[Digitalis]

They are going to stick a sensor that is 1.5 x the size of a full frame sensor in there, make it weather sealed, ISO 25-204800, 48mp, wireless tethering, gps, astrotracking, in body SR, antigravity tripod (look ma, it's floating!)

but can it make coffee? and where is my plutonium powered, time travelling delorean?

[VoiceOfReason]

but can it make coffee? and where is my plutonium powered, time travelling delorean?

The camera is actually powered by a miniature Mr. Fusion, but the coffee and Delorean are out...

[Ash]

Unfortunately, rumours indicate it does not contain a flux capacitor. We're all in for a disappointment.

[Uluru]

... Where the corporate issues at Ricoh hurt Pentax was in the 2nd half of 2012, when the other companies brought new products and Pentax had - K30 (a hit), K5IIs, Q10 and K-01....
I believe Ricoh has a (long term) plan for Pentax and we will (eventually) be happy.

I believe that Pentax users around here are not so unhappy with products delivered, but they surely see too many of missed chances for Pentax to take a stronger initiative. Especially in its own strong segment of the APS-C DSLRs, where Pentax is supposed to be one of the cutest overall APS-C systems.

Instead, it seems they take the role of a "I'm a follower in my own game, no matter what", so it appears they always come too late, when rules of the game and expectations are already set. They always play the third violin, they always dance to someone's else tune, they always attract customers with ridiculously discounted prices of their products because the sound of their third violin is never heard strong enough.

They are repeating the same mistake over and over again, and we are expecting different results? That is really, really, really frustrating with Pentax, and they indeed have no excuses for repeating the same blunder over and over again.

Lack of real will to be even thought leaders of the pack prevents them to come to limelight, of having more loyal and wider fan-base. That is the sole reason they are not more recognised on the market today.

Thus I'm personally starting seriously doubt that Ricoh has any clear idea what they are doing. Instead of pushing hard where Pentax is strong, renew and redefine its offer as fast as possible, it seems they have decided to exercise their paint mixing skills more, thus leaving their strongest market to be redefined once again. They are catching up again.

To be taken more seriously they need not one, but at least TWO totally new Pentax-Ricoh-designed DSLRs announced in the course of several following weeks, to be shipped early in April, when Nikon ships theirs. If they haven't worked serious overtime hours during the last 12 months, if they postpone announcements for whatever "reason", if they wait for September or some later date for a new announcement, they really don't deserve their place in this industry at all.

Having a company merger is not an excuse, and it should not be given. That is not attitude of the best. Having a merger means a call for even quicker action, faster thinking, much harder work.

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Last edited by Uluru; 02-24-2013 at 10:21 PM.

[Kunzite]

But what if it's not possible, no matter how big the budget, to have TWO totally new Pentax-Ricoh-designed DSLRs ready in April? Let's not forget, the work on those could only start after 1st October 2011 (I'd say few months after that date, as there are many things to do before getting down to product-level).
Not doing an impossible thing, would it mean Ricoh is not serious? That they don't have a clear idea?

Having a company merger (buy-out, actually) is not an excuse but a fact. And such operations are highly disruptive on the normal flow of operations - yet looking at the products launched so far, I'd say Pentax Ricoh did a nice job minimizing the effects.
There is no way a merger/buy-out could speed up things.

[Clavius]

Having a company merger is not an excuse, and it should not be given. That is not attitude of the best. Having a merger means a call for even quicker action, faster thinking, much harder work.

Exactly! The merger is not an excuse but a symptom. If Pentax had been a very productive company for Hoya, then Hoya would not have wanted to get rid of Pentax in the first place. It's actually the same cause that brought other symptoms forward: if Pentax would have been a very productive company for consumers, then the consumers wouldn't abandon Pentax. The dropping 3rd party manufacturers is another symptom, caused by a number of other symptoms, but again pointing towards one and the same cause: Pentax not being very productive. That's a good thing though, just one problem to solve. They just need to get off their butts. And knowing Ricoh very well, I think that will not be a problem. And I hope that Ricoh doesn't want to get rid of Pentax too, before Pentax gets their act together. Because Ricoh is know to do that too!

[Lurch]

I'm pretty sure Hoya bought Pentax in the first place for no other reason than to get all their medial optic patents. I think you'll find the plan from the get-go was to spin off the camera dept and sell it off regardless.

