[jon404]

THoog wrote -- 'To say "keep selling it" now is like saying a store's fire sale bargains are so good, they should set fire to the warehouse as well.' You've got a point! Like the always-running mattress sales on TV.

And -- 'As a loss-leader, it only works if people who buy the K-01 buy new lenses to go with it, and are the people who only bought it because it was a bargain going to buy many $700 Limiteds?'

Well, that's me, as a new K-01 owner. Don't think I'll buy a $700 lens... I'm an amateur. But, as time goes on, less-expensive lenses... and, who knows, maybe a Pentax DSLR, since I want to take pictures of airplanes and it's hard without a real viewfinder. Why a Pentax DSLR? because I wouldn't have to buy a whole bunch of new lenses.

So would putting the K-01 back in production as a loss-leader be worth it? Would there be enough gain -- over the next five years -- ten years -- to keep the brick going? I don't know. But if I were running Pentax, I'd run the numbers, that's for sure.

[GeneV]

...
How about same questions for the original Q. If this happens too often we could all just gamble and wait for end-of-life pricing.

That is pretty much what I do anyway with most technology--Pentax or otherwise. (I wasn't that interested in a Lumix LX7 until the price had a "2" in front of it) End of newest thing is usually not end of life, though. This one was particularly rapid.

[cpho]

Yup.
This is the news which jussstttt tipped me over the edge. I was sitting on the fence before, but now it's discontinued, I just HAD to have one
*sigh* poor bank account...

The black K-01 with 40mm XS kit is currently $360 from Amazon, although it wont arrive till late April
Still don't know what the heck I'm going to do with it though.
Might use it, might keep it, might sell it...

[monochrome]

That is pretty much what I do anyway

Come to think of it, so do I:

All the Takumar and K lenses and bodies I bought in the late 90's and early 2000's. I wish I had hit the number when KEH had 3 A*85/1.4's sitting there for months.

• K10D (just as K20D was being released)
• Battery Grip (After the K-7 body obsoleted the DBG-2
• FA50/1.4 (right before the first Discontinued announcement, which was subsequently reversed)
• FA35/2 (long before the FIRST Hoya price increase, when no one wanted old plastic lenses)
• DA40/2.8 Ltd. (last year, during a brief Clearance Sale)
• Q (multiple deals here and there)

I did however pre-order the K-01. For some reason it just gripped me and made me order it early. I bought through the PF link and Adam even PM'ed me, "So you're going this way instead of the K-xx?" I felt pretty defensive until about last November - now I think I made a good choice.

[THoog]

THoog wrote -- 'To say "keep selling it" now is like saying a store's fire sale bargains are so good, they should set fire to the warehouse as well.' You've got a point! Like the always-running mattress sales on TV.

And -- 'As a loss-leader, it only works if people who buy the K-01 buy new lenses to go with it, and are the people who only bought it because it was a bargain going to buy many $700 Limiteds?'

Well, that's me, as a new K-01 owner. Don't think I'll buy a $700 lens... I'm an amateur. But, as time goes on, less-expensive lenses... and, who knows, maybe a Pentax DSLR, since I want to take pictures of airplanes and it's hard without a real viewfinder. Why a Pentax DSLR? because I wouldn't have to buy a whole bunch of new lenses.

So would putting the K-01 back in production as a loss-leader be worth it? Would there be enough gain -- over the next five years -- ten years -- to keep the brick going? I don't know. But if I were running Pentax, I'd run the numbers, that's for sure.

I just said in a different thread that I want a K-01IIs...

There is a precedent of the K-r, which was a slightly improved K-x, with the "missing" autofocus points added to the viewfinder and much-improved LiveView. It was slightly more expensive, and seemed to get some negative feedback just because it wasn't a quantum leap improvement. A slightly improved K-02 with traditional styling might get less hate for its looks, but would probably get an extra helping of abuse just for NOT being a full-frame smartphone with EVF, touch-tilt-screen, tilt/rotate flash, IR receivers on all six sides PLUS a cable release, dual SD cards and a PEZ dispenser.

I'm a cheapskate at heart, so I didn't buy Limiteds at first either - and when I did, I bought used. That doesn't help Pentax. (The Limiteds are sweet, tho'!) Personally, I do think they need more DA/DA L/XS lenses for the entry-level, but when those lenses do come out, it seems like there are two "what's this cheap crap?" comments for every "good, that will grow the user base".

[normhead]

We got ours, it's not a K-5, but there are times I pick it up and use it instead of the K-5. What more can you ask from a camera? It has a place in the world, for $379 with a 40 XS on it, it definitely has a place in mine.

