[eddie1960]

You must have missed this:



I said nothing of just forum members in this sentence. I meant the general public here.

not a chance, if you spent any time at retail you'd realize that though lots of people profess to wanting a FF camera very very few actually pony up the huge cost. On the other hand people will spend $600-800 without even thinking it through
for every FF sold there are at a minimum 90 sub $1000 DSLR sold would be my guess, and that excludes all the other sub $1000 camera product.
The forum is about as poor a comparison to the real world as it gets
we represent a very small (and Very Vocal) percentage of the Pentax user base, if we were a big percentage of the base pentax/Hoya would be in deep financial trouble as we just could not possibly purchase enough to keep them afloat. 645D sales alone would be a case in point. there are quite a few members with them, but as a percentage of owners i bet it's small. if not then the 645D has been a horrible flop. given how hard it is to get your hands on one I'm thinking it's not, and that we just have an inflated sense of out importance here

[K-9]

not a chance, if you spent any time at retail you'd realize that though lots of people profess to wanting a FF camera very very few actually pony up the huge cost. On the other hand people will spend $600-800 without even thinking it through
for every FF sold there are at a minimum 90 sub $1000 DSLR sold would be my guess, and that excludes all the other sub $1000 camera product.
The forum is about as poor a comparison to the real world as it gets
we represent a very small (and Very Vocal) percentage of the Pentax user base, if we were a big percentage of the base pentax/Hoya would be in deep financial trouble as we just could not possibly purchase enough to keep them afloat. 645D sales alone would be a case in point. there are quite a few members with them, but as a percentage of owners i bet it's small. if not then the 645D has been a horrible flop. given how hard it is to get your hands on one I'm thinking it's not, and that we just have an inflated sense of out importance here

I actually have worked in retail. About 13 years. I've seen lots of people, fork over lots of cash, for lots of things you'd think was ridiculous. If Pentax users bought the $1600 K-5, they will buy the $2200 FF Pentax. Again, the only thing I said about this forum was I believed a poll would show more people will say they will buy FF. I still based my comparison on real world numbers outside this forum. I'll wager hard, cash money that a FF Pentax DSLR would outsell the Q.

You can say the same thing about the Q. Lots of people will profess to wanting the cute little thing, but the amount of people who actually fork over the cash will be pretty small. A compact camera at $800 is actually way over $$$ to value ratio, and way over the norm for that size sensor, than a FF Pentax would most likely be in it's price to sensor size value.

[jsherman999]

... If Pentax users bought the $1600 K-5, they will buy the $2200 FF Pentax....

+1, a point I try to make often.

You can say the same thing about the Q. Lots of people will profess to wanting the cute little thing, but the amount of people who actually fork over the cash will be pretty small. A compact camera at $800 is actually way over $$$ to value ratio, and way over the norm for that size sensor, than a FF Pentax would most likely be in it's price to sensor size value.

Very good comparison.

I do suspect this thing may sell well in Japan, and if it gets down to around $400, may sell in the US and Europe a little bit.

My main problem with it is that it probably takes resources away from introducing more aps-c primes, and from something truly brand-enriching, like a quality FF offering.


.

[Aristophanes]

I actually have worked in retail. About 13 years. I've seen lots of people, fork over lots of cash, for lots of things you'd think was ridiculous. If Pentax users bought the $1600 K-5, they will buy the $2200 FF Pentax

Yeah, but they'd have to add about $4,000 in lenses to make it worthwhile!

Your basic Pro-level zooms to compete against Canikon are 14-24 and 24-70. And a long tele to 300mm (at least).

And we are talking f/2.8 on the up to 70mm reach, so to make it more cost-effective a non-Pro line of f/3.5-5.6's come into play at $600 a pop. Plus a walkaround 24-120 constant f/4. And a travel zoom from 28-300.

And the primes, where Pentax is covered save for WA. They'd need a 24 to go with the current FA Ltd's.

