Originally posted by Frater I never have been reading anything else then Cosina being the subcontractor for Zeiss lenses.
Those are not Zeiss lenses, but Zeiss-branded (and probably designed) lenses.
Originally posted by Frater Anyway, since I regard the RX100's optical Performance very high, I would be quite excited if Ricoh wins Cosina for doing Pentax lenses for Ricoh. I'm not so keen on Tokina (Hoya's Partner for the recent Hoya era lenses, if I remember right).
I would rather have Pentax making Pentax lenses
I'm not very keen on partnerships which would make top Pentax lenses available to other systems, at a lower prices.
Originally posted by Frater I believe from my interpretations of the circumstantial evidences, that Hoya abandoned these already, so that there's nothing left for Ricoh to 'not give up'. I don't mean the Vietnamese lens assembly site, where parts (produced whereever by whomever) are assembled. I don't know if Hoya created and owned that as a replacement for having abandoned the Pentax Corp owned factory sites, or if this Vietnamese site is operated by a Vietnamese sub-contractor.
You should check the "circumstantial evidences" again; the Vietnamese site is Pentax' and was so for quite some time. Pentax is indeed capable of making their own lenses.
Originally posted by Frater With that I mean the 3rd party lens supplier industry, where Sigma and Tamron represent the few left in this industry not having stopped producing for Pentax-K under their respective own brand, but Tamron seemed to have stopped offering newer lenses for Pentax K (including interesting ones, for which there's a demand evident in forums), and Sigma is very slow and shows delays when offering their new lenses also for Pentax K. Both is a mutually consistent indication, that they seem loosing interest in Pentax-K coverage, i.e. regard them as "a sinking ship" from their very own business perspective (at least Tamron serves here more obviously as an early indicator).
Please keep in mind:
- that any (recent) decrease in 3rd-party lens support happened under Hoya, not under Ricoh.
- Sigma is supporting Pentax, and their latest lens, the 18-35 f/1.8, will be also offered in K-mount. Of course, they prioritize larger volumes mounts. This means they don't regard them as a "sinking ship".
Originally posted by Frater Yep, we'll see. Would be great for us Pentax users, if we'll see an upwards trend. This won't be reflected in their next financial P&L statement(s), and nobody should expect this.
We'll see it.