[Nicolas06]

The only problem is Sony hasn't built up its f/2.8 zoom lens collection in FE mount. When that happens A LOT of people might switch. Long pro lenses are also missing in FE mount.

Problem is the lenses will be as huge or even bigger than current DSLR lenses, as long as you have to cover focal length past 50mm this will be the case. And that not lot of reach on an FF. Sony didn't put f/4 instead of f/2.8 on it zoom by random. They still target a somewhat small/light product. They would need to make their A7 as big/heavy/sturdy as a highend DSLR to make it comfortable to handle in such condition. At what point the idea of mirror or not is more a matter of preference than anything else.

The Fuji's have some pretty good lenses, and X-T1 and siblings have firmware 4.0 with better AF.

Agree. I looked at it quite a bit. My issue is that don't like that their sensor is not so well supported overall. In particular in DxO that tend to have better denoising that lightroom. Now I asked myself "what would I gain by going Fuji ?". I have seen that I would have to reinvest at least 1000$ more, to basically get a better/smaller large apperture WA and get a bigger/heavier/smaller apperture tele. As I value more large apperture in tele, this isn't worth the trouble. Maybe if I was starting from scratch. But then the price don't make it a good alternative to begin with. When I started I wasn't ready to spend that much on photography gear. I just wanted to try.

If Pentax is not in mirrorless soon again, then it'll have a struggle on its hands. Especially where its all software driven, and patents are already established.

Yes and no there what the market is doing and there the opportunities for the brand. Pentax is already late on "quality" mirrorless. The m4/3 system is king here, the Sony E mount in APSC format is very popular and FE has a foot in the door.

The only way to have a great echosystem of lenses for Pentax is to keep K-mount and make a very light K02 with an EVF. Could be a great match with ltds. But if they change the registration distance to gain more or less 100g they would have to rebuild everything again and compete with established competitors.

Because the mirrorless market isn't growing anymore and still quite small, and because of established competitor, there no much money to make there.

[IchabodCrane]

Anyone can find a reason not to buy just about anything and the "lack of long telephoto lenses" argument is one of them for mirrorless. However, how many people own long telephoto lenses? If you believe what Nikon once stated that 50% of DSLR purchasers never buy a second lens then that long telephoto need might be only for a very small portion of the overall ILC market. If I'm Sony/Fujifilm or whomever, do I worry if my offerings only cover 90 to 95% of the potential market?

[reh321]

Problem is the lenses will be as huge or even bigger than current DSLR lenses, as long as you have to cover focal length past 50mm this will be the case. And that not lot of reach on an FF. Sony didn't put f/4 instead of f/2.8 on it zoom by random. They still target a somewhat small/light product. They would need to make their A7 as big/heavy/sturdy as a highend DSLR to make it comfortable to handle in such condition. At what point the idea of mirror or not is more a matter of preference than anything else.

Agree. I looked at it quite a bit. My issue is that don't like that their sensor is not so well supported overall. In particular in DxO that tend to have better denoising that lightroom. Now I asked myself "what would I gain by going Fuji ?". I have seen that I would have to reinvest at least 1000$ more, to basically get a better/smaller large apperture WA and get a bigger/heavier/smaller apperture tele. As I value more large apperture in tele, this isn't worth the trouble. Maybe if I was starting from scratch. But then the price don't make it a good alternative to begin with. When I started I wasn't ready to spend that much on photography gear. I just wanted to try.

We've discussed this before. Large, and constant, aperture seems to be very important to you, but that is not true at all for many others of us. Each generation of sensors and processors provides better high ISO behavior, so wide aperture becomes even less important for each generation of camera. A very reasonable telephoto lens can be made once you're willing to jettison the wide constant aperture requirement. In addition, for most of us, the long lens spends more time in the bag than on the camera, so the convenience cost of any long lens is less than you imply (and I'm still not convinced that Fuji is anything more than a strawman in a discussion like this - they certainly are not a dominant digital camera manufacturer, not even if you restrict yourself to MILC)

Yes and no there what the market is doing and there the opportunities for the brand. Pentax is already late on "quality" mirrorless. The m4/3 system is king here, the Sony E mount in APSC format is very popular and FE has a foot in the door.

The only way to have a great ecosystem of lenses for Pentax is to keep K-mount and make a very light K02 with an EVF. Could be a great match with ltds. But if they change the registration distance to gain more or less 100g they would have to rebuild everything again and compete with established competitors.