They'd need to put out 7 zooms and 5 primes. Nikon has 14 FF zooms and something like 20 FF-capable primes. That's the competition.

To put that outlay into perspective this takes $$$ in Pentaxland away from the 16-50 and 50-135/2.8's for APS-C. It takes resources away from the 645d. These sell already in known and expected quantities.

And with SR tech built into the body the form factor will be huge. I mean D3 big. Just look at how big the SR module is in the Q relative to the sensor:



The Q takes minimal resources to produce compared to an FF system. It's like comparing a probe sent to the moon compared to sending a probe to Jupiter.

FF will come when APS-C hits its ceiling in advancement and FF fabs can be made as cost-effective as APS-C as a point of competition and where to plough profits to get a leg up on the competition. We're probably 5 years from the start of that trend.

[asw66]

It will be ANOTHER new body with larger sensor. Don't forget - Pentax Q has Shake Reduction mechanism too.
It's unreal to put LARGER sensor to this body.

I agree ogl, but my point was that the image circle afforded by the Q mount would seem to support a larger sensor than the current body. Other people have already commented that the Sony's NEX system would seem to be compatible with larger sensor chips down the track ... I'm making much the same point here about the Q.

I'll assume that there's no wasted space in the current Q body, so it would certainly follow (as you say) that shake reduction would require some space for the sensor to move. Hence a larger sensor with SR would require a larger body. That's no big deal. Likewise, it's understood that a larger sensor would change the optical multiplier for Q mount lenses. And that's not a big deal either.

There have been persistent rumours about a Nikon MILC with a 2.5x crop. Would this mount handle a sensor of this size? I don't know -- perhaps other forum members could make the requisite calculations.

I trust Pentax/Hoya's engineers and management. Every recent major product cycle has been astute in its design and execution.

This is a forward-thinking product that has been in development for five years. If you don't see five years' work here, then I would suggest that you're not seeing the full picture.

[eddie1960]

I actually have worked in retail. About 13 years. I've seen lots of people, fork over lots of cash, for lots of things you'd think was ridiculous. If Pentax users bought the $1600 K-5, they will buy the $2200 FF Pentax. Again, the only thing I said about this forum was I believed a poll would show more people will say they will buy FF. I still based my comparison on real world numbers outside this forum. I'll wager hard, cash money that a FF Pentax DSLR would outsell the Q.

You can say the same thing about the Q. Lots of people will profess to wanting the cute little thing, but the amount of people who actually fork over the cash will be pretty small. A compact camera at $800 is actually way over $$$ to value ratio, and way over the norm for that size sensor, than a FF Pentax would most likely be in it's price to sensor size value.

I spent 27 years in electronics retail and people will buy the worst crap at high prices if they think its cool bose is a prime example $5 woth of paper cone speakers no tweeter and no base for a grand
Sells itself
This at least looks to be quslity in a lot of ways
And dont kid yourself street price will be $600 by xmas i would think
I too would like ff but font see it in the near future as mentioned the lenses dont exist to support it properly for one
Even retooling old designs wont get the needed lenses to market fast enough

[v5planet]

I say if you took a poll in these forums of who is going to buy a Q and then a poll of who is going to buy a FF body if it ever comes out, the FF buyers will outnumber the Q buyers. How can you say it's not true? You have absolutely no idea how many people will buy the Q or how many Pentax is going to sell.

I don't think this forum is representative of consumers of Pentax cameras as a group, at all. You are already biasing your sample set right there. How can you possibly prove this place is representative? I would argue that a gear-centric forum centered around an obscure brand like Pentax could not possibly be representative of the Pentax consumer base as a whole. You're looking mostly at gearheads, holdovers from another era, and those who want to identify enough with a brand to seek out an internet community devoted to it. To say that a lot of people in this forum would like to see Pentax produce a Full Frame camera does not tell you either a) how many of those individuals would actually buy it, or b) what the broader Pentax userbase would do. More than likely a lot of people in the case of a) would bitch about the FF camera not living up to some sort of expectations, or find some fault in the system and not buy it, and for the broader base it is probably scarcely on the radar. So where are you getting enough people to justify the costs of development, production and marketing (ha, Pentax marketing)? Unless Pentax completely blew Canon/Nikon/Sony out of the water with their offering, beating them at their own game or offering something unique that exists nowhere else, you won't see people abandoning those systems to fiddle with a Pentax FF and lens system.

