Originally posted by Wormtographer More important and to the point: the corollary is that Pentax could not (and can not) afford to make a XP-1 type (re: adapter for K mount lenses) camera. The PR hit would be severe...I can hear people calling for the last nail in the coffin... And the blowback from long-standing K lens owners would be equally as severe.
The take home message is that Pentax has to consider all the possible consequences of their actions (not just potential Amazon pre-sale numbers), and it can't separate itself from it's very unique reality--Unlike Fuji. Sometimes you have to lose a segment of the battle to win the war. And sometimes you lose both, it's happened before--nothing wrong with that. Not to mention moral and ethical ramifications, heaven forbid market-share thinking would run for the hills if it ever did that.
The other reality is that unlike Sony/Olympus/Panasonic (and it seems Fuji)...Pentax does not need adapted Nikon or Canon or Sony (or Fujinon) lenses. So no advantage to Pentax that I can see in porting these adapted cross system lenses.
How many XP-1s Amazon is pre-selling and comparing that with anything Pentax customers do or don't do is probably a conflation. Pentax customers are, in my experience, 100% unpredictable and plain ornery. It seems that XP-1 pre-buyers are quite accommodating and optimistic gentle folk.
Now we are getting some where.
You have brought up a very very good point here.
To ditch a k mount is a huge decision for a company like Pentax. I agree that it would take a leap of faith to do this. It could be the end game for Pentax if they manage to alienate enough existing customers who are heavily vested in the brand. It is not a move for the light hearted, that is for sure.
It would be easy for me to sit here and say that they should ditch it. Yet I stand here and say that they should, because I do want them to be successful. I really do. But, if a company like Pentax has to rely predominantly if not solely on returning customers, it would be terribly difficult for them to grow. In fact, they really have not grown much in recent years. Stagnation is the word that I would use to describe its present state of business.
Consider for a moment a brand like Apple. This was once a company that relied on repeaters. They almost died. But, they came up with iPod, a product that really went beyond brand favoritism. And, from there they managed to produce something that many people cannot live without - iPhone.
I want Pentax to produce a camera that every photographer cannot live without.
I really thought that the entrance into the world of mirrorless was a great opportunity to do this. They almost did it with Q. Few more color schemes and wifi/3G capability, along with very aggressive marketing may have done just that. To me this was a product that almost hit a home run.
Don't get me wrong. I do not hate K-01. In fact, from design aesthetics I think it is very refined. Almost too refined. But, strategically, I felt that they were not brave enough not to ditch a k mount. It would not have been difficult for them to come up with a very small, almost not noticeable adapter that would have accommodated existing k glasses, while allowing other mounts to be compatible in a similar fashion, thus attracting photographers who were already vested in other brands. Not only that, they really could have design very unique and awesome lenses with a new mount while making the body much smaller.
It seems very strange to me that they did indeed gamble by not having a viewfinder. It is almost as if they managed to pick a wrong fight, so to speak. Yes, it would have been more costly, but if they had incorporated EVF and kept the cost below $1,000, I think they will have ended up selling just as much as at $750 without a viewfinder, if not more. In fact, if they were to ditch the k mount with newly designed lenses, the space saving from that move would have allowed them to incorporate EVF.
I am not criticizing the camera. I am just questioning their strategy from a business standpoint. That's all.
Maybe when they do mirrorless FF, they will manage to do it right.
Last edited by Fontan; 02-04-2012 at 12:00 AM.