[AOCO]

Sloppy westerners may think by default this is some kind of normal postponement, but for anyone who has ever visited Japanese factory, no, it is not. This is impossible to happen. 1-2 months are hardly allowed in https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=3380580any out-of-ordinary circumstance, but 6 months?! Only a tsunami or a volcano eruption in the backyard can postpone something 6 months in Japan. Or something done by design to buy necessary time.

And you are buying it, big time.

Or apocalyptic explosion in port of Tianjin with large quantities of internodal containers full of FF components wiped out

[MMVIII]

I don't know why I bother to reply, but, anyway...

6 months delay is delay by design, not by a missing part. Japanese have introduced to the world many concepts, and meeting deadlines is one of them.
There is no way any planing or design has been done before thorough discernment about dates, checked at every step of the production.

Sloppy westerners may think by default this is some kind of normal postponement, but for anyone who has ever visited Japanese factory, no, it is not. This is impossible to happen. 1-2 months are hardly allowed in any out-of-ordinary circumstance, but 6 months?! Only a tsunami or a volcano eruption in the backyard can postpone something 6 months in Japan. Or something done by design to buy necessary time.

Therefore most of forum members who are not Japanese think of all sorts of crazy excuses typical to their cultures, but I am 100% certain this is a deliberate decision. In short, Ricoh was almost 2 years too late to the FF market explosion, but needed to address 645Z first to steal FF craze some thunder, and then, of course, came too late with their own FF to keep own customers changing systems. And to address English speaking users, they came up with a strategy suitable and plausible to their mindsets.

And you are buying it, big time.

First targeted availability: End of 2015 = everything before January 1 2016. Updated schedule: Spring 2016 = starts at February 5 2016

You hyperbolically speculated and concluded, it can only be because the lenses are not ready -> on Friday the dedicated normal zoom will be announced, a tele-zoom is ready and another one also in spring, beside some other lenses who will work with the camera.

Now you got inspired to even more wild speculations presenting them in a voice far from polite, and healthy. Draw your own conclusions, it was nice to have read you.

[Krizu]

asahiman said he works for Samsung...

anywho

Regarding that weird guy who thinks the japanese invented deadlines and the formula how to meet them: I know 2 japanese people here and one of both is late 10 out of 9 times. I bet he does that by design.

[drougge]

I may appear stupid but we have done FF DSLR for maybe 50 years. This is not like a mirror box for it or a shutter would be complex. We also did MF DSLR for quite some time, digital MF recently for Pentax.

A minor thing about terminology: Please don't say DSLR if you mean SLR. The D is for digital.

[biz-engineer]

People think Sony are optimizing cost.... Lile their would not make money on their flagship... I say to you they are not selling theses bodies at a loss. On their flagship, I'am sure they make lot of money. Even if the sensor is much more expensive and they almost ask for 2000€ more for A7R-II. I don't trust even 1 second the new sensor cost them that much. Even the MF 645Z sensor might not cost that much.

... A qualitative estimation and quantitative figures don't go well together. With cost not being the same as price. There is a cost of sensor on Sony Semiconductors side (the supplier), the selling price of the sensor comes with a margin. The price of the sensor from Sony Semiconductors is the cost of the sensor for Sony camera's business. The impact of price for you (user) is the cost of the sensor + the associated margin. Therefore, for a given 50% gross margin at Sony semiconductors and 50% at Sony Cameras, an hypothetical double cost of the 42Mp BSI sensor lead to a 4x (four times) higher price contribution of the sensor in the pricing of the end product camera. What you have to keep in mind is that the cost of CMOS image sensor increase exponentially with their area, the reason being because one manufacturing defect somewhere in one sensor and it becomes unusable, so not only to cost of good units increases proportionally to the sensor area, but on top of that, the cost of bad unit increases proportionally to the sensor area as well. In addition, silicon wafers are round, and sensor have a rectangular form factor, thus the larger the sensor the more waste of silicon material at the edges of silicon wafers. To have an idea, an APSC sensor area is about twice the area of a Pentium processor, if the know the price of a Pentium processor. Basically, 1 inch sensors sell at about a few dollars, an APSC sensor sells at about $150 and a full frame sensor sells at about $450, but a BSI full frame sensor sells at $600 due to the number of additional manufacturing process steps required and eventually additional yield loss. An MF sensor selling price is about $2000 more or less. And I don't add the cost of the application process that you need beside the larger sensor. Now, add the margins of the camera manufacturers and see for yourself if what I wrote is crazy or not. About the pricing of a 300m2 silicon chip, please refer for instance to the price list provided here: http://www.intc.com/priceList.cfm

[Rondec]

6 months delay is delay by design, not by a missing part. Japanese have introduced to the world many concepts, and meeting deadlines is one of them.
There is no way any planing or design has been done before thorough discernment about dates, checked at every step of the production.

