Originally posted by jeff knight This is so very true. Why can't people understand this!?
Pentax has been put through the wringer changing owners while other more established companies have remained stable. This has put Pentax at a disadvantage and has put them behind the curve a little bit. It also seems obvious, at least to me, that a fine Japanese company like Pentax Ricoh needs to be treated with respect if you want to convince them to listen to your needs. The loud complainers on this forum (me included) run the risk of making themselves look utterly foolish and without credibility.
This forum can hurt Pentax terribly, and especially newcomers to Pentax, by too much negativity here. It would probably be better for some of the FF fanatics to go ahead and move on to other systems. Maybe it's time for more new Pentax users and new blood.
It looks a bit as though you think we owe something a bit more than respect. As for "moving on to other systems", well, why not? Last March I was wondering what all the fuss was about FF cameras and decided to rent one and find out for myself, rather hoping that any differences I noticed compared to my K-5 would be trivial. Being impatient and thus unwilling to wait to try the new Canon 5DIII or Nikon D800, I rented a Canon 5DII for a week along with a good Canon lens and, rather to my annoyance, was quite blown away by the superiority of the whole experience, not just the picture quality (the most obvious difference being low light photos) but also the astonishing speed and accuracy of the focusing of that particular lens/camera combination (ironically enough, in Canon forums people complain about the autofocus of the 5DII compared to more recent cameras). The day after I returned the camera I bought a 5DII and the same lens (along with other lenses since then), sold my Pentax equipment and haven't looked back. My only pangs came in departing with my older Pentax lenses and DA 40mm Ltd which, to these eyes, look nicer than anything made by Canon (who recently released their own 40mm pancake which, next to the Pentax, looks clumsy and cheap) - and, what's more, would have worked on a full-frame camera. But nostalgia, brand loyalty, the slight snob appeal from owning what's not part of a ubiquitous brand, etc., only get you so far; it's the results that matter, and I really don't see why someone who wants a FF camera should be made to feel bad about not patiently holding out like a grateful serf until Pentax is able to provide one. (Even if there were no such thing as a FF camera I would probably have switched: having a marvelous body such as the K-5 is all very well, but it would be nice if Pentax had an array of lenses of comparable quality to go with it.)
I doubt my experience is unique and, while I may of course be wrong, I suspect it's not so much "respect" that will make Pentax/Ricoh listen as the risk of losing customers to what strikes me as being superior systems.