Originally posted by rawr Please. What are your credentials as a camera designer? Or as a passenger jet or car designer? Oh, you've used all those. So now you are qualified to design them all as working, distinctive products, within a specific budget, and while meeting a set of rigid parameters set by the client.
None whatsoever, which is why I wouldn't have the hubris to try to design any of the above. However, I have used cameras extensively, driven cars extensively and flown in jets extensively, and so while I wouldn't have a clue about how to design one, I do have a clue about how they should look.
By your logic, one can't be a good driver unless one can engineer a car, or be a good photographer unless one can design a camera.
Which is crap, and you know it.
Originally posted by rawr It would be a mistake to assume Pentax Japan just wrote Newson a cheque, and then after a while he sent them a design for a new camera.
You are sure about this?
Originally posted by rawr Newson stated he worked with Pentax for over a year on this camera. There would have been lots of back-and-forth with Pentax throughout the evolution of the design, as he mentions himself. This would have involved innumerable discussions with Pentax mechanical engineers, electrical engineers ('I want a small battery - oh, OK I have to use the existing D-LI90 battery. I can work with that'), designers ('OK, so you don't want a viewfinder in this'), materials specialists ('I want to use anodised aluminium for the body top plate - can you do that?'), assembly process specialists, cost accountants etc. He was overseeing the design, but he had to rely on the input of lots of Pentax people to make it happen. The camera has his signature on it, but it was a partnership with Pentax. It couldn't have been any other way.
And from the sounds of it, you were beside him every step of the way.
Originally posted by rawr
LOL. Self-importance much. Probably the last people Pentax would want to listen to would be the people on this forum. People here have complained no-end about the the K-x, the Q, and the K-5, as if they were the worst cameras in the world. Why would Pentax listen to PFF about the K-01? Most of the time the forum conducts itself like a lynch mob.
If you cut through the chaff, there is often very good constructive criticism of the equipment on this forum.
While it's fairly obvious that Pentax doesn't listen overly much to their user base, a company ignores it's userbase at it's own peril. The company I work for listens to it's customers by inviting them to do online surveys, and we get a lot of very good feedback from these surveys.
By listening to our customers, we can make adjustments to our product line, and our service schedules, bringing what we do more and more in line with the needs of our customers.
This is how smart companies do business.
Dumb companies think they can operate in a vacuum and stay in business.