[IchabodCrane]

1) Pentax Corporation - the company - was destroyed by Hoya, Sparx and Mr. Fumio Urano, in a hostile takeover. What Hoya sold to Ricoh was a crippled, stripped down division. Ricoh is working hard at "fixing" it.
2) Money aren't made by offering "HIGHER QUALITY than others and REALLY low prices". That's how you lose money with every product you make - not an option for Pentax.
3) Hmm...
4) Good bye.
5) Value for money is not the same as "REALLY low prices". I (for example) value quality; and quality is expensive.
6) Nothing would be solved by "REALLY low prices". A better quality control costs money; better flashes costs money, better warranty costs money. I'm willing to pay money to see all sorts of problems solved.

You don't get to decide what and how I think. I saw the "low prices" approach being tried by Pentax, it didn't work; no significant gain in sales, and they still have to fight with the image of a cheap brand - with people asking for "REALLY low prices". And I know "HIGHER QUALITY" and "REALLY low prices" don't go together; reduce the prices, and you'd have to cut corners.
It's not like you just discovered the perfect solution

Kunzite, I'm as hopeful as anyone for the future of the Pentax brand but how do you, I, or anyone else here know how hard Ricoh is trying to fix the Pentax brand (if at all)? The only evidence we'll have to help answer that question will be the products they release going forward which are little more than a mystery at this moment.

[monochrome]

how do you, I, or anyone else here know how hard Ricoh is trying to fix the Pentax brand (if at all)?

Hah - Exactly! There may well be people here who do know - but if they do know they can't say they know or they'll lose whatever it is they know they know.

Everybody got that?

[Mistral75]

Hah - Exactly! There may well be people here who do know - but if they do know they can't say they know or they'll lose whatever it is they know they know.

Everybody got that?

I don't know .

[petros205]

1) Pentax Corporation - the company - was destroyed by Hoya, Sparx and Mr. Fumio Urano, in a hostile takeover. What Hoya sold to Ricoh was a crippled, stripped down division. Ricoh is working hard at "fixing" it.
2) Money aren't made by offering "HIGHER QUALITY than others and REALLY low prices". That's how you lose money with every product you make - not an option for Pentax.
3) Hmm...
4) Good bye.
5) Value for money is not the same as "REALLY low prices". I (for example) value quality; and quality is expensive.
6) Nothing would be solved by "REALLY low prices". A better quality control costs money; better flashes costs money, better warranty costs money. I'm willing to pay money to see all sorts of problems solved.

You don't get to decide what and how I think. I saw the "low prices" approach being tried by Pentax, it didn't work; no significant gain in sales, and they still have to fight with the image of a cheap brand - with people asking for "REALLY low prices". And I know "HIGHER QUALITY" and "REALLY low prices" don't go together; reduce the prices, and you'd have to cut corners.
It's not like you just discovered the perfect solution

What you can't understand is
1) that there are not many people in the world that have reasons to buy many pentax products.
2) that pentax needs to give reasons wich means higher quality and/or better price than what's happening now
3) to do the 2 is an investment wich pentax didn't back when they could not produce the 6mp FF ( which was not due to high expences, but due to problems with the prototype itself i.e.sensor (look at the first FF)).
4) Read that now : Pentax is(or was) infront of taking a descision about who will(would) their customers (a descision many such companies take). What might surprise you is that this descision is not taken regarding YOU but is taken regarding on where the company can be competitive. I'd love if the company could compete canon and nikon but to do so they have to :
a)Raise the quality
b)sell at low prices so someone will begin to buy pentax products.
5) Do you really think that if the ef 70-200 f/2.8 l is ii (without any change at the quality) was cheaper canon would be destroyed? Ii think that an opinion of a person who would say what you say could be, in ron swanson's, "Capitalism : God's way of determining who is smart and who is poor"
HAHAHAHAHA

[monochrome]

ron swanson's

Well, that's the first time I've seen

You Tube

You Tube

used as a credible reference on Pentax Forums

[thibs]

What you can't understand is
1) that there are not many people in the world that have reasons to buy many pentax products.
2) that pentax needs to give reasons wich means higher quality and/or better price than what's happening now
3) to do the 2 is an investment wich pentax didn't back when they could not produce the 6mp FF ( which was not due to high expences, but due to problems with the prototype itself i.e.sensor (look at the first FF)).
4) Read that now : Pentax is(or was) infront of taking a descision about who will(would) their customers (a descision many such companies take). What might surprise you is that this descision is not taken regarding YOU but is taken regarding on where the company can be competitive. I'd love if the company could compete canon and nikon but to do so they have to :
a)Raise the quality
b)sell at low prices so someone will begin to buy pentax products.
5) Do you really think that if the ef 70-200 f/2.8 l is ii (without any change at the quality) was cheaper canon would be destroyed? Ii think that an opinion of a person who would say what you say could be, in ron swanson's, "Capitalism : God's way of determining who is smart and who is poor"
HAHAHAHAHA

Mostly agreed but the 4 b) where you're completely wrong to say the least. And Kunzite is right on this very point. Sadly but he's right. IMO of course.

