[eddie1960]

The K-r is still in stock, so it is the entry model. That's how Pentax does it; they let the last model run down inventory (K-x comes out, but K-2000 is still for sale).

An entry model is defined by price. The K-30 is far too expensive to be any B&M retailer's entry level model.

KR in most markets is sold out now., I recognize the history of this at Pentax -usually they overlap but between supply disruptions and ownership changes i think the overlap didn't happen like usual. I think we have yet to see the kr replacement

[ElJamoquio]

There's definitely an entry level model coming in below the K-30. They've done everything but mail the brochure to our door telling us it's name.

[eddie1960]

FF model size requires a tripod on a great many shots. Any FL longer than 70mm (and really 50mm) need substantial stabilization. Once you're on a tripod, the need for articulating screens is reduced. Also, these pro cameras really don't want anything sticking out. It's another thing to break. They are very handy, however.

Also, many FF lenses are no IS/VR...to cut down weight and increase focussing speed.

agreed, and anyone shooting serious video with those 2 models is likely using the external screen(bigger) or a Zacuto finder, paired with a tripod or a Steadicam type rig, it's a whole different market and not one the K5 replacement will compete in.
Someone mentioned the need to compete with the D300 replacement, I have a feeling that is the D600 based on all the rumours. not sure where canon will go with the 7D replacement - if the Nikon rumours are correct then i imagine they will be striving to achieve the same albeit a little later. true 7d replacement may well be the 65d then, just like the D7200 or whatever may well move more upscale as the d300 option moves to FF
So the K5 replacement is really positioned to compete where it does now mostly against the 60d and d7000
the model above the k5 (whatever that is - FF and next spring release likely) will be the one competing with a D600

[Anvh]

1) Of course, I don't know exactly what was said to the retailers. I *DO* know;

1A) that Ned has said that 'retailers are required to stick to MSRP' was a good characterization of the situation.
1B) that on April 1st many/most lenses were raised to at or near MSRP
1C) that since that time those lenses which had their prices raised have decreased/fluctuated in street price.

so

1D) why the hell didn't Pentax just communicate a 'minimum advertised price' rather than have all this nonsense?


2) just to be clear, I'm talking about the same post for background on 1) and 2) - i assume you know the one (?) - where he says that 'Pentax did not raise prices' was a good characterization. We don't have to discuss it further, I just wanted to let you know what I was referring to.

2) continued - maybe you believe that Pentax raised prices. Maybe you don't. Maybe you believe that Ned said they didn't raise prices. Maybe you don't. But in either of those (2x2) four cases, you can still agree that it's a mistake to even allow people to think you said you didn't raise prices when something you did caused prices to go up?

I don't know preciesly anymore what Ned said but will take your word for it.

About that they didn't raise the prices, that was about that they didn't raise the price they are selling the lenses for and that's an important part also for why they set a minimum price.
They want more margin on the product so that more store will and can sell their products.
I believe he clearly stated this this way.

How else could he have said this?

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Last edited by Anvh; 05-28-2012 at 08:40 AM.

[monochrome]

I vaguely remember statements saying the goal was to reach a strong 3rd (which would imply at least 10%) and share being taken form canon and nikon

can't remember where but it is a logical goal in any case

Definitely in January they did hint strongly at a 4 dslr lineup (we only have kr and k5 nothing between or above and a full dslr line is needed.....)

Those have been my assumptions since I started the "Ricoh has a Plan" thing last winter (which has been corroborated word-on-the-street here in St. Louis). I also specifically recall the 4-dSLR comment, perhaps in Adam's interview with the product manager. (I believe there is room in the market for 4 Pentax dSLR's). I believe the strong third, 10% share meme comes from the same interview in which the Ricoh executive stated they were hiring back dismissed lens engineers (December?).

As a career analyst, though, I'm more convinced by the subtle changes in approach to the market that imply doing things differently (at least in the USA) than they have been done in the recent past. Reading between the lines it is not hard to imagine Pentax emulating Nikon's strategic plan, modified to suit a smaller, more nimble, specialist brand.

All supposition, of course (I did use suppose 6 or 8 times in my prior post), but I believe strong supposition.

[Anvh]

If you need coverage more than about the focal length, price goes up. The m4/3 example you gave does not, the FF example you gave very much does. The comparison is therefore irrelevant.

PLease explain the math behind the coverage since that one is a bit lost to me.
And to my defends, there is a thread here about how DA lenses cover the FF and only the wide angle lenses have a problem so good as all the normal and longer lenses cover FF.

Needing the rear element to be far from the image plane also costs extra on wide angles, but this is unrelated to registration distance. Let me repeat that: The minimum distance from the rear element to the imaging plane is unrelated to registration distance.

