Originally posted by aleonx3 Aristophanes, your points are all valid except this one - would Pentax be stupid enough to price K-? APS-C at $1000 when the Canon FF is selling at $1500? I would think around $600 is more likely. For new entrants who does not know much about the sensor size, lower price becomes the attractive point.
They could even give it to be sure that everyone get one. But then, where is the profit?
High end model of caamera are expensive to develop, because they are the ones introducing new thecnologies. When the price difference between a FF and an APS-C sensor will be close enough, camera's price will not be that much impacted by the kind of sensor inside. I guess that is Aristophanes's idea. And I totally agree with him.
Durng the last 2 years, DSLR market has evolved a lot. First by the release of small compact camera (Panasonic and Olympus m4/3, Sony NEX, Samsung NX). Then by the introduction of FF camera (canon 5DII, Nikon D700, Sony Alpha 850/900) that any enthusiast photographer can buy (today D700 cost less than 2000 dollars, the exact same price than D300s, in Japan).
And in the middle of that, Pentax is the only one to stick exclusively to APS-C. It is commonly said that a company that is not moving on is a dying company. I believe Pentax has (had, because probably revealed at Photokina) to do a choice. Are they going mainstream with a micro thing, where is the money today. Or are they going FF, where will be the money within a few years. They can't do both (alone, not talking about potential alliance) at the same time, each of them requesting new lines of lenses. Their choice to attack the MF market, let me think they are thinking to go FF. Many people say FF is a niche market with only 2% of global sales. Right. MF is even a much smaller market. And they make a lot of money with their cheap MF, simply because they developed it in parallel to their high end APS-C model (K7). Same electronics. They can do exactly the same for a FF body. Development cost would be really reduced compared to C and N. Then, of course do not expect to beat them on their strong points (AF, burst speed). But they can compete on IQ quality, which is, for me, the basics of... photography.