[slackercruster]

Pentax...you sold millions of K1000 film cameras. They were reliable, inexpensive and a great little camera.

Why don't you make a dslr in the same spirit?

Cut out all the unneeded bells and whistles. Get back to basics. Make it a full frame 35mm sensor with high mp in the 18 - 26mp area.

Have it run on AA's and price it as inexpensively as you can. Then have its big brother at a higher price for those needing the bells.

[Ailuropoda]

Question of the day, will you be ok with them cutting out the mirror if it saves money?

[monochrome]

Question of the day, will you be ok with them cutting out the mirror if it saves money?

Or the viewfinder?

[SteveM]

No...but you can axe the video .

[slackercruster]

Mirror and viewfinder should not be that much. After all they made the K1000 with both a mirror and viewfinder and it was priced very cheap.

Canon and Nikon make entry level dslr in the $700 range. They got a mirror and viewfinder.

I'd go for 'no mirror' only if it took AA batts. But I would demand a viewfinder. One that was able to show a focusing aid like the old film rangefinders did.

Don't care about video, leave it out. Bare bones, reliable, excellent shooter, affordable workhorse...that is it!

[Kryscendo]

I would love it if Pentax created a digital K1000. All manual. No bells and whistles. No video. It'd be like like a Leica, only 1/17th of the price. :P

[Trapezoid645]

It should be doable: FF (older D700 sensor from Sony would do mighty fine) with Av, Tv, M, 100% OVF, 30~1/4000, flash and NO silly VIDEO (what only overheats the sensor & camera anyway) for $2k or under. I bet such a simple FF would sell like a hot cakes to 35+ users....

[Douglas_of_Sweden]

Pentax...you sold millions of K1000 film cameras. They were reliable, inexpensive and a great little camera.

Why don't you make a dslr in the same spirit?

Cut out all the unneeded bells and whistles. Get back to basics. Make it a full frame 35mm sensor with high mp in the 18 - 26mp area.

Have it run on AA's and price it as inexpensively as you can. Then have its big brother at a higher price for those needing the bells.

If you know your Pentax history you know that the K1000 was never intended to be what it became. The original K serie included the K2, KX and KM (going from advanced to simple). Slightly later they added a pro model, the K2 DMD, and to get a budget model cutting in even below the KM, they made the K1000. It survived the M and A generations probably because it was impossible to make a cheaper camera in the more compact, complex and electronic designs in those camera generations. By then it had established itself as a favourite basic beginners camera in many photography classes/courses/schools, largely because the other big camera brands had given up similar designs, and while there were even cheaper alternatives, they had no name and did not give access to such a wide spread lens mount. By then plastic and integrated circuits had became standard (in the P and later generations), and the old fashioned design of the K1000 had become expensive to manufacture, but they outsourced it to some Chinese factory, which cut the costs (and the quality). If you know your Pentax history you know that the K1000 rests on even older founds. It was basically a Spotmatic (a m42 screw mount camera) with a K mount and originally took over production capacity left over when the production of the last m42 bodies were closed down even using some identical parts.

So it would be like if the digital Pentax *istDL (the cheapest version in the *istD generation), which inherited body, many parts (even the mirror) from the last film body (the *ist), indeed a very simple camera to use with little whistles and bells, had been kept in production sold miniscule for years but eventually became popular as a beginners camera and over the decades outsold many other models....not very likely. Let me check...no it didn't happen.

I think a better analogy for what you ask for would be the Pentax MX. A fully manual camera with simple stylish design, but yet with some high tech hidden in the body (such as the same advanced shutter as in the K2), intentionally designed to be what it was.

1) I think a clean (better word than simple) design would work with many Pentaxians, but simple technology will not. The K-5 is a clean somewhat retro design with advanced tech inside. K-01 seams to be it as well in a different way. And we want even more advanced tech (better AF, flash etc).
2) And Pentax don't primarily need to win people like us, the already believing. They need to win new users from the other camps, where the biggest camps are the P&S and the mobile camera's. The internet generation will not be attracted by a K1000 with a full frame sensor (doesn't help that you and me will buy one each). They will go over from P&S or mobile phones to a DSLR (EVIL or not) if it look cool, do cool things, and very simply upload their photos to their facebook pages with geotags and all.
3) And the new boss (Ricoh) has higher ambitions.

