Originally posted by codiac2600 Sony (Konica-Minolta) is the only other camera company with an R&D team just blistering with innovation. Between Pentax and Minolta everyone else hasn't done so much for the camera industry in terms of great features. Sony being a massive organization and Pentax being a hole in the wall compared to Sony. Even with the big money gap between the two companies I believe Pentax will bring back some of that marvelous innovative fronts from the past.
Sorry, but I have to disagree with this. From what I gather, most of Pentax's innovations and pioneering ideas came back in the film era. Looking at their latest cameras (the K1xxD series and the K10D), most of the features these had are features that are already existing with other models. In-body stabilization? Konica-Minolta. Dust buster? Olympus. Weather sealing? I think either Canon or Nikon was the first. What's innovative is how Pentax has managed to cram all these features in at an attractive price. It speaks about their efficient manufacturing, which would only be further helped by Hoya's input from this point on.
Of course, maybe Pentax just didn't have capital enough to put the innovations they have into their current crop of cameras. The 645D comes to mind.
My thought: Pentax's true strength are their lenses, what with the pancake lenses and Limiteds. Those are truly outstanding pieces of engineering, and sets Pentax apart from other manufacturers.
As for other companies blistering with innovation (based on recent performance), I submit the following: Nikon, Sony, and Olympus, in no particular order.
Nikon, for the wonderful high-ISO feat they have achieved with the D3, and the intended/unintended idea that the D3 implies: that pixel count is not the end-all and be-all of image quality. The D300 doesn't strike me as that ground-breaking, though. It's more of an update to the D200, albeit a much bigger update than the 30D to 40D update.
Sony, for the work they did on the D300/A700 CMOS chip, which, in performance, is now almost of a dead heat to Canon's CMOS APS-C chip. And the eye-start + grip AF is also quite handy, improving on the eye-start technology the A100 had (though I think Canon had something like this way back in one of their film SLRs). I'm sure Sony has other tricks up its sleeve, which I'm guessing would be better integration of their DSLRs to other pieces of electronics (HDTVs, wireless stuff, GPS, etc.), Sony being an electronics giant with different specializations. I won't be too surprised if they found a way to integrate the PSP with their future DSLRs for reasons that are beyond me as of the moment.
Olympus (this should actually read as Panalympus or something), for achieving what they did with the E-3, great high ISO performance in a much smaller sensor than what the others use. Of course, there's also the dust buster they pioneered and the live view that critics were laughing at back then, but are now being included by other manufacturers. The telecentric lens concept was also innovative for me.
It is Canon who has lost their way recently, and I agree that the last innovation they had was the 5D. I suspect the upcoming XTi upgrade would be more of an incremental upgrade (MP count boost plus live view) than something groundbreaking. I'll reserve judgment about the 5D upgrade, as I really don't know what Canon intends with that now that the D3 is out.
Pentax, from all accounts, looks to be in good shape. I'm waiting to see what they have in store for us, but basing on the enthusiasm shown by Ben, Chris, Marc, and other NDA'd people, they look to have some wonderful ideas.