[Kunzite]

Exactly! The merger is not an excuse but a symptom. If Pentax had been a very productive company for Hoya, then Hoya would not have wanted to get rid of Pentax in the first place. It's actually the same cause that brought other symptoms forward: if Pentax would have been a very productive company for consumers, then the consumers wouldn't abandon Pentax. The dropping 3rd party manufacturers is another symptom, caused by a number of other symptoms, but again pointing towards one and the same cause: Pentax not being very productive. That's a good thing though, just one problem to solve. They just need to get off their butts. And knowing Ricoh very well, I think that will not be a problem. And I hope that Ricoh doesn't want to get rid of Pentax too, before Pentax gets their act together. Because Ricoh is know to do that too!

It's a mistake to consider Pentax' performance as being unrelated to what Hoya did to them. Was it really Pentax not being "productive", or Hoya thinking too short-term, and concentrating on cost cutting and downsizing? How could Pentax perform, when it's R&D department is reduced, all in the name of margins?
Hoya was an unwilling "master" for Pentax Imaging Business (having to accept it as a side effect of acquiring the interesting medical division), obtaining that title in not-so-favorable circumstances (after a hostile takeover); I don't have any inside details, but I'd think Pentax was forced to function into a hostile environment. There were three large disruptions directly related to Hoya:
- when Pentax had to fight for their survival as a company (and lost, for no other reason than strong shareholder activism).
- because of the hostile takeover itself; unfortunately, this cut all the momentum they were starting to gain, with the K10D launch.
- when they were prepared to be sold (2011 was a boring year, don't you agree?)

Ricoh, OTOH, is a willing "master" i.e. they bought specifically Pentax Imaging Business. They wouldn't do that unless they had a plan to invest and grow it, which AFAIK is exactly what they're doing.
Because of this, I expect Pentax to perform differently; but this will take some time. So far we only saw some "hints", e.g. the launch of Pentax-Hoya products during 2012; this year IMO we should see more. But a market share growth significant enough to allow 3rd-party lens makers to support Pentax as well as Canon or Nikon, well, that will take some years.

[Sinister]

I just hope Ricoh is going to improve the strategy communication - I strongly request commitment, and a few new lenses. I'd be happy with my K5, but I'll need some lenses!

[Kunzite]

They're already committed, but did we listen when they said so?
Regarding lenses, there are some interesting products on the K-mount roadmap - I'm interested in that Limited Zoom and the 1.4x TC.

[PePe]

But what if it's not possible, no matter how big the budget, to have TWO totally new Pentax-Ricoh-designed DSLRs ready in April? Let's not forget, the work on those could only start after 1st October 2011 (I'd say few months after that date, as there are many things to do before getting down to product-level).
Not doing an impossible thing, would it mean Ricoh is not serious? That they don't have a clear idea?

Having a company merger (buy-out, actually) is not an excuse but a fact. And such operations are highly disruptive on the normal flow of operations - yet looking at the products launched so far, I'd say Pentax Ricoh did a nice job minimizing the effects.
There is no way a merger/buy-out could speed up things.

This merger has certainly affected their timetables.

I don´t have the faintest idea about Pentax´s timetables. However, the development processes needed for their next-generation products may provide some implications about future product launches.
A key building block for the expected next-generation cameras - high-end APS-C, FF, and 645DII - is a new high-capacity image processing system, both hardware and software. It takes a lot of other things as well to build a camera, but this is still one of the key issues to tackle.
Some two years ago Pentax utilized the technologies developed for the K-5 in the 645D, and was able to launch these two within a fairly short period of time. Will be interesting to see whether they will be able to do something similar this time.

[monochrome]

Some two years ago Pentax utilized the technologies developed for the K-5 in the 645D, and was able to launch these two within a fairly short period of time.

It was actually the other way round - Pentax transfered the technology developed for the 645 into the K-7. Has there been a similar cutting-edge development project within Pentax since?

[froeschle]

In reply to the contributions #164-#188 in this thread:

Some remarks and findings just might be due to different points of view.
To enlighten two (or even more sides ) of the same medal:

Bigger is better? Larger formats offer an ISO advantage and less DOF?

No doubt, it is possible to obtain a better image quality by using larger formats.
But what is the reason for this?
If one restricts oneself to a certain shutter speed and uses lenses with the same f-stop, this will result in the same exposure.
The amount of light per area then is kept constant.
However, as the sensor size is increased, the illuminated area also is increased.
This results in a different amount of total collected light for the unlike formats.
This total influx of light contains the information of the image.
In this way, information content is increased by using larger formats.
It seems now that there is a "noise advantage" of the bigger sensors.

