Originally posted by Traditional I might be naive, but I believe that a distinct advantage Pentax have, is all the weather sealed products with reasonable price tags
Isn't it the other way round? The bodies which lead the sales rankings are predominantly lower-end DSLRs from CaNikonSony being rather cheaper than Pentax offerings.
In the enthusiast body segment, the Pentax prices are competitive, which is good; however, now that CaNikon departed with newer models with newer sensors (or do so shortly), Pentax is now in a defensive position. Which means, either to lower prices, or to come up with a great (still not expensive!) new body, or loose further market share, but only the the extent their current market share permits this third option, of course.
In the lens segment, after all the lens price uplifts since the Hoya era, Pentax has become
just too expensive here. In another forum, a DSLR newbee asked for advice, what would be in favour for Pentax versus Nikon, given that he would get his desired lens setup cheaper when going for the Nikon option.
I couldn't believe, but this seems true nowadays. I checked for the DA 55-300, which I own. Nikon does a 55-300 as well, probably an optically superior lens (due to having two more lens elements), and it also has a shake reduction built-in, but regardless of these benefits, it's CHEAPER than the Pentax equivalent.
That's a problem, Ricoh! Please, do something about that. Because probably only 1 out of 100 DSLR joiners bother to ask for advice in pentax forums, the other 99 would simply go for the Nikon option straight-away, I bet. Ricoh should give this priority over their company naming cosmetics.