[Sol Invictus]

What is this? An FF thread being hijacked?!?

I won't stand for it!

It's supposed to work the other way around. You start a thread discussing the K1000 and it gets derailed into an FF discussion. Not the other way around!

[fuent104]

At the top is a robust, innovative professional camera system. At the bottom is a cultish camera for students that was cheapened over the years with plastic gears and top plate. Ricoh has stated they intend to offer a professionally competitive camera. Which do you think offers a better model for Pentax to emulate for the top-end dSLR?

As I had mentioned before, I don't have experience with the other K and M series cameras, let alone the LX (I would rather try one of these than drive a Ferarri). You're absolutely right about not emulating the K1000 for a top-end model -that would be insanity. I just don't agree with the "it has to be super high end or it is not worth making / it won't sell" argument. I think we are basically arguing 2 different points. The higher-end model fits in with your argument, and with what Pentax has stated. The desire for a basic, manual focus full frame fits in with what many of us who may not be looking for the highest end model (or who may be interested in both) would like to have available. I know photography classes still exist. A digital K1000 would be great for introductory classes.

I think I can shed some light on the sentamentalism some of us feel toward the K1000, though: it was my first camera. My formative explorations and discoveries related to photography happened when I was using one. It may be as simple as that. As for why I would be interested in one now? At the root of it all, a shutter, a lens, and a sensor are all I really need, and, if the cost is low enough, I would buy it. Of course I'd rather have a depth of field preview, better info in the viewfinder, a higher max shutter speed, and (especially) a higher sync speed. And the smaller body size of the MX. And the amazing metering system of the LX. And interchangeable viewfinders. In a perfect world.

[7samurai]

I think this type of conversation should have happened during Photokina, not after. It does look alittle like damage control, but I do believe they are truly evaluating it. At least we'll find out in a few years.

[fuent104]

I could not agree more. In fact, they could have stated it like they were proud of it.

[Blue]

What is this? An FF thread being hijacked?!?

I won't stand for it!

It's supposed to work the other way around. You start a thread discussing the K1000 and it gets derailed into an FF discussion. Not the other way around!

Last week, the K1000 was 75th on the slr sales at Amazon which was ahead of the K30 with kit lens at #79.

[Fontan]

You make it sound like a cheap prostitute is a bad thing.

Personally, I try to avoid cheap prostitutes, but hey, like Pentax, bargain is a bargain. I cannot help myself sometimes.

[pz1fan]

Originally posted by Blue*
Why not emulate a WR PZ-1p?
I know someone here who would agree with that suggestion!!

I also agree with that suggestion! Make the viewfinder just a bit bigger and offer a no-video model with a CCD sensor.

[Alizarine]

I'm a PZ-1 fan myself, except for the body design Flash on the right hand will make it look awkward even today and also create unbalanced handling for most.

So, simply put... 1/250 (or higher ) flash sync is a very nice addition!

[LFLee]

I love it. Now maybe the forum can settle down and just take pictures.

I've been looking at splitting my work into landscape using a D800 or D600 and using my K-5 IIs for everything else. The decision making process hadn't reached critical, but it was getting there. The big problem with switching was lenses. This gives me the opportunity to building a stable of FAs while waiting for the FF to come out. It simplifies my thinking a great deal.

2014 is a long time to wait. But, I can still use those lenses while I'm waiting.

Now I can go back to thinking if I sell enough prints (not very likely), I can look at a 645D.

norm.... isn't you one of the guy who insist APS-C is enough for you?
Just kidding, no intend to start a war.

[ak_kiwi]

Personally, I try to avoid cheap prostitutes, but hey, like Pentax, bargain is a bargain. I cannot help myself sometimes.

LMAO!

Yeap it's all fun until your mount button falls off......

[lawsonstone]

I ran all over East Africa and Israel in 1977-1978 packing nothing but a K1000 with the kit 50mm and a Vivitar 80-205 zoom with a "close focus" ring. That thing, which I still own, was about 10 inches of steel and glass and weighed…a lot…but I never once felt the K1000 was an abomination and never once did it let me down. I never missed a shot because the battery died, I never missed a shot because the AF hunted too long or locked in on the wrong thing.

Somehow there is a difference between mere featureless-ness and Spartan simplicity. I can't define it, but I've experienced both. The K1000 is Spartan simplicity. I still have it, still shoot BW film with it, as well as loving the ME, MX, LX and even the generally unloved P3N. Of course, my workhorse is the DSLR K5 (my K30 "OK" button is broken and I'm in Israel with not enough time to go through the warranty process before having to return home).

