[rparmar]

which is why the idea of Ricoh purchasing Pentax soley to gain a few technologies or patents seem silly.

Actually, no. Only a few companies have current patents in sensor pipelines, image stabilisation etc. that go into making a DSLR. The mount is the least of their worries. Intellectual property, goodwill and market share would be the three main reasons to buy a company in this market and we all know how much of the third Pentax have.

[Kunzite]

And what good buying a whole company, just to maintain some compact cameras? Of course Ricoh wants more than they have now; of course they wouldn't throw out of the window what Pentax have.
Yes, even the tiny market share is very important - as they won't have to start from scratch.

[adr1an]

Wow.

I had entirely the wrong impression in this thread.

So many of you seem to have 'the answers' - and here I was thinking that 90% of Northern Hemisphere Economies were tanking at the moment.....
You guys going to sell all your Pentax/Ricoh gear when you head to Wall St or MX? Maybe I can buy it cheap since you'll all be owning Leica's and Hasselblads now right ? With all this awesome business acumen you all have - the worlds economies must surely be saved now ?

[Blue]

Wow.

I had entirely the wrong impression in this thread.

So many of you seem to have 'the answers' - and here I was thinking that 90% of Northern Hemisphere Economies were tanking at the moment.....
You guys going to sell all your Pentax/Ricoh gear when you head to Wall St or MX? Maybe I can buy it cheap since you'll all be owning Leica's and Hasselblads now right ? With all this awesome business acumen you all have - the worlds economies must surely be saved now ?

Actually, the only SLR Ricoh gear for sale is at least about 25 years old. This will be the 3rd Pentax name change I've gone through. Hopefully the K-mount system won't become orphaned. It is not such a big deal regarding film, but for digital slr bodies it is.

[séamuis]

Wow.

I had entirely the wrong impression in this thread.

So many of you seem to have 'the answers' - and here I was thinking that 90% of Northern Hemisphere Economies were tanking at the moment.....
You guys going to sell all your Pentax/Ricoh gear when you head to Wall St or MX? Maybe I can buy it cheap since you'll all be owning Leica's and Hasselblads now right ? With all this awesome business acumen you all have - the worlds economies must surely be saved now ?

how sly and clever. :ugh:

[philbaum]

And what good buying a whole company, just to maintain some compact cameras? Of course Ricoh wants more than they have now; of course they wouldn't throw out of the window what Pentax have.
Yes, even the tiny market share is very important - as they won't have to start from scratch.

I agree. The 4% share that Pentax has of DSLR sales is 4% more than Ricoh has today.

If one looks at the K5, its 4th in line of a progressive improvement in DSLRs starting with the K10. Also, this small Pentax team managed to put together, argueably, the best aps dslr out there in terms of dynamic range, shutter, features, compactness, etc. I'm not talking the full Pentax system, but a small team putting together a DSLR that plays with the best that Canon or Nikon has in APS is an impressive achievement.

Perhaps what appealed to Ricoh is buying that Pentax team intact. One can't just hire 20 engineers and then expect them to design and manufacture a competitive camera in the next 6 months. Its a team that works well together, has experience together, and has all the skills that is so valuable.

[Docrwm]

I agree. The 4% share that Pentax has of DSLR sales is 4% more than Ricoh has today.

If one looks at the K5, its 4th in line of a progressive improvement in DSLRs starting with the K10. Also, this small Pentax team managed to put together, argueably, the best aps dslr out there in terms of dynamic range, shutter, features, compactness, etc. I'm not talking the full Pentax system, but a small team putting together a DSLR that plays with the best that Canon or Nikon has in APS is an impressive achievement.

Perhaps what appealed to Ricoh is buying that Pentax team intact. One can't just hire 20 engineers and then expect them to design and manufacture a competitive camera in the next 6 months. Its a team that works well together, has experience together, and has all the skills that is so valuable.

And who know what mistakes they have made, and have developed plans to avoid the same in future.

[Chwisch87]

If you get rid of the k-Mount you have to redevelop your entire lens line. Lots of money and screwing over your fanbase. That doesn't mean there make not be a new FF mount, like everyone else has done.

Ricoh is little over twice as big as Nikon and close to Canon in size. Sony is still the giant though.