That the techie, gearhead (and extremely NARROW) demographic at this forum has some of its members gnash and whine and complain about a new photographic system that is not designed to entice them is not surprising. Of course people who care about having the topmost quality gear and talk about it on the internet all the time would rather have a FF camera than a Q! The Q isn't for them. It may not even be for people who currently own Pentax. The Q is for new people in a niche Pentax believes both exists and has not been tapped; a FF would just be for some of Pentax's PRESENT customers. I don't know if Pentax is right about the Q, but even if they're WRONG about it that certainly wouldn't make FF a good business decision for them.

[v5planet]

+1, a point I try to make often.



Very good comparison.

I do suspect this thing may sell well in Japan, and if it gets down to around $400, may sell in the US and Europe a little bit.

My main problem with it is that it probably takes resources away from introducing more aps-c primes, and from something truly brand-enriching, like a quality FF offering.


.

As a Pentax USER I am not excited about the Q and disappointed that the R&D $/effort was spent on this project rather than something that would appeal to ME and my (perceived) needs/interests. Certainly a FF camera would appeal to me, and certainly I could see myself handing over around 2k USD for it. Probably so could many others (on this forum).

But just because I want to see it happen doesn't mean that making a FF camera is a good business decision for Pentax. FF is a very narrow market, and Pentax would have its work cut out for it trying to draw people who are already invested in a competitors' camera/lens system even if they produced something unique and of high quality at a fair price point. I don't know if Pentax could recoup the massive development costs of such a camera and lens system by cannibalizing their present userbase, and I'm sure that is what is holding them back.

Countering by saying the Q is a bad idea and itself overpriced doesn't make a great deal of sense. The Q may very well be a TERRIBLE business decision for Pentax. We don't know yet. Pentax sees something there (obviously), and - yes -clearly they could be completely wrong. It could prove to be a grand waste of money that seriously damages Pentax as a brand and strips it of resources necessary to develop more viable products. But the Q possibly being a bad business decision does NOT make FF a GOOD business decision. You cannot create a viable market for a Pentax FF by saying there is not a market for a toy ILS camera.

[mediaslinky]

No one knew for sure if the ipad would sell when it launched... it did. There were huge amount of factors that made it sell, most of which I didn't/don't understand. but I have one and love it. There are some things it does that really help my work life.

The Q... I have no idea if it will sell. I don't know enough about the market for in-between-P&S-and-DSLR cameras. People pay $400+ for P&S and those hybrid cameras that look like DSLRS but aren't.

If the real street price of the Q hits under $600... they might sell well (given proper marketing and other market factors fall into place.) Then Pentax will have introduced a whole new group to LBA.

Personally, I'm not their market. I buy cheap DSLRs and use old lenses. Maybe that's why no one asked my opinion before they announced it. =)

If they would just ask my opinion about a FF body, I could really help out there... =) For work, I'd sure love to have a full manual control FF body with full 1080P 30fps video... someday...

[jsherman999]

As a Pentax USER I am not excited about the Q and disappointed that the R&D $/effort was spent on this project rather than something that would appeal to ME and my (perceived) needs/interests. Certainly a FF camera would appeal to me, and certainly I could see myself handing over around 2k USD for it. Probably so could many others (on this forum).

