Originally posted by Cipher You can buy any Q model and any Q lens with a couple of clicks on Amazon or eBay.
"Sony, Nikon and Canon have been explicit in their marketing that an ILC is centred around a larger sensor than a "compact". So what? The Q is a small sensor ILC camera, that is its whole reason for existence, that is why it has it's fans.
" … I've heard form one major distributor that the Q was so complicated to stock and sell, it actually contributed to Pentax's lost shelf space overall, perhaps irretrievably harming the future of Ricoh/Pentax cameras entirely." The Q was never on the shelf of any photo retailer outside of NYC, for that matter Pentax DSLRs are scarce as well, Pentax/Ricoh has always had marketing problems in the US and it may not survive, but the Q isn't the cause of them.
"In the camera industry you probably couldn't pick a better example of how a company read the market and the tech trajectory so poorly." All of the camera companies misread the rise of smart phones, at least Pentax had the guts to offer something unique- the smallest ILC with built-in shake reduction, reasonably priced lenses and easily adapted to almost any optic ever made: something no one else has done as well. It will be a sad day if only Canon and Sony (and maybe Nikon) survive, the photo industry needs more variety, not less.
Sony didn't mis-read the smartphone accent. Neither did Olympus. Both companies acknowledged that when Olympus trimmed almost all of their compacts and put $$$ into m43. And Sony was shutting down compact market fabs and re-tooling for smartphone integrated sensors and circuits years prior, about 7 years ago, in fact. And Sony was doing that while being #3 in compact digital sales after Canon and Fuji.
Canon (who most often used Sony sensors) was also scaling down their compact offerings, but unlike Fuji (who kept too many compacts in the market for too long, which later showed in their financial) had no mirrorless in the wings. Note: all had large sensor, higher margin, offerings as a replacement.
Again, while there was widespread movement away from small sensors from the dedicated optical companies, only Pentax zigged towards small sensors (and then upped the sensor size after literally no sales and fierce criticism) while every other major brand zagged, dropped their small sensor offering to nearly zero, and paired their advanced optics (which smartphones cannot touch) with larger sensors.
The investment and market trajectory is very clear: Pentax jumped the shark. It was marketed broadly as a fashion accessory more than a "real" optical ILC system. They are solid little units, but a perfect example of market mis-read.
And the Nikon 1 series is not defunct. Still fully in stock at Adorama and B&H and other major retailers. Where Nikon goes is a bit of an issue (they overprice like nobody else in the biz, but the Nikon 1 series has blazing AF).