Originally posted by _quicksilver_ Actually, I think quite many people would be willing to spend some serious money for a FF Pentax camera. Mr. JSherman999 aka Moving_Comfort has a poll on Nikon DSLR forum in Dpreview where he is calling ex-pentaxians to give their reasons why they have jumped ship to Nikon, and itīs shocking how many people say that the only reason they go Nikon is because Pentax has no FF in sight.
This has been my experience as well. A lot of Canikon people are interested in Pentax, but the lack of FF as an upgrade path puts them off. Pentax glass is the best there is, and no doubt K-5 is a very good camera. Still itīs not even near the IQ and performance of say, D700, which you can have second hand at almost same price.
I donīt know why people are so negative towards FF??? Is there something scary in that? Does it make your APS-C cameras obsolete? If Pentax can put out a TOY camera with new lens system and five new lenses from scratch, then making a FF body and few lenses on that shouldnīt be a problem.
There is a very good thread going on where you can peek at some of the wonders of the FF:
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/non-pentax-cameras-canon-nikon-etc/110876...-thoughts.html
This has become one of my favourite threads lately.
I am an FF user as well. I agree at a gut level that Pentax should make one.
But my marketing and economics brain says that the market is too small.
To enter, Pentax would need 2 lines of lenses equivalent to Canikon's 14-24 (Nikon's version is the lens God would use to see his Creation), 24-70, one series at the 2.8 pro end and the more affordable f/4 line. Then it would need the teles, same principles apply.
The one good thing is they have the primes locked up already save for a WA.
The investments here are, quite frankly, massive. The prices would be very high and the system may struggle to compete with Nikon or Canon, meaning that switchers may switch anyway. The $ is in the glass, not the body, so catering to legacy glass users is a profit-killing issue.