Because the mirrorless market isn't growing anymore and still quite small, and because of established competitor, there no much money to make there.

You need to be careful in declaring that MILC has reached its peak.

[Mistral75]

(...)

You need to be careful in declaring that MILC has reached its peak.

Haven't they?

[normhead]

I see the "Everything revolves around Sony people have taken over." They are becoming the Jehovah's Witnesses of the camera world.

[reh321]

Haven't they?

How a plot of MILC (red line) as a percentage of ILC?
It looks to me that DSLR (green line) has a clear long-term issue, and anyone depending on that market alone needs a backup plan.
Not enough time has passed to tell whether the past few months are a peak or a pause for MILC's market share.

added: I noticed that your plots are shipments to Europe.
I doubt if that determines how Japanese companies make decisions.

[bertwert]

Haven't they?

Technically, Mirrorless would be a LOT more sales than SLRs. Smartphones, laptops, compact cameras, etc. do not have mirrors in them...

[Nicolas06]

Anyone can find a reason not to buy just about anything and the "lack of long telephoto lenses" argument is one of them for mirrorless. However, how many people own long telephoto lenses? If you believe what Nikon once stated that 50% of DSLR purchasers never buy a second lens then that long telephoto need might be only for a very small portion of the overall ILC market. If I'm Sony/Fujifilm or whomever, do I worry if my offerings only cover 90 to 95% of the potential market?

you don't need something that long. I own a FA77 for example and like it a lot. It is quite small because there already 45mm from the registration distance. If I take that on a mirroless APSC it will be bigger. But if I want the same reach on FF mirrorless, I don't need a 77mm lense but more 115mm length and that start to be quite big or slow.

People like reach and long zooms, the most sold zoom after the kit lense i either a super zoom like 18-200 or 18-300, either a 70-300. They are slow, but they provide reach. And they are nothing but small. I agree half people keep with the kit zoom, but you have to factor that theses guys aren't really the one that are the best to target as you can't really hope to make significant money from. They want a price are not brand loyal and don't buy often.

[Nicolas06]

We've discussed this before. Large, and constant, aperture seems to be very important to you

Let's put it into context: I was responding to a guy that was saying that the only thing sony A7 familly is missing a set of large apperture f/2.8 zooms to shine. I responded that it was not their objective because the lenses would be too big.

Myself I don't own currently a single zoom and have only rather small primes. They couldn't be as small on a mirrorless and they would be much bigger on an FF mirrorless because I would need longer focal length. But I don't hide it: it is displayed in my sig.

for most of us, the long lens spends more time in the bag than on the camera, so the convenience cost of any long lens is less than you imply

What do you call long ? Again I was responding to a guy for mirrorless FF. A typicall moderate zoom is a 24-105 f/4 and the typical kit lens is 28-85 f/3.5-5.6... But this already put us far away from the registration distance of theses cameras and consequently what is not inside the camera is put in the lens. I just say there nothing to gain in term of size.

The typicall pro kit is 24-70 f/2.8 + 70-200 f/2.8. It is not me that need or want that. I would hate to go arround with such huge and heavy gear.

We already had this discussion last time and we saw that even the small kit lens tele zoom is as big or bigger than what you have on a DSLR so there no much gain to make size wise.

You need to be careful in declaring that MILC has reached its peak.

I don't know if it has reached it peak but for now it is not a growing market and there lot of competition. From a business point of view it doesn't make sense to move toward this direction.

If one can predict with confidence a significant growth and can also provide a competitive product that people will be more willing to buy more than the alternative, then why not. I'am not sure we are in this case for Pentax.

I don't get this whole thing... If you want a good mirrorless with interchangeable lenses, there a wide offering available right. why not just buy one instead of wanting to get what Pentax do not want to do?

[philbaum]

I see the "Everything revolves around Sony people have taken over." They are becoming the Jehovah's Witnesses of the camera world.

That's a bit mean spirited there Norm.

Rather than seeing Sony buyers as traitors to the Pentax brand, i think that there are tangible reasons why so many Pentax owners have ended up buying a Sony system as well. These are some reasons i can think of:

A. IBIS - Sony had it with the A-mount, gave it up for the early Nex cameras, and now has it back again. Pentax has always had the SR system.