Look at almost any K mount lens that is not a long prime, and you willl see glass further back than the register. To help you out, I will point out that the register is at the surface with the electical contacts.

First you say it isn't the register and in the second part you do talk about the register?

Sure wide angle lenses reach past the register but wouldn't the film to rear element distance not be even shorter when they reach past a mount with a shorter register distance?
Beside that there is a limit to how far they can reach past the mount.

Assuming you didn't actually want a mirrorless mount, it would still be perfectly possible to start allowing glass further back in the K mount if you allow old (FF) cameras to hit it with their mirrors. So far Pentax has not done so, but there's no technical reason they couldn't. And we have seen a prototype of such a lens, which might still clear the mirror on APS-C cameras.

I want a mirror mount made for APS-C DSLR cameras.
And yes the can lens go into the mount like the lenses for the K-01 do but you've a problem the the diameter of the lens must fit inside the mount and the K-mount isn't that wide so you're very limited when it comes to fast lenses.
And fast lenses is something APS-C needs when you want an APS-C product to compete with FF

You need a shorter register and a wider mount, both not just one will do.

[Anvh]

So you're advocating that Pentax should give up on DSLRs and go full-mirrorless? Because that's the way they could reduce the registration distance. About your consistency: you were talking about 4/3 at times, and that's a DSLR mount.

I fail to see how it would make them "better marketable for the professional market", and how starting over from scratch (you're ignoring the huge effort needed, and made no effort to assess the need for APS-C ultra-fast lenses) and competing with the electronic giants on the electronic gadget market would be any better. I also can't understand how asking the same for something worse (smaller sensor, doh!) is such a good business plan.
By the way, I mentioned this before: Olympus was in a position to make a real change to 4/3 with a mount designed for 4/3, this made the system more future proof and better marketable for the professional market... wait, 4/3 is dead. End of story.

No i never said that they need to go full-mirrorless, where did you get that idea from. I clearly stated a mount specially made for APS-C DSLR, i hope you know what DSLR means...
I only said that a shorter mount will also benefit camera like the K-01 by making them smaller, that's something else then saying they must go fully mirrorless.

Well if we go that way, Sony tried to get FF camera in the market as well, and where are they now with FF?
So why do you think that Pentax would be any better then Sony in that market, and what would they have to offer after 10 years of missing a FF.
Beside that i know some 4/3th users and they were all quite happy with their system so they surely did something right.

It does not matter if they go FF or get a new mount, both will cost effort, money and risk.

I myself don't need the extra quality that FF offers over APS-C, and i like to have a cheap body so that i can update that more often.
I doubt anyone will disagree that spending $1000 extra on a lens is better then spending $1000 extra on a camera body.

[monochrome]

I only said that a shorter mount will also benefit camera like the K-01 by making them smaller, that's something else then saying they must go fully mirrorless.

But smaller isn't a benefit for a camera like the K-01 - it is the size it is supposed to be. (ducking now)

[Kunzite]

About my consistency i said that with a shorter register and wider diamater mount a "real" APS-C "FF equivalent" could be made and that the lenses can become cheaper.

So you want a shorter registration distance DSLR mount, after all?
However, the registration distance can't possibly be much shorter if we're still talking about an APS-C DSLR. Definitely nowhere near a mirrorless system. The 4/3 - with its smaller sensor, thus smaller mirror - have 38.67mm; the K-mount, 45.46. An APS-C-designed mount should be somewhere in between. So, you're asking them to screw all of their customers in order to gain 2-5mm? Wow!
(the bold part is one thing you're constantly ignoring. Don't. That's where their money comes from).

What can be done while not making people unhappy, is to allow APS-C lenses to protrude further inside the mount (like Canon EF-S). Your "new mount" is thus completely unnecessary.
Yes, it's also unneeded for ultra-fast lenses, because (my guess) there is no market for ultra-fast APS-C only lenses.

[Anvh]

But smaller isn't a benefit for a camera like the K-01 - it is the size it is supposed to be. (ducking now)

The size of the grip can be the same.
I'm talking about 10 to 15mm reduction in register so nothing major in that sense, that surely won't make the K-01 into a Sony NEX camera luckily.

[Anvh]

So you want a shorter registration distance DSLR mount, after all?
However, the registration distance can't possibly be much shorter if we're still talking about an APS-C DSLR. Definitely nowhere near a mirrorless system. The 4/3 - with its smaller sensor, thus smaller mirror - have 38.67mm; the K-mount, 45.46. An APS-C-designed mount should be somewhere in between. So, you're asking them to screw all of their customers in order to gain 2-5mm? Wow!
(the bold part is one thing you're constantly ignoring. Don't. That's where their money comes from).

Yes i never stated other wise, but some of you jumped to either larger diamter or just the register but you need both to make a real differnce.