But just because I want to see it happen doesn't mean that making a FF camera is a good business decision for Pentax. FF is a very narrow market, and Pentax would have its work cut out for it trying to draw people who are already invested in a competitors' camera/lens system even if they produced something unique and of high quality at a fair price point. I don't know if Pentax could recoup the massive development costs of such a camera and lens system by cannibalizing their present userbase, and I'm sure that is what is holding them back.

Countering by saying the Q is a bad idea and itself overpriced doesn't make a great deal of sense. The Q may very well be a TERRIBLE business decision for Pentax. We don't know yet. Pentax sees something there (obviously), and - yes -clearly they could be completely wrong. It could prove to be a grand waste of money that seriously damages Pentax as a brand and strips it of resources necessary to develop more viable products. But the Q possibly being a bad business decision does NOT make FF a GOOD business decision. You cannot create a viable market for a Pentax FF by saying there is not a market for a toy ILS camera.

.

(to anyone: please don't just scan what I wrote below and post some stock answers against FF - we have too many threads like that - take the time to read and think about the points I make.)

I think the general mirrorless tier itself is probably going to emerge as the most competitive tier of all, especially when things like camera phones start getting better - start getting really good - and encroach that tier from below. Pentax may find itself pushed from the side by all the other mirrorless players (and there are more players in that tier than the DSLR tier) and pushed from below from apple, etc.

If Pentax puts too many eggs in that basket... they could end up regretting it. Especially if they enter it with the wrong product, and frankly I fear that the Q is the wrong product at the wrong price.

A FF move by Hoya can be seen as a strengthening of K-mount. Every lens they develop for FF will also be usable and work wonderfully on aps-c - those two tiers are actually part of the same silo, while 'Q' is a completely different silo. 'Q' is a spreading of resources - a shotgun approach, but the shotgun shell has only a couple pellets.

Hoya has the financial capability of placing Pentax in the FF tier with a unique product, a small-bodied (within reason) WR FF offering that has a line of small/brilliant/relatively-inexpensive primes to shoot with it and severl weather-sealed primes and zooms. They would need to expand the lens line - part of the investment - but again, this doesn't happen in it's own silo.

An investment in FF filters down to the entire DSLR product line. Nikon showed how to make this work brilliantly - the ROI on a lot of it's R&D was spread down a tier (or two) over a couple generations. Their entire product line was enriched by this.

The FF and MFD tiers have the ability to survive above the fray below, because there will always be an ultimate upgrade market. They really can't be encroached by Vivitar, Apple, all the Android clones, even Samsung and Panasonic are too far away from that to really consider it.

The FF tier could actually be expanded if Pentax entered it with the right offering. Some existing K-mount users would upgrade, but you'd also get Olympus users, and a good many Canon, Nikon and Sony users would consider a jump if the product seemed to fit them better, especially if they're size-conscious. There would also be a % of FF shooters who would buy a smaller Pentax and a couple primes as a second FF body. Add to this a % of new buyers entering the market who may like what Pentax has and chooses to jump from whatever mirrorless product they have right into a smallish FF.

I think we're discounting the potential power of the new, really good camera phones to make the lower tiers a big, difficult mess for the traditional camera makers. It may come to pass that the only way they can distinguish themselves is to have product up in the FF tier and/or very high-end aps-c tier - MFD is a nice place to be as a symbolic thing only, IMO. I don't see how a market that small (and it's much smaller than FF) can sustain Pentax in any significant way.

'Q' takes resources away from an expansion of the aps-c lens product line, takes resources away from development of a Nikon-competetive AF module, takes resources away from an SDM replacement strategy... and probably contributes to pushing FF out to 2013, 2014... or never.

I characterize my wish for a FF body as a personal thing, because it's easy for people to relate to, and it's a quick way to get my point across in a forum. But it's more than that. I think it's a viable strategy to strengthen K-mount, strengthen the brand and build something that can't be washed away by whatever happens below.




.

[hawk1500]

True but there's the "omg it's an Apple product buy buy buy!" factor that almost no other company has. Besides, Apple buyers are used to paying way more for something (compared to, say, a Windows laptop).