B. Pentax had the heritage for building smaller but competent camera bodies. If you want full frame, Sony offers the bodies that are smaller than Canikon at this time.

C. Radical innovation. I see this in companies who have a smaller share of the market. Both Pentax and Sony have come up with some innovative ideas that you don't see in mainstream cameras.

D. If you want to see what your Pentax legacy lenses will look like in full frame, they can mount on any FE or E mount camera with a $20 adapter. I've mounted all my Pentax lenses on my Sony camera at one or another, and the macro lenses i currently use are Pentax. The lens i used to shoot the recent Super blood moon eclipse was the DA-300. Using focus peaking on the moon was a kick - but it worked

Its regrettable that you make the comparison between Sony and a particular religious belief. We have enough real fighting and bloodshed in this world currently, we don't need to get that angry about different makes of cameras. Hopefully we can coexist in a more peaceful way. I'm 67 years old, I'm not going to wait around for a specific camera maker to come up with the camera i want. If i see a particular brand come up with the functionality i want, i'm going to buy it outright whether its called abc, def, or ghi.

[boriscleto]

Technically, Mirrorless would be a LOT more sales than SLRs. Smartphones, laptops, compact cameras, etc. do not have mirrors in them...

But that is a chart comparing MILC with DSLR.

[bertwert]

But that is a chart comparing MILC with DSLR.

Didn't you see the 'Technically' part and the attached image

[reh321]

Let's put it into context: I was responding to a guy that was saying that the only thing sony A7 familly is missing a set of large apperture f/2.8 zooms to shine. I responded that it was not their objective because the lenses would be too big.

Myself I don't own currently a single zoom and have only rather small primes. They couldn't be as small on a mirrorless and they would be much bigger on an FF mirrorless because I would need longer focal length. But I don't hide it: it is displayed in my sig.

What do you call long ? Again I was responding to a guy for mirrorless FF. A typicall moderate zoom is a 24-105 f/4 and the typical kit lens is 28-85 f/3.5-5.6... But this already put us far away from the registration distance of theses cameras and consequently what is not inside the camera is put in the lens. I just say there nothing to gain in term of size.

The typicall pro kit is 24-70 f/2.8 + 70-200 f/2.8. It is not me that need or want that. I would hate to go arround with such huge and heavy gear.

We already had this discussion last time and we saw that even the small kit lens tele zoom is as big or bigger than what you have on a DSLR so there no much gain to make size wise.

Thank you for clearing that up.

I don't know if it has reached it peak but for now it is not a growing market and there lot of competition. From a business point of view it doesn't make sense to move toward this direction.

If one can predict with confidence a significant growth and can also provide a competitive product that people will be more willing to buy more than the alternative, then why not. I'am not sure we are in this case for Pentax.

I don't get this whole thing... If you want a good mirrorless with interchangeable lenses, there a wide offering available right. why not just buy one instead of wanting to get what Pentax do not want to do?

The shortest time I've ever used a camera were all failures in my point-of-view - In 1969 I bought a Yashica rangefinder camera for $35 from a drugstore that was getting out of the 35mm camera business; I had it repaired twice in the next 4 years, and then gave up and bought another camera. My first digital camera was a Canon compact camera, my thought being that it could replace both my pocket camera and my SLR; less than a year later I gave it to my daughter. Over the next 8 years I had two Canon Rebels; each died on me, and the second wasn't that reliable before it quit. I bought my Q-7 11 months ago and my K-30 6 months ago; my expectation is that both will be successes, so I currently assume that the next camera I will buy (assuming I buy another one - at age 67 I no longer assume that kind of thing) won't be designed for several years. Thus, when I engage in discussions like this it is because I have a certain amount of affection for Pentax, and I want them to thrive ... it has nothing to do with their producing a camera for me.

If you look at the graph provided by Mistral75, DSLR shipments to Europe have plummeted rather consistently for the past three years; perhaps the report which started this thread represents a reversal of that trend, but I wouldn't count on that based on just one month's worth of data. I'm not saying that Pentax should announce a K-02 next month, but I believe they need to have one on the drawing board, because a resumption of that downward trend would be very bad news for any company betting their company's future on DSLR sales.

[Zygonyx]

OK for K-02 !

[Sliver-Surfer]

Haven't they?

Ok what I see in this chart is DSLRs trending downward, by 1million pieces/year towards obscurity within 3-5years. Whereas Milc is staying consistent.