I love how they expunged any markings from the 645 wide-angle lens.
Also, I know there are good slide scanners out there, but this film holder is brilliant. Have you ever tried to get good scans of your film, especially velvia? Assuming you have good software, it takes a lot of very careful tweaking, waiting forever for it to scan, and then seeing if the settings were done properly. If you have bad software, this process is beyond painful (EpsonScan, I'm looking at you
).
The bellows suggests there is no built in lens, which therefore means you must use your own. The distances involved means you'd probably need a macro lens, although you'd probably be able to get away with the 18-55 (though the quality may be questionable). Also, this may mean it's brand-agnostic- no K mount required. I'm all for getting users of other brands familiar with Pentax products, reminds me of when there were Pentax spotmeters and loupes.
All in all, this is the most unexpected and welcomed announcement from Ricoh yet, IMHO.
Edit: think about the opportunities for testing macro lenses now with this thing. Print a test chart on 6x7 film and throw it in this.