However, exactly the same can be achieved, when another lens is chosen on a smaller format.
Such a lens often is described as "faster".
If you want to retain exposure, you would be able to use a higher shutter speed.
On the other hand, if you retain the shutter speed, exposure can be increased.
As the sensor area is kept constant, the total amount of light then also would be increased.
Thus, the ability to collect more light is the real power of such a lens.
If the same information could be stored on the smaller sensor than on the bigger one, the corresponding pictures could not be distinguished.

So, is bigger always better?
No, the combination of the sensor size and the ability of the lens to collect light matters.

If lenses are compared across different sensor sizes, then these should be normalized to collect the same information (total amount of light).
In very much the same way, it is now very popular to convert focal lengths across formats to obtain a common basis [0].
Equivalent lenses in this sense will preserve the same information and angle of view.
Due to physics, depth of field will also be the same [1].

One could conclude that "the old wisdom that “larger sensors produce images with smaller depth of field (DoF)” and the newer digital wisdom that “larger sensors have better noise performance” are both an artifact of not comparing equivalent" [2] systems. See also the thread "Low noise benefit of FF vs APS-C equals ... zero" [3].

Increasing quality means increasing the ability to collect more information.
This will naturally result in increased cost - irrespective of the used sensor format.
Equivalency just gives you a common starting point.

PS:

"Increasing ISO" and "reducing exposure" often are used interchangeably.
Both then are associated with noise.
However, boosting ISO per se does not reduce image quality.
Higher ISO values will only amplify the captured information.
"Boosting ISO settings on a digital camera [...] cranks up the resulting image/signal by analog amplification or by digital multiplication" [2] (see also [1]).
The ultimate reason for the noisier image is the less amount of captured light and not the ISO value.
For a certain amount of information the ISO setting just alters image "brightness".
Due to this "exposure matters only inasmuch as it is a component of the brightness and total light -- it is not an important measure in and of itself. That is, when we look at an image, we can see how bright or dark it appears (brightness) and we can see the noise density and DR in the image (total light). But we cannot see the exposure itself, so it is not important except as a means to an end. This is a radical statement that many have difficulty coming to terms with, but it is a key point to understanding Equivalence [...] exposure is a meaningless measure in cross-format comparisons" [1].

PPS:

A larger format is not only used to get better image quality. DSLR cameras of Canon/Nikon/Pentax/Sony(Minolta) exhibit mounts, which were naturally invented for the 35mm ("FF") format. What would now happen if a future Pentax camera would feature a FF sensor with the same pixel pitch as current APS-C cameras? Just in thought mount any lens on it. In APS-C mode there would be no difference to your old APS-C camera (see #167). Now, mount a FF capable lens on it (like the FA* 200/4). What one now gains is the possibility to use the whole FF area. Cropping the APS-C area will lead to another angle of view (200->300). Furthermore, the total amount of light in the image will be deminished (4->5.6: no "free lunch"). So, the APS-C crop essentially mimics an ideal teleconverter. The FF sensor now offers the ability to turn this built-in tele converter ... OFF! There are also other aspects of a full frame camera beyond image quality (see e.g. [4]).

[0] However, equivalent "apertures" are less helpful for marketing.
[1] Equivalence (recommended for further reading)
[2] DxOMark Camera Sensor
[3] https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-dslr-discussion/71896-low-noise-be...uals-zero.html
[4] https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-news-rumors/175820-rumor-pentax-ff...ml#post1870273

[PePe]

It was actually the other way round - Petnax transfered the technology developed for the 645 into the K-7. Has there been a similar cutting-edge development project within Pentax since?

This may well be the case. Not sure about the timing more than two years ago.
However, the point I am raising is whether there is any hope of seeing a similar case of cross-fertilization in the foreseeable future?

[monochrome]

This may well be the case. Not sure about the timing more than two years ago.
However, the point I am raising is whether there is any hope of seeing a similar case of cross-fertilization in the foreseeable future?

If in fact there is FF development going on, and if it includes work on, say, the entire technology of AF; a fast buffer; dual card slot technology; flash sync; H.264 and/or HDMI out in video; and a whole host of other in-body technology - then one might expect these improvements to populate the next high-end APSc cameras, perhaps even to show up in a K-3 before the FF is released (just as the K-7 had 645 tech "first").

There has to be someting in the skunkworks, though.