I would probably buy a FF sensor in a very spartan K1000 like body, or maybe an LX type body.

You know, my K1000 had no "OK" button to fail…

[lawsonstone]

What's fascinating to me is that on on objective, empirical level, monochrome is irrefutably right. What is also true is that things fall together in gestalts or packages. A combination of things that all fit together to fulfill a deeply felt need. The K1000, assailable as it is, and as monochrome has unarguably shown, was still a camera that "worked" in a massive way for a lot of folks, and in a way that actually defined the core reality of photography for generations.

For me, Pentax has a habit of doing that periodically. For me, the Super Program was a "sweet spot" camera, though I liked the ME Super too. Somehow, though it had many more features, the P3N just didn't do it. Don't know why, I never used mine enough to feel the magic. The first time I picked up a K1000, though, the magic happened. Happened again with the K10D. I had the K20 and the K30, but really the K5 remains in that "feel the magic" category for me. If my K30 "OK" button hadn't frozen on me, maybe I'd be saying that about the K30.

But no camera that spontaneously stops working is magic for me.

My daughter, when she took photography in 2008 or so, had to use the K1000. She's now a brilliant photographer though, alas, she defected to the Nikon D300…we can't always bring them up in the ways of the Lord…so maybe I don't have any authority here… ;-)

Not really sure just what my post is about…need my medication…

[lawsonstone]

What I like about this interview is that the Pentax guy is talking like a true professional. He's not giving away proprietary information or betraying the confidence of his company, but he seems to know that Pentax doesn't just have a customer base, it has a fan-base. We are more, I think, like Apple customers than Dell or whatever (no offense intended toward Win-Tel computer users). We want a great product, but our sense of brand loyalty has an element of thinking Pentax embodies something of an ethos or culture that we, perhaps nostalgically, share in. Us oldsters who started on K1000s, switched up to the ME or Super Program, gazed awestruck upon the majesty of the LX (which still sits in my office and does get used)…we think of Pentax as in some ways a community as well as a company.

The Pentax guy in the interview was the first spokesman who seemed to me to be wanting to send a message to the community, to reassure us that the culture is alive and our loyalty is well placed.

Whether that is really true or not remains to be seen, of course.

[Fontan]

LMAO!

Yeap it's all fun until your mount button falls off......

Well, a prostitute is no fun, cheap or expensive, if you cannot . . . . mount. I think that is where K-5 falls short sometimes.

[Rondec]

As I had mentioned before, I don't have experience with the other K and M series cameras, let alone the LX (I would rather try one of these than drive a Ferarri). You're absolutely right about not emulating the K1000 for a top-end model -that would be insanity. I just don't agree with the "it has to be super high end or it is not worth making / it won't sell" argument. I think we are basically arguing 2 different points. The higher-end model fits in with your argument, and with what Pentax has stated. The desire for a basic, manual focus full frame fits in with what many of us who may not be looking for the highest end model (or who may be interested in both) would like to have available. I know photography classes still exist. A digital K1000 would be great for introductory classes.

I think I can shed some light on the sentamentalism some of us feel toward the K1000, though: it was my first camera. My formative explorations and discoveries related to photography happened when I was using one. It may be as simple as that. As for why I would be interested in one now? At the root of it all, a shutter, a lens, and a sensor are all I really need, and, if the cost is low enough, I would buy it. Of course I'd rather have a depth of field preview, better info in the viewfinder, a higher max shutter speed, and (especially) a higher sync speed. And the smaller body size of the MX. And the amazing metering system of the LX. And interchangeable viewfinders. In a perfect world.

I don't think there is any point in a stripped down, "cheap" full frame camera. The cheapest Canon Rebel out there has more features than the K1000 had and how much cost is actually reduced by not putting software on the camera (that already exists).

People who want cheap will continue to gravitate towards APS-C and they won't really care either, that the sensor is smaller than "full frame." However, they are exactly the sort of people who want as much automation as possible, want a green mode that they will leave it in all of the time. As to there being a big market for photography classes for a stripped down full frame camera, I doubt it. There is no way that the price in the current market could be under 1500 dollars, even if you cut just about everything but the sensor. That's way too much for a student to spend on an introductory class.