Originally posted by Marc Sabatella The question, how could *you* have missed it, when you wrote it yourself? can't you see it completely invalidates the rest of your argument? If it is so damned important than no poor newbie ever have the slightest possibilty of being confused, you simply cannot allow them to use any non-WR lens. And you certainly can't sell a camera that *demands* to be used with a non kit lenses.
Your argument is based on the fact that some poor user might be confused. Mine is that this is unavoidable unless you take steps than no rational person would ever suggest aking. And that includes disallowing a body-only option. .
You're really reaching now, changing my own argument to fit yours. Why can't body-only be an option again?
- What are the chances of a newcomer to ILCs buying a body-only camera without a lens? Even the worst salesmen in the world would make them aware there's no lens in the box, and I assure you the customer would find out pretty quick once they got home. like i said before, and you conveniently dismissed (sense a pattern here), body-only forces the person to really consider their lens purchase, greatly
reducing assumptions and mistakes.
- What are the chances an experienced user would want a non-WR kit lens over a WR one? If they'd even want a kit lens at all.
I'd say your scenarios are about 100x less likely than mine.
Originally posted by Marc Sabatella So, because you are worried a few people won't do their homework, you disallow millions from having the option of buying a cheaper kit if they decide they don't need a sealed lens? That's just insane.
No, not a few, potentially thousands. How many people alone pre-ordered on B&H with the wrong listing?
Think of parents buying xmas/graduation presents, sports kids looking to upgrade their WR compact. Pentax has obviously been trying to open up their market to NEW users (K-01, K30), not stay focused purely on the photo-literate (OM-D, XPRO1).
Please tell me the downside of offering an 18-55mm WR kit instead of the DA-L. How much are they saving exactly? $50 difference at retail, $20/$30 subsidized as a kit? That's your argument? That's less than sales tax.
Conversely, if a newcomer DID do their homework, and wanted a WR kit like in all the ads, their cheapest outlet is body-only and a $200 additional lens. REQUIRE them to do their homework first, and pay more second. That's your solution.
Originally posted by Marc Sabatella We might have been open to it ten years ago, but ten years of history have proven this just is not an issue, period. It is not going to magically start being an issue now if it wasn't before.
You act like Pentax has had smashing success the last 10 years. It's been sold twice in the last decade, struggling to fight in an SLR market against the two biggest camera companies in the world. Even Olympus and Sony gave that fight up years ago.
Pentax finally found a hole in their competition's armor, a product feature the mass-market can understand and appreciate, and at the right price. Affordable WR. They've finally started an aggressive marketing campaign that extols the unique virtues of this brand, but are blunting it with its mixed and confusing product-roll-out here in the States. It's already managed to confuse people here on PF, are you dismissing them too? Or just the poor fools out there who don't know as much about photographic equipment as we do?
Last edited by illdefined; 05-26-2012 at 12:35 PM.