Originally posted by nitehntr i just don't want to have to change mounts if they go belly up at some point.
Based on your join date you have been here a while. So maybe you remember 2009, 2010? When the biggest topic here was how long your camera would last after Pentax went under. The speculation was not so much if but when they would close.
Can you honestly say Pentax's future is not much brighter now than it was then?
Originally posted by nitehntr part of the problem was the repair facility per a conversation i had with pentax in colorado. thats why they changed. they weren't properly testing the repairs.
That might be what you were told, will not argue that. But I had three lenses repaired at the old facility, all perfectly done. It took three tries and almost 5 months to fix my 18-135 at Precision. And it took a personal contact with Ricoh to keep Precision from charging me three times for the same repair. I think the move was due to Precision under bidding the other guys. And based on the complaints about Precision here and on other forums I think I know why they can bid lower.
Originally posted by nitehntr but i don't see how the US market isn't the largest anymore
CIPA data indicates otherwise. And Americans should realize it is a big world out there and we are not the center of the universe.
Originally posted by nitehntr in the two clubs i belong to there are three of us
Three out of how many? But I don't get your point. There are Pentax shooters in the US, no one questions that. But US is at best a secondary market for Ricoh. They will sell here but marketing efforts are on other markets. And as you note they are indeed trying to see what the market will bear. They've done that with just about every new release. Start high and evaluate sales, drop price as needed to maintain volume. That's just good business as far as I'm concerned. And pricing is in line with offerings from other major companies, third party is cheaper, but Pentax is not third party.