Ricoh is probably considers canon as one of their chief rivals as they are both pretty heavily in the printer/copier business. I would imagine getting an imaging unit is the whole idea.

[RioRico]

Ricoh is little over twice as big as Nikon and close to Canon in size. Sony is still the giant though.

Samsung dwarfs Sony, corporately. Yet Samsung can't deliver winning cameras, whereas Sony has been doing so for 40 years -- video etc. Whether or not Sony's digestion of Konica-Minolta was beneficial, is another matter.

Nikon itself is of a certain size. But Nikon is a small piece of the Mitsubishi Group, which dwarfs Canon. Yet despite Nikon's considerable technical and financial resources, they are only now surpassing Canon in sales.

Summary: Corporate size doesn't guarantee success.

Back to Ricoh. I just read somewhere that Ricoh is now THE leading business copier-printer maker, surpassing Canon. I agree with y'all who think this is Ricoh's move towards the top of the camera heap too, and that Ricoh is probably the best owner Pentax could have. There's no reason to rebrand Pentax as Ricoh, any more than rebranding Nikon as Mitsubishi. IMHO the Pentax name will be around as long as cameras are.
__________________________________________

Something I'd like to see: an entry-level Q. Just a basic 12-15mpx P&S with a Q-mount -- and C- and D-mount adapters, for using manual cine lenses.

[Blue]

Samsung dwarfs Sony, corporately. Yet Samsung can't deliver winning cameras, whereas Sony has been doing so for 40 years -- video etc. Whether or not Sony's digestion of Konica-Minolta was beneficial, is another matter.

Nikon itself is of a certain size. But Nikon is a small piece of the Mitsubishi Group, which is much larger than Canon. Yet despite Nikon's considerable technical and financial resources, they are only now surpassing Canon in sales.

Summary: Corporate size doesn't guarantee success.

Back to Ricoh. I just read somewhere that Ricoh is now THE leading business copier-printer maker, surpassing Canon. I agree with y'all who think this is Ricoh's move towards the top of the camera heap too, and that Ricoh is probably the best owner Pentax could have. There's no reason to rebrand Pentax as Ricoh, any more than rebranding Nikon as Mitsubishi. IMHO the Pentax name will be around as long as cameras are.

I pointed out in a couple of posts that Sony and Fuji both reported losses of over $400 Million in 2010. That would no be a good scenario at all. Canon and Nikon would be bad for obvious reasons. That doesn't leave to many options.

[redrockcoulee]

The fact that Ricoh is a camera company is no guarantee that they will do right by Pentax, an example is when GM bought SAAB they had no idea of how to market it or even what models they should or should not produce and hence only started getting it right about the time it needed to sell off assets.

Ricoh however is not the aging giant that GM was/is. It has been clear to me for a while that for Pentax to succeed they cannot take on Canon or Nikon head to head, product for product. The K5 and K-r are models they do need to produce but the 645D and even the Q are the directions they also need to do to build themselves up more, cannot do it with the number of entry level models that Canon has nor at the professional FF level without putting out a number of lenses that would be impossible for them to produce at the current time.

Looking back Pentax has not only changed their mount twice but also their name, Ashiaflex lenses do not fit the screw mount Pentaxs at all. In the future the mount may need to change again but this will have more to do with the demands of technology than a change in ownership.

We bought Spotmatic F the year before they changed to the K mount. I just bought a K-r to use the lenses from my film Pentax as well as the ones my wife uses on her K10D. In a way I am fortunate as my main cameras when I go out to make images are the V series Hasselblad which for all intents is an obsolete system and large format which allows be to use 100 year old lenses on a new camera or a new lens on a 100 year old camera. I bought the K-r instead of the K-5 partly cause I wanted a small camera that I can take with either of my larger film systems with little difficulty. As we approach the pension years I am sure that we will replace or supplant the K10D and K-r at least once. I am confident that we will be able to do so with this new ownership. They bought the company and the brand for business reasons and cannot see a better business model than to expand and promote the Pentax brand.

