Hi,

This thread was inspired by a question from the other forum ("In the past three years, what has Pentax innovated?").
What say you about my major rant?

I know that what I am about to say is almost impossible to realise in short or medium term but imagine an alliance or a fusion between Pentax, Olympus and Sigma. Imagine that the resources are better used and the economic power of this PenOlyS is far greather than single entities. Imagine that the 4/3 sensor is used in smaller cameras (high end digicams) and now Olympus has access to a new mount and APS-C sensors. Imagine the combined technical staff of this really innovative comapanies at work developing one entry level camera, one mid level and as many "special" cameras as they can. Imagine a DP1 done right, an even smaller one with a 4/3 sensor. Imagine a really modern foveon sensor combined with modern processing electronics. Imagine a DSLR with E3 body and Samsung sensor and Pentax Limited glass. Imagine that they will have beside them Hoya for glass and Samsung for electronics.

The very fact is that these 3 companies are all niche but not in the same niches.

And in the final imagine this: the combined minds of OPTICAL engineers from those 3 companies.

Radu

[cateto]

It looks not probable to me.

But going to the question, what has Pentax innovated?

Look at the K10D design, the new exposure modes, the smart ways of design to manage the huge amount of features, etc etc that have inspired both Canon and Nikon. Look at their peerless compatibility with past lenses, that are stabilized too. I don't know about others, but to me they have been giving lessons on how to do things right in the world of dSLR, and the guys running professional photography shops are realizing about that.

Same about Oly: they realized soon that live view was important for dSLR. And their new-from-scratch approach, including excellent lenses, are making wonders.

Contrary to the usual prophets of the apocalypse for both Pentax and Olympus, I'm convinced both companies have a shining future. (Not to repeat my Pentax/Apple analogy).

Well, Cateto

I guess you are right but nothing you say contradicts my ideea. In fact I don't say that P, O and S MUST join forces only to survive but mostly to give a really great scare to the "big boys" - especially Canon and why not to gain serious market share. As you mentioned all three of them have real strenghts in some fields and by that expertise the other can benefit greatly without the need to "reinvent the wheel". Why must Pentax engineers develop from scratch a new AF system when can they adapt Olympus' one?
Also Sigma IMO is a company with great ideeas and poor execution.

Radu

[axl]

would be nice, but...
can't see it happening

[MRRiley]

And how are they going to work the glass? Go with K mount and the Oly and Sigma guys won't play. Go with 4/3 mount and Pentax guys wont play, etc... They'd have to jimmy up some kind of mount that would work for all 3 lens mounts and that just aint gonna happen. Plus the philosophies of the 3 companies are just toooo different.

You are right in many ways that each brand offers advantages but the disadvantages and logistics of doing this type of merger would make it darn near impossible.

[k100d]

i was browsing for longer tele zooms and the Olympus 50-200 SWD 2.8-3.5 looks like a stunner for the price. where's that 60-250 pentax?!?!

[and]

i was browsing for longer tele zooms and the Olympus 50-200 SWD 2.8-3.5 looks like a stunner for the price. where's that 60-250 pentax?!?!

I hear a rumor from a friend of a friend that read some secret info that was written on the wall of a public toilet booth that said Pentax will be proud to introduce the 60-250 at photokina this year, also announcing that it will be available in the stores "soon".

funny thing is I heard another rumor saying that pentax will intoduce the 60-250 at pma 2009 with store availability TBA.

maybe they are talking about 2 different lenses? Hm oh wait this sounds familiar...

[ChrisPlatt]

Sure, right after the Nikon-Canon merger.

Chris

[Big Dave]

Radua,
Why would you want a a 4/3 sensor. They are noisey and the 50% crop makes using full frame wide angle lenses useless. It does help with telephoto though. The cameras don't seem to be much smaller either. I do loke the flip out LCD with live view for macro and low angle work. I think that Pentax has done a great job of innovating, considering that they where in the middle of a merger.

Dave

Hi,

This thread was inspired by a question from the other forum ("In the past three years, what has Pentax innovated?").
What say you about my major rant?

I know that what I am about to say is almost impossible to realise in short or medium term but imagine an alliance or a fusion between Pentax, Olympus and Sigma. Imagine that the resources are better used and the economic power of this PenOlyS is far greather than single entities. Imagine that the 4/3 sensor is used in smaller cameras (high end digicams) and now Olympus has access to a new mount and APS-C sensors. Imagine the combined technical staff of this really innovative comapanies at work developing one entry level camera, one mid level and as many "special" cameras as they can. Imagine a DP1 done right, an even smaller one with a 4/3 sensor. Imagine a really modern foveon sensor combined with modern processing electronics. Imagine a DSLR with E3 body and Samsung sensor and Pentax Limited glass. Imagine that they will have beside them Hoya for glass and Samsung for electronics.

The very fact is that these 3 companies are all niche but not in the same niches.

And in the final imagine this: the combined minds of OPTICAL engineers from those 3 companies.

Radu

And how are they going to work the glass? Go with K mount and the Oly and Sigma guys won't play. Go with 4/3 mount and Pentax guys wont play, etc... They'd have to jimmy up some kind of mount that would work for all 3 lens mounts and that just aint gonna happen. Plus the philosophies of the 3 companies are just toooo different.

