Originally posted by ZaphodB Blende8 and
anomaly... I agree that technically
nosnoop should not say "the chance is 0" unless he has inside information confirming for sure that there will not be a full-frame announcement in January (and presumably he has not)... but, to be fair, he is basically right in that the chance is very unlikely indeed.
Firstly, consider that until now Canon has basically been alone in offering "full-frame". Nikon has only just now started using FF sensors, and only in their one absolute top-of-the-line professional body. Between Canon and Nikon, the 5D is the only full-frame body that is realistically "affordable" for anyone other than professionals or very rich amateurs. Why does Pentax need to compete here yet while Sony and Olympus don't? It just doesn't seem very realistic that it would be near the top of their priorities.
Secondly, consider that for several years Pentax released a series of cameras using the same sensor, each a slight improvement on the previous. The K10d was the first significant departure from this. Meanwhile in the lens department Pentax has been rather slow and not delivered in some areas... they have had to prioritise lower to mid range products at the expense of higher-end ones, because Pentax's resources are relatively limited (relative compared to the larger companies)... how did they go from this to being able to produce a full-frame camera in so short a time? (Yes they may have a lot of help from Hoya, but the merger is still pretty recent).
Finally, and here to my mind is the big one... what lenses would you put on a full-frame Pentax? A 50mm and some Limiteds? Unlike Canon and Nikon, Pentax no longer offers full-frame lenses with one or two exceptions. If they were going to announce a full-frame body, they would also have to announce full-frame lenses (and presumably this would mean updating all the old ones, possibly including SDM)... and then again the question becomes, do they really have the means?
So no, I think it's incredibly unlikely that Pentax will announce a full-frame camera in January. You might say I'm being negative, but look at it this way: I won't be disappointed in January, and if they do somehow achieve the highly improbable and announce an FF camera, I'll be very pleasantly surprised
Re: FF body & suitable lenses:
Officially I gues it's "No comment", as you'd expect they will want to keep all options open.
Un-officially I'm certain it is:
Body announcement in early 2008?: - Nada, Zilch, Zero, No chance, Nil, None, Non, Nein etc., etc.
FF lenses?: None on existing roadmap, most unlikely (zero) on the next.
However for FF film cameras (and APS digital) they still list:
FA-J 18-35, FA 20-35, FA-J 28-80, FA 28-105, FA-J 75-300, FA 35, FA 50, FA*300 f2.8, FA*600 f4.0, D-FA 50, D-FA 100 and the 3 FA Limiteds.
Okay, some are not exactly stellar, but several are outstanding and I'm sure that if (I said "if" not when!) they ever decide to produce a FF body, they would almost certainly introduce a couple of new high grade optics to go with it for starters. But honestly, I've heard absolutely nothing about FF, but I do know that the 645D project is still in their dreambook.
I could not (nor want to) afford a 645D or a FF body, even at the current cheapest FF prices, so am quite happy to carry on with APS-C. Even if a FF body could be bought for under US $1,000 I'm unlikely to switch back even then.