[ivar_bg]

What ever the reason of non participation, it is a bad decision. Ricoh/Pentax must seize every opportunity to contact the public...

[jersey]

Depending on how Ricoh/Pentax wants to communicate with its customers it may be good decision. Assuming of course if they will make their own events, even online ones. Cutting themselves from mass events where most of attention will be taken by more known brands may be good thing, and making it online only will save money while, with little effort for translation make it more accessible to foreign customers.


As for releases I think we may see some announcements earlier, but I doubt Ricoh will either risc releasing anything with current components issues. They will not compete with price for components so they need to wait until shortages are resolved. So late 2022 or 2023 for new, more advanced stuff are reasonable expectations for me.

[RGlasel]

It's about marketing priorities and not development

I think this is the crux of the matter; a corporate presence at a public trade show needs to be supported by sales programs and advertising campaigns and there are plenty of things to suggest that Ricoh Imaging doesn't have the resources to implement such a strategy. Even if Ricoh Imaging (or whatever the standalone camera and interchangeable lens division is called these days) did get approval to spend the necessary funds it would be a failure because the market for their products isn't swayed by a Ricoh booth at CP+. In other words, the return on investing in a presence at CP+ (and any other photographic industry public trade shows that haven't been euthanized) will be negative for Ricoh Imaging even if the show itself turns out to be a success (which is highly unlikely).

[texandrews]

What ever the reason of non participation, it is a bad decision.

I disagree.

Ricoh/Pentax must seize every opportunity to contact the public...

For a small company, these things have to be done in as smart a way as possible. This last couple of years they managed to gin up a fair amount of interest among Pentaxians with what were often pretty obviously not very expensive efforts. Parlaying that into better outreach to non-Pentaxians through similar (but a bit better quality) campaign on social media is the way I'd go----plus using the reps more effectively out in the field with demos once social distancing relaxes. Spending oodles on something like CP+ seems more luxurious than effective.

[biz-engineer]

If they do online CP+ 2022 , will be fine, everyone can attend worldwide without travelling to Yokhama.

You Tube

You Tube

[BarneyL]

I would love to attend Ricoh's own online event, but so far, only Japanese userbase gets invitations to these.

[reh321]

Thank you for explaining. So I understand that you are assuming any product to be released will be pre-announced long in advance. I don't think this is right at all.

Pentax announces products when they are ready - not before; not after.

Was it 2019 when they announced {K-1ii?} in January - then the show was anticlimactic?

[biz-engineer]

Pentax announces products when they are ready - not before; not after.

The K-1 talks started back in 2013, I think I've seen a video about it. The K1 actual release was in spring 2016. If I remember correctly, in recent years the Pentax KP was the only camera that came a few weeks after being rumored. My Pentax lens lineup is starting to wonder what we should do.

[kwb]

If they do online CP+ 2022 , will be fine, everyone can attend worldwide without travelling to Yokhama.

Ricoh is not listed as an online exhibitor nor a physical booth exhibitor for CP+ 2022 according to the news JPT linked.

I hope Ricoh will do online events on their own around that time, CP+ 2021 was fun.

[Eric Auer]

So no KP-II I guess.

Bummer

[carlb]

My Pentax lens lineup is starting to wonder what we should do.

Maybe go out and take photo's????

[biz-engineer]

Maybe go out and take photo's????

In Austria, we've got 16000 new covid infections per day here at the moment, new regulations for crossing country borders now require special pass and conditions (quarantine, vaccination certificates, tests etc.), and since I did get the third injection (booster) I don't feel like exposing myself to crowds. The regions I go for landscape photography require travel + crossing country border. I can go shooting locally but it's winter without snow, everything is muddy and brown, the worst time of the year for landscape photography. I really miss going to Italy , shooting seascapes, but I'd need to travel + hotel, and at the moment it's all about covid restrictions again.

[OoKU]

Since the return of the old president, the internal structure of Ricoh imaging has been greatly adjusted, and we believe that there will be some new positive changes this year.

[house]

Greatly adjusting oranisations isn't free and takes time, energy and likely means changing course on products in the pipeline. -> delay and slowdown.

Are there any speculations as to the new direction? I just really hope they maintain the recent hardheadedness in design. The GR would be killed if the started messing to freely and IMHO likewise pentax.

[PenPusher]

I am just wondering if these factors have anything to do with the decision to non attend.

1. Pentax's poor record in marketing which must have damaged their sales. Ricoh Imaging's advertising department has a rake of interesting videos, all in Japanese on YouTube, on the K3 Mkiii, very few have English subtitles, this is surprising, one would have thought that the English speaking world, never mind all the other languages would form a part of their sales area they would not wish to loose. I admit that I know nothing about how these videos are made but I would have thought it should not be that expensive to either dub over or provide sub-titles. As it stands I think other makes are ahead in the marketing race, would this be a cause of embarrassment to Ricoh.

2. Over the last few years, possibly caused by the rise of mirrorless cameras, Sigma,Tamron and Zeiss at least have all ceased to provide K mount lenses, one wonders is this due to the loyalty of Pentax users to the brand thus reducing sales of independent makers so that it may be uneconomic for them to compete or is their some deeper unknown mystery between Ricoh and Independents which caused them to stop. I certainly wouldn't like to turn up at an exhibition and start explaining how this happened to curious would be customers.

3. Has the move to mirrorless cameras by other makers made Ricoh's stand to keep the K mount and the prism viewfinder made the brand seem obsolete to the younger market who expect everything to be electronic. Personally I find a prism viewfinder way better than electronic ones but that might be my age.

4. I find it surprising that Ricoh to my knowledge has never made a point of how much they value their loyalty to customers by keeping the K mount over the years and when they did change they made provision so that earlier customers could successfully migrate their existing lenses to the new mount. I think the only other company that did this was Leica though I think Nikon has made some attempt at allowing older lenses to be used on modern cameras.

5. Its quite possible of course that Covid may have caused items under development to be delayed and they have no new items to be exhibited, also increasing Covid numbers will affect attendance and or put their employees at risk so without anything to show they may have calculated that non appearance may be less damaging than appearance with an empty stand.

It's all rather like " do they know that we know that they know that ..................."