No one knew for sure if the ipad would sell when it launched... it did. There were huge amount of factors that made it sell, most of which I didn't/don't understand. but I have one and love it. There are some things it does that really help my work life.

The Q... I have no idea if it will sell. I don't know enough about the market for in-between-P&S-and-DSLR cameras. People pay $400+ for P&S and those hybrid cameras that look like DSLRS but aren't.

If the real street price of the Q hits under $600... they might sell well (given proper marketing and other market factors fall into place.) Then Pentax will have introduced a whole new group to LBA.

Personally, I'm not their market. I buy cheap DSLRs and use old lenses. Maybe that's why no one asked my opinion before they announced it. =)

If they would just ask my opinion about a FF body, I could really help out there... =) For work, I'd sure love to have a full manual control FF body with full 1080P 30fps video... someday...

[Brangdon]

Why, oh why, couldn't Pentax have just ripped off the Fuji X100? That camera is teh sexy.

But the X100 is a dead end. No interchangeable lenses. It's a one-off. The Q is a system. It is designed for the future. Just as you can use 30-year-old K-mount lenses, the Q-mount lenses you buy this year will be usable in cameras in 30 years time. Think about that, what it means.

Over the decades, sensors will improve. We can hope that this new sensor is already better than past sensors of comparable size. Pentax probably wouldn't have released the camera if it wasn't good enough, given that they've been sitting on the design for 5 years. Rival camera sensors will also improve, of course. Their IQ will get better. But they won't get any smaller. Their larger sensors mean larger cameras and especially larger and heavier lenses. The Q is going to be smaller than the competition, forever. It's a gamble, but it's also very forward-looking.

Software will improve too. As CPUs get more powerful they will be able to do more, better. I have no idea how tell that software bokeh filter will work, but it is part of a trend of doing things in hardware and software instead of in the optics. Pentax are getting a head-start in this. Small lens, small sensor, big bokeh. The first iteration may not get it right, but it's the future. Optics are limited by physics. Hardware and software are where growth is possible.

Pentax make great lenses. By switching to the Q-mount, they ensure that their future investment in lenses will continue to pay off for a long time. It's a crucial move. They aren't a big enough company to change horses again, which is what everyone else will have to do when progress renders their large sensor sizes obsolete.

The details of this specific camera aren't what's significant here. Maybe they've got it right, with the premium price point and fun lenses, maybe not. As others have said, I think they may have it right, but with a different market in mind than us. Never mind, it'll come. I bet, in 10 years time, most of us will be owning a Q-mount camera. It just won't be this one.

[ogl]

Pentax make great lenses. By switching to the Q-mount, they ensure that their future investment in lenses will continue to pay off for a long time. It's a crucial move. They aren't a big enough company to change horses again, which is what everyone else will have to do when progress renders their large sensor sizes obsolete.

I've seen heavy distortion of 8.5/1.9 at the removed pictures from IR.

[Christine Tham]

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(to anyone: please don't just scan what I wrote below and post some stock answers against FF - we have too many threads like that - take the time to read and think about the points I make.)

Here's a stock answer based on just scanning what you wrote :-)

If you really want an FF camera, suggest you sell your Pentax gear and buy Canon or Nikon. I don't think Pentax is a company/brand that is aligned to what you want.

Personally, I wouldn't want Pentax to divert their R&D dollars into making a FF body - I prefer to see them spend that making more lenses for the Q system, which I am strongly considering purchasing. Oh, and making a pink Q body.

[stanleyk]

But the X100 is a dead end. No interchangeable lenses..

I think you are missing the point of the appeal the X100 has for a lot of people. It's the fact that it's only one lens. For example I feel very liberated doing photography with only a 35mm lens. I have no need for anything longer than the 77 Limited and quite frankly rarely use it. Undoubtedly it's a niche market but so are a lot of things. It clearly is not a camera for everyone but for those who like it's a fantastic camera.