aren't too high either and you're satisfied with your purchase. The K-5's price right now is beyond what I'd spend for a camera since photography is a hobby for me, but I'm not going to bash Pentax for that if it's performance is better than anything they've had before. That's just silly.

If I was making money off my shots and felt the K-5 would be a good business investment, I'd order it as soon as it was needed (i.e. wedding shoot coming up and I wanted the High ISO performance). For those who have to have the latest and greatest right when it comes out guess what...youll almost always pay more than if you wait a little bit. Companies know that some people just never progress to the delayed gratification stage in their development.

I think my expecations are tempered with reality and I am pretty sure I've set the bar in the right place. Certainly the K5 is more than I would typically choose to spend as photography is also just a hobby for me as well. Then again, the same could (easily) be said about my collection of glass as it's way more than I need for a hobby

Edit: Plus, for what it's worth, I actually got the K5 for around 1475 (net) since I got one of the ones from Amazon that included a 18-55WR (which I will likely sell as I already have one).

[FullertonImages]

This completely wrong on all accounts.

1) There are no reason to assume that this class of camera is overpriced. This class of camera sells about 1/10 of the entry level and is significantly more expensively built.
2). Price is the most important selling point regardless; FF will always be significantly more expensive particularly when the expenses of lenses is taken into account and hence have a lot smaller sales potential.
3) there is no consumer based demand for FF. In fact, it could be argued that APS is way above the sweetspot for image quality the general consumer and even professional demands. The trend is not towards FF in spite of a decade of saying so.
4) There's no wish from manufacturers to sell FF cheap. The idea of replacing a sucessful recipie (APS) with a camera with more expensive components at the same price is ludicrous. Manufacturers have no interest in reducing profit; particularly not by answering a virtually non-existing demand. The flop of Sony's FF camera illustrates the point. FF makes sense for the manufacturers as long as they can sell them expensively; If they can sell them at all (Sony can't).
5) There are always people asking why things are so expensive regardless of how cheap they are. It doesn't matter if it cost $1; why not 50c?
The K-5 is very competitively priced for what it does. If it is too expensive, buy something cheaper.

Thank you! I completely agree.

[YJD]

I usually only read those kind of post, but today I will post what I think.

I do agree that the price is high for the K-5, though if after the review this camera is compare to a D300, then the price is fair. Like everyone else, cheaper it can be better it would be for me, but HOYA has its own cost to pay.

I think the problem may not lie in the price but in the market.
You have the K-r for entry level and the K-5 for advance level (645 for PRO), so $800 and $1800 ($10000). Are we missing a camera and price in the middle? I think we do. Something around $1100-1300.

If HOYA brought the K-5 to compete with the D300, they need to bring something to compete with the D7000. The K-r cannot do it and the K-5 might be above that.

[Parallax]

Not necessarily. The K-7 had a well known shortcoming in High ISO performance which had to turn some away from buying it. Unless the K-5 is found to have some serious flaw, I don't think it will drop in price as fast as most here would like. People should expect to pay more for quality, though marketing and status perception can also get people to pay more for crap.

I hope you're right because then I won't feel so bad later. I don't think I will be able to resist buying one the day they hit B&H.

[FullertonImages]

The D700 is on Amazon for $1199...the K5 for $1599. You don't need to be a Rocket Scientist to figure this one out....the Nikon will trounce the K5. Someone might want to mention to Hoya that there is a worldwide recession in progress, Nikon is much better well known that Pentax, and $400 is a lot of cash difference to the majority of people worldwide.

Don't forget the simplest most obvious....
You get what you pay for

Just looking at the two systems makes it pretty obvious.
However the advantages don't stop at the ergonomics either... The K-5 earns its keep where it matters most.... by besting even the D700 in the process...
So from where I stand, I think Pentax is doing the right thing by taking the high road.
But for the price conscience onces, theres always the K-r option...

I'm with John on this one. K-5>D700. If I had no investment in either system, and I was looking at both those cameras, at the prices you gave, I would still buy the K-5. It's very likely that the K-5 will best the D700 in the ISO realm. It has more megapixels, FPS is essentially the same, build quality is better, weather sealing is better, size and weight is better, it shoot video.