Sloppy westerners may think by default this is some kind of normal postponement, but for anyone who has ever visited Japanese factory, no, it is not. This is impossible to happen. 1-2 months are hardly allowed in any out-of-ordinary circumstance, but 6 months?! Only a tsunami or a volcano eruption in the backyard can postpone something 6 months in Japan. Or something done by design to buy necessary time.

Therefore most of forum members who are not Japanese think of all sorts of crazy excuses typical to their cultures, but I am 100% certain this is a deliberate decision. In short, Ricoh was almost 2 years too late to the FF market explosion, but needed to address 645Z first to steal FF craze some thunder, and then, of course, came too late with their own FF to keep own customers changing systems. And to address English speaking users, they came up with a strategy suitable and plausible to their mindsets.

And you are buying it, big time.

You are certainly prone to wild exaggeration.

If you own a Pentax camera (or some other brand camera), why don't you take a quiet day and go out shooting and not thinking about these terrible conniving Japanese who have diabolically delayed the full frame camera. If you need a full frame camera right now, get a Sony NEX. They are cheap enough and you can always resell it if you like what Pentax brings to the table, but maybe you'll connect better with Sony than the evil-Ricoh made cameras anyway.

I can tell that you don't know anything more than I do, you just choose to take a pessimistic point of view, I choose to take a patient one. All we know for sure is that the full frame body is delayed "till spring" (not six months). In the meantime, my lenses and cameras aren't going away. I have film cameras and I have been shooting with all of them while waiting, I certainly can wait a little longer and would rather do so, if it means that Pentax will have a camera that works well and is full featured from the get go.

[banep]

Or apocalyptic explosion in port of Tianjin with large quantities of internodal containers full of FF components wiped out

You forgot aliens http://newcameranews.com/2014/07/30/shocker-aliens-eat-pentax-full-frame-cameras/

"“We know how long some Pentaxicans have been waiting for a full-frame Pentax, so we will try our hardest to meet their requests. But we can’t guarantee that the aliens won’t come back."

[shiner]

Until spring 2016 Sony, Nikon and Canon will release new cameras and Pentax will still be behind them. As for this secrecy regarding the specs of the full frame, I think it's not quite a smart decision because:
1. No one buys K-S2, K-3/K-3 II anymore because everybody is interested in full frame, and prices drop each and every day for crop cameras.
2. There are a lot of people which were willing to wait until november (the first release date announced by Ricoh), but the number of those will continue to drop because at this moment we can't be sure that when spring comes Ricoh will say that the full frame will be available in stores in early autumn 2016.

Seriously? Everyone is planning to buy a heavier, much more expensive FF? I don't think so. Where are stats to suggest this? Links please. There are marketing and sometimes technical reasons to keep final specs something of a mystery, as well. The small percentage of people who drop the brand because of this can enjoy their Sony or Canicon gear.

[bxf]

Seriously? Everyone is planning to buy a heavier, much more expensive FF?

Nope.

[cali92rs]

I am not...I had my taste of FF.
THere is a noticeable increase in IQ at higher ISOs, but not worth the extra size FOR ME (I am a hobbyiest. For a working professional that needs every little advantage and don't care about the hassle factor of a larger kit, then ya, go for it).

[monochrome]

Nope.


Not this year.

[Enrique S Toso]

Yep. Actually 2 bodys.

[DeadJohn]

6 months delay is delay by design, not by a missing part. Japanese have introduced to the world many concepts, and meeting deadlines is one of them.
There is no way any planing or design has been done before thorough discernment about dates, checked at every step of the production.

Sloppy westerners may think by default this is some kind of normal postponement, but for anyone who has ever visited Japanese factory, no, it is not. This is impossible to happen. 1-2 months are hardly allowed in any out-of-ordinary circumstance, but 6 months?! Only a tsunami or a volcano eruption in the backyard can postpone something 6 months in Japan. Or something done by design to buy necessary time.

Therefore most of forum members who are not Japanese think of all sorts of crazy excuses typical to their cultures, but I am 100% certain this is a deliberate decision. In short, Ricoh was almost 2 years too late to the FF market explosion, but needed to address 645Z first to steal FF craze some thunder, and then, of course, came too late with their own FF to keep own customers changing systems. And to address English speaking users, they came up with a strategy suitable and plausible to their mindsets.

And you are buying it, big time.

Dude, if the Japanese are as magical as you claim, then why was the K3ii recently recalled? And it's not just Ricoh: Canon and Nikon have had notable recalls.

All companies make mistakes. It's not "impossible".

[Not a Number]

But but but Japanese companies never experience significant delays..

It's all by design (right...)

[calsan]

Don't forget about the ignore button, everyone. Quoting trolls is feeding trolls.