Originally posted by Aristophanes The fraction who use primes are not a market.
You need the equivalent with zooms.
Please, just please... Not again the USA-centric, male-centric crap. Please open your mind and look past that stereotype. The USA market is not the most important in the world any more. More Pentaxes are sold in Europe than in the USA. The Pentax of today is putting its focus literally on females and emerging markets like China and India (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Europe indeed). Those markets are VERY different to the USA market. Here in Europe, Pentax definitely is the brand of primes. It's their selling point over here. Even Canikon users regard us highly because of our excellent primes and small DSLR bodies. And, even the Q can be seen in that light. Bigger is not always better, but maybe it's hard to get past the USA mindset (where everything is big, bigger, biggest, although I'm seeing that that sort of obscene consumerism is coming to an end there too, thank god for the financial crisis we're in).
But what I really wanted to say: can't Pentax in your mind be just like... Pentax? It seems that you want them to become another Canon or Nikon, where "big" seems to be the main selling point. Well, many, many of us don't like to haul large chunks of glass around for fun. I liked the hefty Canon 5D for its IQ. I honestly liked my Pentax K10D and K20D, which were not really big. I liked the K-7 and K-5 even more, and they were smaller. But the strangest thing of all is that I liked the Q more than any of these cameras. Is it just me? Maybe. Maybe not everyone is in for the miniaturization process Pentax is in, but didn't cell phones get smaller to make them more transportable, wearable, usable, more fun? There's a reason why my wife does not want to touch my DSLR's, but she cannot get her hands off my Q. The same goes for my children. They call my K-5 the 'big daddy' camera, but they'll grab the Q when they can (and I don't allow them - yet!
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Big, hefty DSLR's are just as stereotype and outdated as is the fat American driving a gas-guzzling Chevy Suburban (or any SUV for that matter). The market is changing, Nikon seems to understand that to some extent, Canon yet hasn't because they don't need to. Yet! But they should quickly get their act together or they'll get out of touch with the emerging markets.
I'll speak you again in a year