It can be done.
Canon uses 42.00 mm for their FF mount and we all know that 43mm is standard lens for FF and is also the diagonal of the sensor.
So if canon can make a register shorter then their normal work with the mirror then the same should be true for APS-C, after all everything is 1,5 times smaller.
So a register of around 30mm should be doable so a gain of 15mm.

The only problem that can be is the width of the shutter, that stays constant.



You need a shorter register so that the simpel lens design we have for 50mm lenses on FF can be used for normal lenses on ASP-C, that's where the most benefit will come from.
Larger diameter is needed for the faster aperture.

ps. making the register too short is also a problem, just look at the "sharp" corners the NEX produce.... there should be a nice balance and i hope all agree that 30mm would be preferable.

[Kunzite]

44mm, AFAIK. And I don't think the space between the back end of the mirror and the sensor (this space would include the shutter and some clearances needed for it and for the mirror mechanism) can be scaled, yet you included it. Also, there is the distance between the flange and the lens back element (it protrudes a little bit), which AFAIK is included in the registration distance and cannot be scaled.
What you can actually subtract from a FF mount is the difference between the frame heights, i.e. 24mm - 15.7 mm. So around 8mm.
Again: can you show me how those 8mm would bring such a tremendous advantage (compared even to allowing the lens to protrude 8mm further into the mount) that would offset losing all their customers?

P.S. Yes, Olympus was quite busy talking about "telecentric" lenses when they launched the 4/3... as if it couldn't easily be implemented on the "obsolete", "film" mounts. But after the 4/3 failure and the birth of m4/3 they forgot everything about it

[monochrome]

The size of the grip can be the same.
I'm talking about 10 to 15mm reduction in register so nothing major in that sense, that surely won't make the K-01 into a Sony NEX camera luckily.

I'm half pulling your leg (kidding) - but seriously, the oft-stated reason to shorten the register distance (beyond your arguments about aperture benefits using APSc sensors) is to make the camera thinner, lighter and smaller, IOW pocketable. Is there enough benefit to 10-15mm (which then won't compete with the thin MILC's) to make it worth it?

I quite simply cannot hold these small cameras stable and don't really understand how others do it. I compare my K-01 to an MX - M50/1.7 and it compares favorably, for me. There's enough area on the bottom to palm-cradle the camera by its base and enough mass to brace my arms against my sides and stabilize the camera.

Now if I really want a small, light, mirrorless, high-IQ camera with a shorter register distance I can get a Q - or one of the other brands.

I just can't get my head around why Pentax should invest the time, money, marketing and relationship risk in yet another new mount.

[drougge]

PLease explain the math behind the coverage since that one is a bit lost to me.
And to my defends, there is a thread here about how DA lenses cover the FF and only the wide angle lenses have a problem so good as all the normal and longer lenses cover FF.

Sorry, I don't know the math, just the general rule. The point here is mostly that you compared a non-wideangle to a wideangle. (And also a lens for mirrorless to one for mirrored.)

First you say it isn't the register and in the second part you do talk about the register?

Sure wide angle lenses reach past the register but wouldn't the film to rear element distance not be even shorter when they reach past a mount with a shorter register distance?
Beside that there is a limit to how far they can reach past the mount.

No, they reach as far back as they can without hitting the mirror (on an FF camera in the Pentax case, which could be changed). Moving the mount backwards means the lens can not go as much behind the mount, the distance to the sensor is unaffected.

I want a mirror mount made for APS-C DSLR cameras.
And yes the can lens go into the mount like the lenses for the K-01 do but you've a problem the the diameter of the lens must fit inside the mount and the K-mount isn't that wide so you're very limited when it comes to fast lenses.
And fast lenses is something APS-C needs when you want an APS-C product to compete with FF

You need a shorter register and a wider mount, both not just one will do.

You need a wider mount for very fast lenses, but since Pentax makes no lenses that reach the limit of the current mount that hardly seems like something they consider a problem. (But per my argument above you don't need it closer to the sensor, but you may want it for other reasons, like thinner cameras.)

Canon uses 42.00 mm for their FF mount and we all know that 43mm is standard lens for FF and is also the diagonal of the sensor.

Canon actually has a slightly larger minimum distance between the sensor and lens than Pentax, it's just the mount that is closer. (Lots of M42 lenses hit the mirror on the 5D, but do not on any Pentax cameras (including old FF film cameras).)

[Kunzite]

And we should be talking about launching an entire system, around that slightly shorter mount. How many years would it take, to have something even remotely resembling the K-mount? (which is regarded as "lacking options" and "incomplete").
Huge risks, huge investment.

drougge, I wonder if the bigger mirror the E mount allows has something to do with ultra-fast lenses...