[monochrome]

"There are none so blind as those who won't see."

With all due respect, I wouldn't call that fair. I disagree with his opinion but it isn't an unsupported opinion. Sometimes its maddening and seemingly obtuse - but then so am I.

You and I assimilate the facts and observed behaviors and come to a different conclusion.

[Aristophanes]

You mean like bloggers who do gear reviews? Yes. That's who typically shows up. Like people who run camera specific forums? Yes. They go to shows too. I would guess that Samsung is going to get a lot of "free" press from the gear bloggers over the NX-1.

When Fuji launched the X-mount they ran traditional advertising, but the heavy lifting was done by the 300 photographers/bloggers that Fuji used.

Ricoh seems to is copying the Hoya marketing plan. I'm sure they will have the same degree of success.

1. For about a decade now has done pretty much nothing for Samsung make share. Failure is doing the same thing over and over again hoping that next time it will work out right.

2. Fuji was able to bank on their existing reputation for camera manufacture, much of it from their legacy film days. Fuji have long had top-line compacts all the way up to medium format, so their pedigree drove them without a log of photobloggers cramming the airwaves.

[johnmflores]

You mean like bloggers who do gear reviews? Yes. That's who typically shows up. Like people who run camera specific forums? Yes. They go to shows too. I would guess that Samsung is going to get a lot of "free" press from the gear bloggers over the NX-1.

When Fuji launched the X-mount they ran traditional advertising, but the heavy lifting was done by the 300 photographers/bloggers that Fuji used.

Ricoh seems to is copying the Hoya marketing plan. I'm sure they will have the same degree of success.

All the cool bloggers went to Photokina and won't go to Photoplus and report on the same products that they saw there.

[hut234]

For me there 2 way to see this girl situation:

- either she doesn't give a shit: gear is just a tool and she concentrate more on creativity and how she use it that the gear itself. And she has no reason to know much more than the camera she has now.
- either she more like a geek and want to know everything about her job including the latest gear... And then not knowing what is K-3 is more showing she is lacking than anything else.

Have to disagree on this, based on time spent with photographers in other camps. They're entrenched in their formats and pretty much look only at upgrades to what they own, and Pentax simply doesn't have anything between the $1,000 K-3 and the $7,000 645D. Their current gear is smack in between those. If they've got something gnawing at them they want to upgrade from they're so used to, and rightly so, either looking at the next up in their own format or the equivalent in the other.

I can see that someone looking at a 2013 DSLR and thinking it's a film camera is pretty dumb, but seriously, Pentax is less than a blip on the sports and wedding scenes (and, sadly, pretty much anything else here in the USA) due to their own choices so I don't blame Canikons when Pentax isn't on their radar. Plus, there really is a whole world of creative people out there who find their tool of choice and use it, and are never inclined to go to forums to find out what the scoop is.

[Winder]

Just the opposite of Hoya - Ricoh has been showing a profit and gaining market share the past two years.

Actually, Hoya returned Pentax to profitability. In order for Hoya to find a buyer they had to get Pentax into the black, and they did. People on this board who apparently have extremely short memories or very selective memories talked about it quite a bit.

Hoya Founder's Grandson Calls Pentax Acquisition One Of Company "Failures"

I know I'm wasting my time with the facts. People here don't care about facts. Too busy drinking the corporate Kool-Aid.

I want Ricoh to be very successful and sell a lot of great cameras and lenses, but they don't get a free pass just because the own Pentax.

[RonHendriks1966]

These trade exhibits mostly preach to the choir and offer little ROI IMO.

We have AUTORAI overhere every other year wich is a car show. Pretty large, but not in the topend of carshows over the world. There is no significant differents in carsales between years with the show and the ones inbetween........

I guess this is the same for small photo exhibits.

[Pepe Le Pew]

So I guess I won't attend Photo Plus this year--maintaining a perfect 72-year record of non-attendance.

Maybe not 72 years........ 30+ years for me

[thibs]

So every other camera company including Lomography can pull it off, but Ricoh just doesn't have the resources? The largest show in North America isn't worth the trouble?
So every other camera company is making a mistake by wasting resources on this show? Ricoh is smarter than all of them?

I sure Ricoh is considering what they "could have been doing", but part of the criticism is that (so far) they always end up doing nothing.

I was at a happy hour/meet & greet for local professional photographers and had lady ask if the K-3 was a film camera. I wanted to slap her. She does over 30 weddings a year starting at $4,000 and has no clue, but its really not her fault. Neither Hoya nor Ricoh have invested in marketing.

Nice suite of frustration powered posts. C'mon, we're no shrink cabinet here.

