Originally posted by plooksta I really don't understand this 'fear' that I sense, this "should I buy one or not", "what if the company goes out of business in a few years", "what if no-one else has one"... It's really bizarre. What is the deal? If the product is great and it does what you need then just buy one!! If the company goes out of business, you don't have to give it back!!! You can keep it foreverrrrr, and all the lenses will not vanish off the market either. There is nothing whatever at stake.
Well, I perfectly understand it. If you invest 2 000€ in your gear (1 000€ in the camera, 1 000€ in glass) you want to max out it's usage. With the camera, seeing the company going is not a very big deal, as after some years it will be out of date and you would have probably bought a new one anyway (or eventually it will stop working). Lenses however are something different, they are basically suposed to last "forever" (if they are good) as they adapt to (most) camera-based technological evolution. And that's were seeing "your" company going out of business hits you hard, because those 1 000€ in objectives which were supposed to be used with different cameras over, let's say 20 year, suddenly are useless after only one camera. Let's say I bought a SMC Pentax-DA 40mm F2.8 Limited with my Pentax K10D 8 years ago. I would still be able to take great photos with it, but if I'd upgrade my camera to a newer one I would do even better photos and this progressing is taken into account when you invest in lenses... but a company going out of business kills that so you esentially get stuck with the technological limitation of the moment you bought your camera.
That said, I don't think Pentax is going out of business soon.