But the biggest thing, is the size and weight. Those are worth money, people! I come from the outdoor industry, where people will pay 2-3 times the price for a sleeping bag that is just a few ounces lighter and packs just a wee bit smaller. Size and weight are important factor and it costs money to build something at the same quality, with the same feature into a smaller package with less weight. If the 7D and the K-5 were identical in every way, except for the bodies themselves, I would be willing to pay more for the K-5 since it is significantly lighter, smaller, better sealed, tougher and has way better ergonomics. That's all valuable stuff that no one likes to think about, because we all get too caught up measurebating whizbangs.

[jpzk]

I'm with John on this one. K-5>D700. If I had no investment in either system, and I was looking at both those cameras, at the prices you gave, I would still buy the K-5. It's very likely that the K-5 will best the D700 in the ISO realm. It has more megapixels, FPS is essentially the same, build quality is better, weather sealing is better, size and weight is better, it shoot video.
This is a comforting comment for someone like me who very often faces Nikon owners with their D300s and D700 out "in the wild", praising this and that about their gear, and sort of looking down on my very efficient K7.
If the K5 is to better the D700 in the ISO realm, if not anything else, I'll have good reasons to be proud, perhaps more than I am presently with the K7/K20D.
But the biggest thing, is the size and weight.So true! Even with the grip, the K5 is still a very "portable" and fantastically designed camera. Having the experience with the K7, I can say that this is one major feature and worth its price. Those are worth money, people! I come from the outdoor industry, where people will pay 2-3 times the price for a sleeping bag that is just a few ounces lighter and packs just a wee bit smaller. Size and weight are important factor and it costs money to build something at the same quality, with the same feature into a smaller package with less weight. If the 7D and the K-5 were identical in every way, except for the bodies themselves, I would be willing to pay more for the K-5 since it is significantly lighter, smaller, better sealed, tougher and has way better ergonomics. That's all valuable stuff that no one likes to think about, because we all get too caught up measurebating whizbangs.

Besides weight and size, let's not forget about ergonomics! The way the K7 handles is just beautiful. They kept the same design for the K5 and that is one big plus!

Cheers.

JP

[FullertonImages]

Plus, everyone keeps railing the K-5, but the K-5 isn't the problem. The D7000 is the problem and is massively upsetting the apple cart. Take the D7000 out of the picture and then think things over.

You've got the K-7 which entered the market to compete with the D300 and the 50D, with a cheaper price. Bested the 50D, and was roughly equal to the D300, even though everyone just tore it apart forthe ISO (which if you compare Raw for Raw isn't that bad compared to D300).

Then the D300s comes out and beats the K-7, but opens at $1,600, and it still holding strong (not for long) at $1,500. Then comes out the 7D which opens at $1,800 and is holding strong at $1,600 (also not for long). Pentax looks at the market and says, we can release a camera that will smoke both of these camera in most respects, for less than they debuted at, and with a price that will still be competitive against them. They do exactly that, setting new standard in aps-c high ISO quality, that is a quantum leap for a single generation change. Put it in a very sexy and awesomely built body and you've got something that is very attractive at that pricepoint.

Then Nikon comes along and slashes the bottom out of the semi-pro aps-c market with the D7000. I think the K-5 is very justly priced for what it offers, and where the standards should be. The 7D was priced very high (highest aps-c ever?) and the D300s debuted higher than the D300 debuted at. So it makes perfectly fine sense that the K-5 should be priced high, and above where the K-7 debuted.

I can only think of two things in regards to the D7000's price. 1) You get what you pay for, and there something hiding in wait in the cheapness department that will leave people unsatisfied. Or 2), Nikon will make absolutely no money off of this camera, even if they sell a ton. But they will pick up a ton of market share, which is ultimately worth alot. But on the other hand, they will pick up a ton of market share who all expect a shit-ton of feature for practically free, which can be troublesome (cough-cough-Pentax...). I'll be interested to see the build quality of the D7000. They're billing it as Magnesium alloy body, because people instantly associate that with tough build quality, but I wonder how cheap and crappy of a job they did with it, just so they could put those words on the press release.