[GeneV]

Come to think of it, so do I:
[LIST][*]K10D (just as K20D was being released)[*]Battery Grip (After the K-7 body obsoleted the DBG-2[*]FA50/1.4 (right before the first Discontinued announcement, which was subsequently reversed)[*]FA35/2 (long before the FIRST Hoya price increase, when no one wanted old plastic lenses)

I did exactly the same thing. I also bought the K20d after the K-7 appeared, and I waited a year to buy the K-5. I do the same with computers as well. Hey, its still new technology to me.

[cpho]

I'm a cheapskate at heart, so I didn't buy Limiteds at first either - and when I did, I bought used. That doesn't help Pentax. (The Limiteds are sweet, tho'!) Personally, I do think they need more DA/DA L/XS lenses for the entry-level, but when those lenses do come out, it seems like there are two "what's this cheap crap?" comments for every "good, that will grow the user base".

I very much agree with this.
If they wanted to make the Mirrorless K-Mount a thing, the have to make it a niche market.
They need to make MORE XS lenses to give the thing a sense of completion. With the single XS lens at the moment, it's not very.. fulfilling...

If I was designing the K-02, I'd make it more ergonomic, FF and give it a set of nice XS Primes
...And a PEZ dispenser of course

[GeneV]

I very much agree with this.
If they wanted to make the Mirrorless K-Mount a thing, the have to make it a niche market.
They need to make MORE XS lenses to give the thing a sense of completion. With the single XS lens at the moment, it's not very.. fulfilling...

Especially since the K-01 with the DA 40 is so compact, it is hard to justify having a second 40mm lens. An XS kit lens might have caught my wife's heart.

[THoog]

I did however pre-order the K-01. For some reason it just gripped me and made me order it early. I bought through the PF link and Adam even PM'ed me, "So you're going this way instead of the K-xx?" I felt pretty defensive until about last November - now I think I made a good choice.

If I haven't said so, I admire you early adopters for jumping in. Shooting the K-01 is so much fun, I wish that I had bought it in the first wave, not at the first price reduction (when it was still about twice the fire-sale price, but I'm not complaining). I had said in the past that I would be interested in a mirrorless because the shutter would be quiet, and when Pentax finally made one, I chickened out. My penance was to wander around the National Mall in DC with the Bumblebee on World Pentax Day.

[monochrome]

My penance was to wander around the National Mall in DC with the Bumblebee on World Pentax Day.

And you had a great time, no doubt.

[THoog]

And you had a great time, no doubt.

Well... An introverted computer geek (is that redundant?) who isn't comfortable in "the big city" surrounded by crowds while carrying a bright yellow camera? Not so much. I would have preferred the Classic Black.

[jon404]

I wonder if we could get all the Holga people to move up to the brick. Some of those Holgas are getting expensive. The K-01 has honest-to-God styling, whether you like it or not. And they could always smear some grease on a skylight filter so their friends wouldn't catch them taking sharp pictures.

I'd add a 180-degree swiveling lens to the K-02 specs... like a Globuscope... one-press-panoramic-pictures, and, at the end of its travel, it would trip the auto-Pez-dispenser with its optional M&M snap-in cartridge, 10 round limit.

[anthony mazzeri]

At first glance I thought that was a lunar module model on your desk and was going to ask you where you got such a detailed kit from.

[Doundounba]

[...] are the people who only bought it because it was a bargain going to buy many $700 Limiteds?

Well, I'm one of those, and yeah, $700+ for a lens is a little more than I could stomach. I lust after something like a DA 70mm, but at $400 for a (good deal on a) used copy, even that's stretching it.

On the other hand, *someone* at Pentax did their homework: the 40mm XS by itself is priced around $250, right? That's right smack into what I'd feel I could pay for a brand new lens. But if they discontinue the mirrorless line and give up on adding more XS lenses, then Pentax has very little to offer me in that price range (say $200-350) right now. I could get a DA L 35mm for around $200, but that's too close to the 40mm I already have. So... what am I thinking about? I already purchased a few used lenses to build some experience on, the most expensive of which is a Sigma 17-70mm F2.8-4.5. I'm considering the Samyang (MF) 8mm and 85mm, and still hunting Ebay semi-actively...

What this does give Pentax, theoretically, is an increase in the likelihood that my next camera body will also be a Pentax, because of the accumulation of k-mount lenses in my possession. Of course, that all depends on what they will have on tap in about 24 months...