GM kept the SAAB brand even if they rebadged some of their products as Saabs (actually these were up scaled in handling as well) but also Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Dodge and "Buick were once separate companies. Ricoh could sell under both brands depending on the level and type of product. And if eventually they end up with only the one name I can live with that as the name on the camera is not as important as that I can use my lenses etc. If the mount needs to change there is nothing I can do about it. Both Pentax and Hasselblad have announced new ownership this past week but I feel that neither change will really impact me personally. My Senecas are at least safe as that company went out of business 80 years ago

[Blue]

@redrockcoulee: There weren't that many m37 lenses out there in the ~4 year life of the Asahiflex series. Plus, several of those same lenses were made in the late 50s with the m42 universal mount. In fact the mirror boxes can be swapped around in those earlier bodies and the m37. There was a big difference in 1975 when pentax shifted to the K-mount. However, the registry distance has remained the same on the m37, m42 and K-mount bodies. Many like to take a dig at the K-mount but frankly, the Nikon mount they they have used for 4 decades is very similar and Nikon as demonstrated that the mound is very serviceable. The second thing many like to do is bust on the registry distance but again Nikon's is pretty darn close to the one Pentax has used for 60 years.

Edit: As a matter of fact, I am sitting here looking at my 17mm Pancake and Oly E-P1 and the mount looks a lot like the k-mount and Nikon mount.

[kadajawi]

Samsung dwarfs Sony, corporately. Yet Samsung can't deliver winning cameras, whereas Sony has been doing so for 40 years -- video etc. Whether or not Sony's digestion of Konica-Minolta was beneficial, is another matter.

Nikon itself is of a certain size. But Nikon is a small piece of the Mitsubishi Group, which dwarfs Canon. Yet despite Nikon's considerable technical and financial resources, they are only now surpassing Canon in sales.

Summary: Corporate size doesn't guarantee success.

Back to Ricoh. I just read somewhere that Ricoh is now THE leading business copier-printer maker, surpassing Canon. I agree with y'all who think this is Ricoh's move towards the top of the camera heap too, and that Ricoh is probably the best owner Pentax could have. There's no reason to rebrand Pentax as Ricoh, any more than rebranding Nikon as Mitsubishi. IMHO the Pentax name will be around as long as cameras are.
__________________________________________

Something I'd like to see: an entry-level Q. Just a basic 12-15mpx P&S with a Q-mount -- and C- and D-mount adapters, for using manual cine lenses.

Yup, I agree. Ricoh probably wants to get in the high end business, which means K-mount and 645D. The P&S market is rather tough, many competitors, even more products and competition from cell phones (some of which are seriously amazing, like the Nokia N8. A somewhat fast and very sharp lens, coupled with a large sensor (larger than the Q)). So getting into DSLRs and system cameras is smart.

They'll also keep the brand name, as they did with past acquisitions.

And now we're talking. C and D-mount compact camera? Sweet. But please increase the sensor size to at least 1/1.63", the mFT cameras support those mounts too IIRC. And the price needs to be lower. 200 Euro and they've got my interest.

[froeschle]

I pointed out in a couple of posts that [...] Fuji [...] reported losses of over $400 Million in 2010. [...]

I have found a recent interview with Reuters.

Fujifilm aims to be world No. 3 in cameras
[...]
Until recently best known for inexpensive models, Fujifilm may also re-enter the more lucrative interchangeable lens camera market from which it withdrew in 2004, Takeshi Higuchi, head of the company's camera division, said in an interview with Reuters on Monday.
[...]
Higuchi insisted the company would have no problems developing a mirrorless camera or the required lenses by itself, denying the possibility of another acquisition in the industry.
[...]
Fujifilm, which makes a wide range of products from medical equipment to cosmetics, barely broke even on cameras last year, but Higuchi plans to pull the business firmly into the black this year with production cost cuts and a marketing push that he says will keep unit prices higher.

"We can do all the important development in-house, so we can use that to cut costs, but we don't have a very high-profile brand," Higuchi said. "We have debated why that is and the upshot was we should put out luxury models and spend more on publicity to build up the brand."
[...]
In digital still camera unit sales, Fujifilm says it is currently in fifth position behind Canon, Sony, Nikon and Samsung, but adds it is confident that its plan to boost sales 25 percent to 14 million units this financial year will gain it the No. 4 spot.
[...]

Who can properly read between the lines?

[Emacs]

I have found a recent interview with Reuters.

Who can properly read between the lines?

Daydreaming. Japan mafioso corps are so ineffective nowdays, than can't stand a chance against samsung.