[monochrome]

Pentax history

I wish everyone here knew this history and filtered their thinking about the current Pentax through it before posting. I don't mean they shouldn't post and discuss and debate - just that their wants be expressed after thinking through what is reasonable and possible, and what is true about how Pentax has always operated. For instance, I never knew the MX had the K2's stepless Seikosha electronic shutter. Makes me appreciate the K2DMD even more than I already do, but that is a jey element of the MX, that wasn't new..

I like the characterization of the K-01 as a simple camera with high technology inside. That is the most intelligent comment I've read about the camera in all the posts since Monday.

[Douglas_of_Sweden]

The K2 DMD is just a fantastic camera. Very underrated. I got the MD motor for it now also ...but the motor has increased my film costs

[slackercruster]

If you know your Pentax history you know that the K1000 was never intended to be what it became. The original K serie included the K2, KX and KM (going from advanced to simple). Slightly later they added a pro model, the K2 DMD, and to get a budget model cutting in even below the KM, they made the K1000. It survived the M and A generations probably because it was impossible to make a cheaper camera in the more compact, complex and electronic designs in those camera generations. By then it had established itself as a favourite basic beginners camera in many photography classes/courses/schools, largely because the other big camera brands had given up similar designs, and while there were even cheaper alternatives, they had no name and did not give access to such a wide spread lens mount. By then plastic and integrated circuits had became standard (in the P and later generations), and the old fashioned design of the K1000 had become expensive to manufacture, but they outsourced it to some Chinese factory, which cut the costs (and the quality). If you know your Pentax history you know that the K1000 rests on even older founds. It was basically a Spotmatic (a m42 screw mount camera) with a K mount and originally took over production capacity left over when the production of the last m42 bodies were closed down even using some identical parts.

So it would be like if the digital Pentax *istDL (the cheapest version in the *istD generation), which inherited body, many parts (even the mirror) from the last film body (the *ist), indeed a very simple camera to use with little whistles and bells, had been kept in production sold miniscule for years but eventually became popular as a beginners camera and over the decades outsold many other models....not very likely. Let me check...no it didn't happen.

I think a better analogy for what you ask for would be the Pentax MX. A fully manual camera with simple stylish design, but yet with some high tech hidden in the body (such as the same advanced shutter as in the K2), intentionally designed to be what it was.

1) I think a clean (better word than simple) design would work with many Pentaxians, but simple technology will not. The K-5 is a clean somewhat retro design with advanced tech inside. K-01 seams to be it as well in a different way. And we want even more advanced tech (better AF, flash etc).
2) And Pentax don't primarily need to win people like us, the already believing. They need to win new users from the other camps, where the biggest camps are the P&S and the mobile camera's. The internet generation will not be attracted by a K1000 with a full frame sensor (doesn't help that you and me will buy one each). They will go over from P&S or mobile phones to a DSLR (EVIL or not) if it look cool, do cool things, and very simply upload their photos to their facebook pages with geotags and all.
3) And the new boss (Ricoh) has higher ambitions.

Can't speak about others. For me I want *exactly* what I asked for.

If the *ist was a full frame digital, reliable with a high quality 24mp sensor and priced at $999 and ran on AA's...I'd buy 3 of them tonight!

And you may wish to rethink your arugment. If my advice is wrong...then Pentax build an overly complex dslr, loaded with useless options with low mp and price it sky high!

Pentax claim to fame is to provide value and decent quality. Once it loses its way it will be all downhill for the company, unless it re-establishes itself in another niche.

[sqjaw]

Either Opitcal view finder or Electronic view finder , What we to convince Pentax that we in Amereca and other parts of the world need to heard,
not just japan:

[boriscleto]

The problem with the camera you describe is that the market is so limited that it would be priced like the Leica M.