Originally posted by Fontan It’s just doesn’t feel like Pentax is “carving out” their niche. It’s more like being cornered while big players are canibalizing one another.
I think there's a lot of truth to that, Fontan. So you can see why there was that PetaPixel opinion piece that thought Ricoh was doing exactly the right thing.
The FF market is all the *other* manufacturers seem to care about these days. m43 dead, Sony all but abandoning APS-C except for flagships, and if Pentax were to attempt a FF mirrorless right now, in 2020, it would be entering this wrestling ring you're talking about
: Canon, Leica, Sony, Nikon, Panasonic and Sigma, the last two very recent. They are absolutely cannibabilizing each other, meaning there is a price war going on that hurts all concerned.
And what does Pentax do in the middle of this gunfight? It sits out and offers an APS-C DSLR on their tried and tested later this year, just as Canon and Nikon look to be orphaning their DSLR camera and lens development.
A lot of spreadsheets would have been crunched the numbers of different models and scenarios for the market, and this was the one the Ricoh Imaging president had the backing of the board for. Quite bold when all the herd mindshare is for MILCs. It also says that Pentax is not gambling on purchases by the herd. It knows the herd are using their phones. Cameras of the future will be for a tiny number of professionals and a somewhat larger number of photography loving enthusiast amateurs.