[Mace]

What on Earth are you talking about?
Since when you work for Pentax / Ricoh to have any positive clue about the inner workings, trade agreements, technology exchange and deals in general in the imaging industry?

I am not, but it works like this in pretty much every company out there. You don't have to be an insider to guess what is going on in a company that sells this kind of products.

[Supernaut]

Rumored price $1500. Seems high for a AF-upgrade that was needed a couple of generations ago.
And more worrying, what will the aps-c K-3 be launched at? Deep into (also rumored) FF territory?

[Kunzite]

Supernaut, I would rather wait for the actual press release, with the actual price before worrying.

Well, while waiting, I had a chat with a Pentax men, he told me that a K-5n will be presented on the next Photokina. This K-5n, n from new I suppose, will be a 'musculled' K-5 to which the best K-30 features will be added,"... and somme more". And no K-3 or what so ever, that's all he wanted to tell, "Wait and see" he said...

Maybe he didn't knew anything, just reading rumours & stuff?

[Blue]

Are you referring at an experiment from the year of 2000, or are you an R&D team leader at Pentax/Ricoh?

Read the entire post. It and post it responded to was quoting another post also about the history. To say Pentax has never intended to do a FF isn't accurate. Things changed as Pentax tried to hold off a take-over but then was taken over by Hoya and then sold to Ricoh. The comment was real simple. Ricoh Pentax can make a different decision regardless of any previous statement over the past 12 years. BTW, they worked on the old prototype for more than 1 year. I don't know if they are working on a prototype at present or not. They have definitely brought out the old MX-D briefly after Ricoh took over and they have definitely evaluated a ff. Whether the release one or not won't surprise me. I all I was saying is that just because a press release during Hoya stating they weren't going to release one does mean anything in the future.

[zapp]

But what kind of FF do you get for that price? It will be FF entry level. I don't think those are as capable as the FF's we are all talking about.

Come on guys. FF is the only way go. Be honest, Pentax has not even developed a complete APS-C lens lineup yet, all the large apeture primes are old FA designs except for the DA*55. They are presenting some duplicate lenses instead of new APS-C designs. At the moment we do not have a complete APS-C lens lineup and no FF camera in sight. This is the worst of both worlds. While the current system worked for me so far, Pentax is two years behind. The K5 II covers mostly features that were ignored in the first place. Let's hope that the K5 II is not the best Pentax has to offer after photokina 2012. A better K5 would be nice, but why should I spend money on a camera that finally delivers what was promised with the K5 with no technoglogical update in the near future.
The D600 is due to be announced Thursday, Pentax will place an announcement before Nikon that is for sure - most photokina announcements will try to be prior to Nikon unless something really good is yet to come.

[Cannikin]

One can only hope those specs are wrong. Really after 2 years, besides the AF module and LCD, there are absolutely zero improvements over the K-5? Not even in video which is now distinctly inferior to the K-30?

[JPT]

I answer myself: Kakaku

And K-30 looks better there at #25:
http://kakaku.com/camera/digital-slr-camera/ranking_0049/

And it's one of the top 3 in the "satisfaction" ranking:

Google Oversetter

I think the K-30 is selling very well in Japan. Yodobashi Camera and Bic Camera are two huge electronics chains in Japan. In the past few weeks, both of them have had a sign on the K-30 saying that it was the top selling DSLR. Incidentally, #2 was the Nikon D3200 and #3 was the Sony A57.

The online rankings from BCN and kakaku.com are misleading because they list each kit separately, including the colours. So the K-30 is counted as 16 different kits: body only, 18-55 kit, 18-55 & 55-300 kit and 18-135 multiplied by black, white, blue and order colour. Other DSLRs have only three or four kits. You can imagine if sales are split in half, a product would go tumbling down such rankings. It's also interesting that the best selling kits are the most expensive 18-135 ones.

They had a lot of TV commercials, posters and billboards over summer. They also had displays in the big shops with non-functional models of all 18 colours, which made for very striking display. Of course, the camera itself is also a very strong product.

I doubt that the K-5 II will sell as well as that, but it really depends on the price. I find it hard to believe that it will be the top of the line product unless there is something really cool that we are missing from the leaks so far.

[Supernaut]

Supernaut, I would rather wait for the actual press release, with the actual price before worrying.

I know, I know... But it's booring

[Kunzite]

One can only hope those specs are wrong. Really after 2 years, besides the AF module and LCD, there are absolutely zero improvements over the K-5? Not even in video which is now distinctly inferior to the K-30?

Apart from the AF module, LCD and other tweaks, what have they put in the K-5 II?
(because python was mentioned on another thread)

You Tube

You Tube

[Cannikin]

Apart from the AF module, LCD and other tweaks

Care to elaborate on these "other tweaks" you speak of? I certainly don't see anything. Nothing. Everything else is exactly the same as the 2 year old K-5. The LCD thing is very minor as well.

[Kunzite]

And you have the press releases and full specifications list in front of you? Otherwise, how can you tell?

[Cannikin]

And you have the press releases and full specifications list in front of you? Otherwise, how can you tell?

That's why I said "one can only hope those specs are wrong", by which I am referring to the leaked specs which are very prominently pasted on the very first post of this thread.

[Urkeldaedalus]

Specs added....

Thanks JohnBee!

Well if the specs are right this certainly isn't the most exciting camera release of Photokina, but a few things that jumped out to me...

• New AF system. Is it in anyway different from what they put into the K-30?
• A no AA filter possibility, which we already knew
• I'm surprised they would use Prime II instead of Prime M

Added on to an already good camera with the K-30 improvements will make for a pretty nice, if totally boring, package. I'd be surprised if the movie specs really aren't improved over the K-5, but then again this is Pentax so in a way I wouldn't be If they released this is in the $1,100-$1,200 range I could see it filling the gap between the K-30 and whatever is coming next.

I'm not sure what the logic behind this camera is (it would have been awesome a year ago) but it will be a good camera I imagine and extend the life of the K-5 project. And if there's anything that Pentax is really good at it is squeezing everything possible out of their projects. This isn't a new house, it's like a fresh coat of paint on your old one.

If this was the only thing Pentax announced at Phokina I think people would have good reason to complain, but I think it will make more sense in the context of a full lineup once all of the announcements are revealed.

[glanglois]

K-5whatever at USD $1,400 (and drifting down, perhaps) gives Pentax pricing room for a $1,500-$2,000 body next year. If that's true, I'm not sure how much they want to put in the K-5 successor. I'd throw a shedfull of capabilities in the thing and let the FF sell on just its sensor. But then, I'm not managing Pentax product life cycle .....

[ogl]

Specs added....

How many AF points? Is there focus peaking?