You are right in many ways that each brand offers advantages but the disadvantages and logistics of doing this type of merger would make it darn near impossible.

MRRiley,

Sooner or later Olympus will realise that 4/3 is a dead end for them (especially in higer end cameras) because of noise and low DR. That's why I said this sensor will be used in "digicams" as in small cameras and lighter DSLRs. Think of it like this: 4/3 cameras will be sold as usual but higher end cameras will have APS-C or FF sensors on K mount (incidentally very alike of Sigma SA mount).
So the product range will be extremely wide and the strong points will be capitalised among partners.
Look at a E3 with K20D sensor, AF from Olympus, body and shutter from Olympus, Limited glass and a new unified processor. One of Canon's strenghts is the way they put the Digic in many cameras and make it in large volumes.


What say you?
Radu

Radua,
Why would you want a a 4/3 sensor. They are noisey and the 50% crop makes using full frame wide angle lenses useless. It does help with telephoto though. The cameras don't seem to be much smaller either. I do loke the flip out LCD with live view for macro and low angle work. I think that Pentax has done a great job of innovating, considering that they where in the middle of a merger.

Dave

Hi, Dave

English is not my native language and I think it shows! I don't say at all that those 3 need to standardise at all on 4/3 sensor. But this sensor and the lenses that exists can be usefull on the lower end with small, light cameras in form of digicams and DSLRs. Higher end will use APS-C sensors and K mount. And the very high end would be FF.
Am I making more sense now?

Radu

[k100d]

Why would you want a a 4/3 sensor. They are noisey and the 50% crop makes using full frame wide angle lenses useless. It does help with telephoto though. The cameras don't seem to be much smaller either.

Sooner or later Olympus will realise that 4/3 is a dead end for them (especially in higer end cameras) because of noise and low DR. That's why I said this sensor will be used in "digicams" as in small cameras and lighter DSLRs. Think of it like this: 4/3 cameras will be sold as usual but higher end cameras will have APS-C or FF sensors on K mount (incidentally very alike of Sigma SA mount).

i love my pentax primes but if i was a zoom user, i probably would be at olympus. not really sure where this 4/3 hate comes in. FF may be the holy grail but it's an arbitrary size just like 4/3. most of the Zuiko lenses are fantastic.

they're not THAAAT noisy from what i read hanging around different forums. fwiw, PopPhoto thought it was pretty good in a recent article.

[deudeu]

I don't think that combining those companies would have much effect on the product we are going to see in the near future.
I am pretty sure that the people of Samsung already have the improved AF and Shutter that you praise in Oly. I don't think that they would talk about a FF camera if they didn't.
Overall in the industry i think that things are not going to move much more and that we would not benefit if it did. All the camera makers (but Sigma) now have large electronic companies working with them and hoping for some market share. They have the money and the ingeneers to make things right. After that it is all about how the high management sees photography and where they want to spend their R&D money.
Personnally, i think that the more companies there are out there, the more choice, the better. I don't like fusions...

[MRRiley]

MRRiley,

Sooner or later Olympus will realise that 4/3 is a dead end for them (especially in higer end cameras) because of noise and low DR. That's why I said this sensor will be used in "digicams" as in small cameras and lighter DSLRs. Think of it like this: 4/3 cameras will be sold as usual but higher end cameras will have APS-C or FF sensors on K mount (incidentally very alike of Sigma SA mount).
So the product range will be extremely wide and the strong points will be capitalised among partners.
Look at a E3 with K20D sensor, AF from Olympus, body and shutter from Olympus, Limited glass and a new unified processor. One of Canon's strenghts is the way they put the Digic in many cameras and make it in large volumes.


What say you?
Radu

None of that addresses the main reason that such a merger will never happen. The users of each brand (ok, so Pentax and Sigma mounts are maybe close enough to adapt) are wedded to their lenses and without a mount compromise that satisfies everyone (unlikely) it is a non-starter.

Any one of the brands you propose to merge is capable of building a superior camera all by itself so why merge? Building said camera though is an issue of economics and marketability and profitiblity is the deciding factor.

Heck, Canon and Nikon could merge into CaNikon and instantly control 80% of the market. This is a virtual monopoly which would guarantee the resulting company gazillion of profits. Would they do it? NO.... Ever hear the phrase "snowballs chance in h*ll"?

[lithos]

Imagine you have three un-desexed male cats.

And a large cloth sack.

Now imagine you put those three cats together into the sack. And poke the sack with a stick.

That's pretty much what a Oly/Sig/Pentax merger would be like.

There's that old Western European T-shirt slogan. (Harmless fun? Racism? A savage indictment of the European Union screenprinted on cotton? Who knows?)

"In heaven, the police are British, the mechanics German, the cooks French, the lovers Italian and it's all organised by the Swiss. In hell, the police are German, the the mechanics French, the cooks British, the lovers Swiss and it's all organised by the Italians."

I guess the ideal version, if that hell in which MRR's snowball resides, does freeze over, possibly because there was a French guy working on the heating (I'm kidding! I'm kidding! J'adore le Francais!) it would be something like:

"In heaven, the bodies are made by Olympus, the sensors by Sigma and the lenses by Pentax. In hell, the bodies are made by Pentax, the sensors by Olympus and the lenses by Sigma."

Except I can't really say that would be true, as I find Pentax's bodies awesome, and the Foveon sensor rather...meh.