[squareeyes]

I have used my K-01 since it had its first price drop.
Recently, following Mike Johnston's Online Photographer, I did a comparison to the Sigma fp series.
It may be "fish and fowl" but a full frame Pentax would surely look competitive.
Sure, I could adapt my K-mount lenses to the cavernous L-mount, but I like auto focus.

Now there is little (absolutely no) hope of Pentax again trying mirrorless, but I wistfully wish they would

Attached Images

 

[reh321]

I have used my K-01 since it had its first price drop.
Recently, following Mike Johnston's Online Photographer, I did a comparison to the Sigma fp series.
It may be "fish and fowl" but a full frame Pentax would surely look competitive.
Sure, I could adapt my K-mount lenses to the cavernous L-mount, but I like auto focus.

Now there is little (absolutely no) hope of Pentax again trying mirrorless, but I wistfully wish they would

I also wistfully wish they would explore that option again, but instead of learning that EVF is an integral strength of MILC as Canon and Sony did, they learned “MILC is not for us”, and I would guess most users who would prefer EVF have drifted off to other manufacturers by now, so I doubt if such a thing could succeed now - but it is an interesting thought. At one time I suggested that Pentax build a 24 mb K-02 and apparently I was viewed as ‘starting a fight’. My actual thought was that this could replace the K-70 at the bottom end; built-in focus-reducer would allow the company to concentrate on DFA lenses even though both sizes of sensor were still supported, but people still with Pentax seem to want mirror-technology now, so I won’t get in their way.

[jlstrawman]

Now there is little (absolutely no) hope of Pentax again trying mirrorless, but I wistfully wish they would

You are no doubt correct in making this statement. Most people may not realize that Ricoh Imaging Japan is a relatively small company, about 300
emplyees, per their own website. Ricoh Imaging US adds another 38. It's not difficult to see that a company this small would have limited resources
and a limited capacity to do much more than it already does.

When one stops to think about it, it is a testimate to the Ricoh Imaging employees, that they have accomplished a great deal already.

[Fogel70]

Are you asking Ricoh to give up on DSLR and start over with a new mirrorless system just like Sigma did?

Sigma is foremost a 3rd party lens supplier, so they had to follow the larger camera manufactures in the switch to mirrorless. Sigma main reason to manufacture cameras is to support their own development of lenses they sell to other systems.

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Last edited by Fogel70; 11-01-2022 at 01:35 PM.

[house]

Now there is little (absolutely no) hope of Pentax again trying mirrorless, but I wistfully wish they would

What benefits do you expect from a Pentax milc over a Pentax dslr? Are those benefits important to your photography? What about the features makes the removal of the mirror critical?

[pres589]

I'm curious how much more accurate metering and AF could be. It opens the door to an EVF and more natural (for lack of a better term) implementation of Live View. Plusses and minuses to all of this changing.

This sort of hypothetical comes up often here and at this point I think the smart answer is "if that's what you want, go get that mirrorless camera body and adapt your Pentax glass, because it's not happening under current leadership at Ricoh".

[Fogel70]

I'm curious how much more accurate metering and AF could be. It opens the door to an EVF and more natural (for lack of a better term) implementation of Live View. Plusses and minuses to all of this changing.

If they would try to produce DSLR and mirrorless system within a unified platform it will most likely end up as a bad compromise for both. Compromises done for mirrorless would compromise performance on DSLR, and vice verse.

There is a reason why every manufacturer that has been successful in mirrorless has done it with a completely redesigned system. And all attempts on reusing DSLR mounts has been abandoned. (Pentax K-01, Sony SLT, Sigma
Quattro).

[pres589]

I think there's some correlation/causation issues here but it doesn't matter since Ricoh isn't going to do it any time soon.

[AfterPentax Mark II]

I also wistfully wish they would explore that option again, but instead of learning that EVF is an integral strength of MILC as Canon and Sony did, they learned “MILC is not for us”, and I would guess most users who would prefer EVF have drifted off to other manufacturers by now, so I doubt if such a thing could succeed now - but it is an interesting thought. At one time I suggested that Pentax build a 24 mb K-02 and apparently I was viewed as ‘starting a fight’. My actual thought was that this could replace the K-70 at the bottom end; built-in focus-reducer would allow the company to concentrate on DFA lenses even though both sizes of sensor were still supported, but people still with Pentax seem to want mirror-technology now, so I won’t get in their way.