[Kunzite]

What you can't understand is
1) that there are not many people in the world that have reasons to buy many pentax products.
2) that pentax needs to give reasons wich means higher quality and/or better price than what's happening now
3) to do the 2 is an investment wich pentax didn't back when they could not produce the 6mp FF ( which was not due to high expences, but due to problems with the prototype itself i.e.sensor (look at the first FF)).
4) Read that now : Pentax is(or was) infront of taking a descision about who will(would) their customers (a descision many such companies take). What might surprise you is that this descision is not taken regarding YOU but is taken regarding on where the company can be competitive. I'd love if the company could compete canon and nikon but to do so they have to :
a)Raise the quality
b)sell at low prices so someone will begin to buy pentax products.
5) Do you really think that if the ef 70-200 f/2.8 l is ii (without any change at the quality) was cheaper canon would be destroyed? Ii think that an opinion of a person who would say what you say could be, in ron swanson's, "Capitalism : God's way of determining who is smart and who is poor"
HAHAHAHAHA

Yeah, sure; I can't understand. Don't ever question your own ideas, it's always the other's fault for not understanding...

At least I see you changed the tone a little, from "HIGHER QUALITY than others and REALLY low prices"; now it's and/or, and "better" instead of "REALLY low" prices. But you're still missing "profit" from your plans; and you're missing another image destruction ("cheapening" the brand, again); I'm afraid your understanding of the matter is limited to sales volume.
The best solution to 1) isn't necessarily "better price"; as I said, they tried this path before and the result wasn't good at all. A constant stream of competent, well-placed products, marketing, protecting their margins to allow for more R&D - that's the smart way of doing it.

By the way, their next product will target people like me. The decision was long made, you just don't want to accept it.

[Barry Pearson]

By the way, their next product will target people like me. The decision was long made, you just don't want to accept it.

Just for interest, would you please summarise what you envisage for "their next product"?

I've given a lot of thought to what I want from Ricoh/Pentax in the next few months. I wonder whether what I want is in the same universe as what you want! Here is my wish list:

Camera: in effect, an upgrade of my K-5IIs in some important respects. Especially better AF, especially for action (AF-C mode), more focus points near the centre, faster, more reliable lock-on at high fps. Preferably more fps: I would like switching between (say) 10 fps and 5 fps. Probably 20 MP or 24 MP, and no AA filter. (I doubt if I'll ever buy a camera with an AA filter again).

Lenses: 1.4x Teleconverter (screw & SDM, WR).
WR or AW replacement/upgrade for my super DA 12-24mm f/4 (a hard act to follow).
WR or AW (etc) upgrade for the DA 17-70mm f/4 (probably the weakest of my work-horse lenses); it wouldn't have to be larger than f/4, but larger could be useful if it didn't add too much to the weight.

Anything else would be a bonus. I'm not interested in cheap for the sake of cheap. New lenses will have to work alongside my DA* 60-250mm f/4, which is, in effect, my challenging reference point for Pentax lenses.

[Kunzite]

I try not to build up expectations, but what I have in mind is similar to what you're describing in your wish list.
I have no idea what lenses they would launch next (maybe what's on the roadmap), but I hope the 1.4x TC will be amongst them (I also have a 60-250 waiting for it).

[bossa]

Hah - Exactly! There may well be people here who do know - but if they do know they can't say they know or they'll lose whatever it is they know they know.

Everybody got that?

Surely the forum Identity system protects anyone smart enough to know and know how to post? I won't pretend to know what Ricoh has up it's sleeve (let's be honest here, Pentax no longer exists as a philosophy and so all bets are off using the past as a predictor) but apart from what people "want" there is a market and corporate fiscal reality governing any product line a company would like to manufacture.

IMO, unless Pentax embraces the Olympus OM-D approach, in at least one major product, I fear they will be left even further behind. At some point people who cannot change lose their relevance no matter how impressive they once were.

[Aristophanes]

Ever since Olympus brought out the OMD their sales have tanked.

Many here don't get how markets work.

[Wired]

Ever since Olympus brought out the OMD their sales have tanked.

Many here don't get how markets work.

It's ffunny. Until this thread I always thought the OMD product did well. After all I've seen more EM5 in the wild over the past 6 months than I have Pentax cameras, or even D800/600's. For non-canikon cameras I think I've seen more EM5's than any other cameras including NEX. It's the whole reason I wanted to try it.

P.s. I love it.

[bossa]

Ever since Olympus brought out the OMD their sales have tanked.

Many here don't get how markets work.

Being part of the market I'm pretty sure I understand the most fundamental aspect of it.

Re' my OM-D comment I wasn't talking about the actual sensor size but the design philosophy. I would not be surprised if the so-called K-3 was an APS-C version of the Olly OM-D but looked more like an LX.

[Wired]

Being part of the market I'm pretty sure I understand the most fundamental aspect of it.

Re' my OM-D comment I wasn't talking about the actual sensor size but the design philosophy. I would not be surprised if the so-called K-3 was an APS-C version of the Olly OM-D but looked more like an LX.

That's what I want! That's what I wished the MX-1 was....

[tclausen]

How's this: with the size and weight a 17-135 f/2.8 maybe it will have it's own strap lugs? There. Back on track.

But, will they be the new-style molded full-strap lugs, or lugs requiring a D-ring for the strap?

(Always here, for helping a thread drift into oblivion)