Originally posted by normhead Pentax is able to command a premium because it works natively with 6 million Pentax lenses. Since 2004 I have been totally APS-c and I own 9 Pentax FF lenses. I can buy a Pentax FF body, slap my FA 5- 1.7 pn it and walk out the door without spending another cent, covering a range from 35mm to 400mm. If the A7RII is positioned to use a lot of lenses, Pentax is better positioned. ON the Pentax system, the lenses will work as they were designed to work.
I know people like talking up other systems, but, honestly, what the new guys have natively is simply paltry. Small potatoes. Little fish in the big pond. Minuscule.. need I elaborate further?
Actually the A7 works better with most of the 6 million Pentax lenses than the current version of K-mount. The older Super Taks, M, K mount lenses are much easier to use on an A7 body than on an K-3. You seem to be forgetting that Pentax crippled the K-mount so those older lenses are more difficult to use. So we can eliminate a few million of those
"lenses will work as they were designed to work." BS. We can also eliminate all of those DA kit zoom lenses that were sold since they will be all but worthless on a FF body. Those DA kit lenses make up a larger percentage of DA lenses sold.
If the
"Pentax is able to command a premium because it works natively with 6 million Pentax lenses." statement were remotely true then it would also apply to APS-C bodies, since all of those lenses work even better on APS-C bodies. Is Pentax able to command a premium for its current bodies? No. of course not. In case you haven't been paying attention the price of K-mount glass is very low. There are deep discounts to be had from the major retail houses, and prices on the used market have fallen significantly.
Sony also thought that all of the Minolta A-mount glass was going to give it an advantage. Sony has already done (and failed) what Ricoh is now trying to do. That A-mount legacy glass didn't equate to sales or demand for A-mount bodies.
There are two components to price.
1. Supply: Not all of those 6 million K-mount lenses are equally desirable. There is only a small number. The supply of legacy K-mount glass that will really appeal to FF buyers is not that large.
2. Demand: It does matter how many you have if there is no demand. Right now Ricoh's biggest problem is that there is very little demand. The majority of the market wants fast, quiet AF with modern HD coatings and ED/Super-Ed glass. Ricoh doesn't have a supply of those lenses.