Boriscletoed.

[Kunzite]

Actually, Hoya returned Pentax to profitability. In order for Hoya to find a buyer they had to get Pentax into the black, and they did. People on this board who apparently have extremely short memories or very selective memories talked about it quite a bit.

Yes, they are the heroes... returning Pentax to profitability, after they put it on red
My memory goes back a bit more than it's supposed to I remember the secret deal between Mr. Urano or Pentax and Mr. Suzuki of Hoya. I remember the Pentax board being surprised when they were told about it as a done deal, and rejected it. And what was made public of the fight which followed, Hoya and Sparx vs. Pentax Corporation. I can't help but wonder - if it was 6 month later, i.e. after the K10D was launched and sales data available, perhaps Pentax would've been able to gather the necessary support from the other shareholders and remain an independent company?
Then - most important in this context - I remember how Hoya returned Pentax to profitability. Two words: cost cutting. They cared about margins and nothing else; short term thinking, after all they never wanted the Imaging Systems Business. After the 2008 spike - of products planned on before the deal - a constant decline.

Sorry, but Ricoh Imaging indeed has an opposite approach. Even if their execution is not as fast as we'd like.

[monochrome]

Ricoh seems to is copying the Hoya marketing plan. I'm sure they will have the same degree of success.

Hoya's 'marketing plan' was to liquidate inventory at fire sale prices, destroy distribution infrastructure and sell the shell of a what had once been a decent camera company after stripping out the higher-margin operations and retaining the younger, less expensive employees in other divisions. Ricoh chooses not to invest the capital all at once to reverse this despicable affront, rather attempting to grow the brand, using cash flow to systematically improve the corproate assets.

I know I'm wasting my time with the facts. People here don't care about facts. Too busy drinking the corporate Kool-Aid.

The problem with that brief blurb is, to which Pentax does the grandson refer? Pentax Corp, which was acquired for $!,000,000,000, or the camera company, which was sold for (reportedly) $140,000,000? Which profitable and which was loss-making? How does the grandson define profit, taking into account the value of real estate (office buildings, Pentax Factory in a Park, other holdings) now used by Hoya?

What was the revenue generated by liquidating FA lenses inventory at fire sale prices (thereby forever painting Pentax as a cheap, 'value' brand)? Isn't inventory liquidation a typical corporate raider tactic, performed to generate cash flow for acquisition debt retirement regardless of cost of sales?

Why was the sale price so low, given the value of manufacturing facilities and (unknown) inventory acquired? Was it because the required capital injections by Ricoh to catch up with the industry have been large?

If you want to claim people here ignore facts, state the facts you have to contradict people, not some opinion-blurb from PetaPixel attributed to the playboy grandson of the Hoya founder, who picked the K-7 name for a camera because he likes mountain climbing.

Kool-Aid comes in more than one color. Yours is as consistently purple as others' is red.

[JimmyDranox]

22 000 visitors is a small number?

These days I've seen an article on Sky & Telescope magazine, about a very small exhibition, Science, Imaging and Astronomy at Prince College. This was really small, maybe few hundreds visitors, at best, and still, Canon, Nikon, Sony and Fuji was present. With very small booth, a table with products, a banner, and one or two people. Between big telescope, those booth seems even smaller. But still, those firms was there, even this exhibition was mainly for astronomy.

This is good marketing, when your are present every day, everywhere.

SIA 2014 Recap - SIA EXPO 2014

And let's not forget that every exhibition is reflected in press and internet.

[RonHendriks1966]

22 000 visitors is a small number?

These days I've seen an article on Sky & Telescope magazine, about a very small exhibition, Science, Imaging and Astronomy at Prince College. This was really small, maybe few hundreds visitors, at best, and still, Canon, Nikon, Sony and Fuji was present. With very small booth, a table with products, a banner, and one or two people. Between big telescope, those booth seems even smaller. But still, those firms was there, even this exhibition was mainly for astronomy.

This is good marketing, when your are present every day, everywhere.

SIA 2014 Recap - SIA EXPO 2014

And let's not forget that every exhibition is reflected in press and internet.

Probably not to expensive to set up the table and be there. Having a booth at a serious venue is very expensive.

[RockvilleBob]

[jac]

Called Ricoh to confirm and they said they were not exhibiting at the Photoplus Expo in NYC (again) this year....

I guess my best answer is "So what?" or, alternatively, "Who cares?"

[JimmyDranox]

I guess my best answer is "So what?" or, alternatively, "Who cares?"

Some people cares. Really. Others not. And if you don't care, what's the problem?