I have tried some MILC, Panasonic S5 and Nikon Z5. What I learned was that an EVF can give so much more info in viewer that a DSLR can not. With the Panasonic I learned that it is very useful if you can see in the viewer how much or how far you zoomed, I can not see that happening in a DSLR. There are two reasons that I still use a Pentax camera and that is the ease of use of the Pentax branded lenses on a Pentax branded camera. The second: at this time in my life I do not think it wise to invest in another system. I own the K-01 and it is a great camera. But history is that at the time Pentax was very reluctant to produce / develop a digital camera and see where it got them, not far. Deja vù....

[MossyRocks]

You are no doubt correct in making this statement. Most people may not realize that Ricoh Imaging Japan is a relatively small company, about 300
emplyees, per their own website. Ricoh Imaging US adds another 38. It's not difficult to see that a company this small would have limited resources
and a limited capacity to do much more than it already does.

When one stops to think about it, it is a testimate to the Ricoh Imaging employees, that they have accomplished a great deal already.

That actually surprises me in the how can they be that small way.

[UncleVanya]

If they would try to produce DSLR and mirrorless system within a unified platform it will most likely end up as a bad compromise for both. Compromises done for mirrorless would compromise performance on DSLR, and vice verse.

There is a reason why every manufacturer that has been successful in mirrorless has done it with a completely redesigned system. And all attempts on reusing DSLR mounts has been abandoned. (Pentax K-01, Sony SLT, Sigma
Quattro).

However the Sony A mount was pretty successful and also never was EVF based. Many of the compromises are around size and lens distortions. Being able to mask lens distortions in an EVF opens up designs that wouldn’t be possible and that’s not what I think people are asking for. I think an EVF based k-02 would be a cool way to create a lightweight full frame using Pentax glass. It might be a dud however. I strongly expect it has zero chance but in this new “craft” era of customized offerings in Japan maybe it could get life. I also think an all manual focus k-02 with ff sensor and EVF would be of interest. But I’m just talking ideas not projects that have a chance.

[JPT]

You are no doubt correct in making this statement. Most people may not realize that Ricoh Imaging Japan is a relatively small company, about 300
emplyees, per their own website. Ricoh Imaging US adds another 38. It's not difficult to see that a company this small would have limited resources
and a limited capacity to do much more than it already does.

When one stops to think about it, it is a testimate to the Ricoh Imaging employees, that they have accomplished a great deal already.

I think this requires a bit of clarification. Ricoh Imaging is part of Ricoh as a whole, so they can probably make use of the larger group’s support functions, not needing to duplicate them from their 300 people headcount. That means those 300 people are really focused on the development and marketing of cameras.

In addition, the production subsidiary companies in Vietnam and the Philippines have a lot more people. I remember reading a few years back that there were 997 employees at the factory in Vietnam. I’ve never seen a figure for the Philippines.

So I’m not saying that Ricoh Imaging is a huge company, but the 300 figure makes it seem a lot smaller than it is.

As for mirrorless, I don’t think it will happen under the Pentax brand. Pentax is clearly going to keep the OVF, but if they decide it is a sensible extension of the GR/Ricoh brand, I guess it could happen from that angle.

[carlb]

Ooh look, a dead horse. Has anyone got a whip that I can flog it with?

[Fogel70]

However the Sony A mount was pretty successful and also never was EVF based.

Not sure what you mean by this, but since 2010 all A-mount cameras had EVF. So something like the last 10 A-mount cameras had EVF. But they used a translucent mirror in them so they could use a separate AF sensor which gave them same AF performance as DSLR.

Many of the compromises are around size and lens distortions. Being able to mask lens distortions in an EVF opens up designs that wouldn’t be possible and that’s not what I think people are asking for. I think an EVF based k-02 would be a cool way to create a lightweight full frame using Pentax glass. It might be a dud however. I strongly expect it has zero chance but in this new “craft” era of customized offerings in Japan maybe it could get life. I also think an all manual focus k-02 with ff sensor and EVF would be of interest. But I’m just talking ideas not projects that have a chance.

Not sure how much weight you would save on replacing pentaprism with EVF, but it probably will not save much more than 10% of the camera weight if both cameras used the same body design.

[UncleVanya]

Not sure how much weight you would save on replacing pentaprism with EVF, but it probably will not save much more than 10% of the camera weight if both cameras used the same body design.

And mirror, etc. The size is also a factor. Imagine a rangefinder style body.