Originally posted by mecrox Perhaps another bit of mystery from Ricoh: why this, and why in this way?
Interesting. I am not in their minds, but some thoughts. First, the high end wow stuff is there in the 645z reviews and promotional stuff. Nikon and Canon seem to center their marketing on professionals using their products; the stack of large white lenses surrounding playing fields, etc. A seemingly top down with a shining icon on a hill. Maybe Ricoh plays a lower key game, something similar to what happens on this site; enthusiasts who may or may not be professional doing excellent work, presented in a way that is aspirational. I won't ever shoot an NFL game, but I can follow a wildlife photographer around or emulate them and get as good a shot as I'm willing to invest the time and skill building.
Over the short time I've been involved in this endeavor, almost everyone I've talked to who makes a living from photography loves Pentax products for the feel and joy of shooting, but are forced to use other brands for the breadth of offerings or some shortcoming in technology. I show up with my K-5 or K-3 and they want to hold it. But they shoot with something else. The big guys are in an expensive game of maintaining the buzz, huge investments in flooding the channels, etc. They do well at it, no question. It seems Ricoh/Pentax wants to go at it differently, a sort of ground up building of a market. So they show the images from gifted normal people.
Ricoh doesn't compete with Hewlett Packard or Brother for the low end laser printer sales. It doesn't seem to hurt them. If I wanted a Ricoh product for my business, I would have to hunt them down. But I run into their stuff in businesses I work for. Again, they don't seem to be hurting.