[Mistral75]

(...)

(4) a camera company will have a harder time being competitive / profitable if they don't have products in the lower priced tiers to introduce themselves to new-comers (*)

(...)

(*) there will always be a few exceptions to this rule; Pentax might have been an exception forty years ago, but they kid themselves if they think they're another Leica or Hassy today.

Forty years ago Pentax did have a product in the lower-priced tiers: its name was K1000 and it was a huge success (more than two million K1000 were produced between 1975 and 1997).

[Fogel70]

Forty years ago Pentax did have a product in the lower-priced tiers: its name was K1000 and it was a huge success (more than two million K1000 were produced between 1975 and 1997).

But on other hand lower-priced tiers was a completely different level then.

Price of K1000 with 55/2 kit lens was $299.50 when introduce in 1976, and that would be over $1,300 converted to today's value.

Even today 40 years later $300 is still the low budget price on ILC.

[clackers]

Forty years ago Pentax did have a product in the lower-priced tiers: its name was K1000 and it was a huge success (more than two million K1000 were produced between 1975 and 1997).

I would love to see this, Mistral, but profits for companies no longer lie in selling cameras as a commodity. Pentax said at Photokina they wish to be a 'premium' product company (I know you question the meaning of the phrase).

Will any company sell two million of an ILC model ever again?

[RonHendriks1966]

Will any company sell two million of an ILC model ever again?

I think this is won't hapen aga in, because models don't run that long. Maybe Canon did with the 7d?. But K1000 was on sale for 22 years, so in reality it sold 90.000 units a year and that is not an impossible number.

[Kunzite]

Forty years ago Pentax did have a product in the lower-priced tiers: its name was K1000 and it was a huge success (more than two million K1000 were produced between 1975 and 1997).

That would be equivalent to the DSLR production between January and mid-April, but spread in two decades. "More than two million K1000" in 22 years makes for a monthly production volume similar to that of the K-1.
"Huge success" is so relative

[D1N0]

There are already plenty of mirrorless patents for aps-c lenses. New patents: Ricoh 2/24 for the mirrorless APS-C: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review Ricoh also has a mirrorless aps-c camera. The GR II. Adapt the GR to a system camera by putting a mount derived from q-mount on it and an evf. et voila a new system is born that already has many creases ironed out.

[mecrox]

There are already plenty of mirrorless patents for aps-c lenses. New patents: Ricoh 2/24 for the mirrorless APS-C: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review Ricoh also has a mirrorless aps-c camera. The GR II. Adapt the GR to a system camera by putting a mount derived from q-mount on it and an evf. et voila a new system is born that already has many creases ironed out.

Whatever Ricoh/Pentax decide to do, if anything, I guess one can say that a new mirrorless camera or line of them will need to do things that smartphones absolutely cannot do, it will need to be a luxury item (all cameras are now luxury items, smartphones being the economy seating of the imaging world) and it will need to work extremely well in Japan where Pentax has its core market. These things are more important than format since Pentax is not in command of the format - the sensor-maker is. Pentax would therefore have to choose a format for which good modern sensors will definitely be available for a number of years. Even then, it will not be easy. The most recent mirrorless cameras include long lists of amazing specs that Pentax has yet to attain in any of its products (they are not alone in that, of course). But these specs - 4K, touchscreens, fast focusing, fast frame-rates, focus points all over the sensor, new modern shutters which eliminate shock, focus stacking and other in-camera manoeuvres, etc - are rapidly becoming a minimum baseline. And finally - the frozen icing on the Cake of Doom - the Chinese (YI Technology) are now moving into the cheaper end of mirrorless and it may be almost impossible to compete with them on costs/price.

Seriously, I've no idea what will happen and I doubt anyone else has either. But, and one has to be positive about all this, I suspect it will still be a tough one to crack.

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Last edited by mecrox; 10-07-2016 at 03:42 AM.

[D1N0]

ill need to do things that smartphones absolutely cannot do

No it will just need to appeal to photographers. People who shoot with phones think a blurring filter equals shallow DOF. So give us controls, and speed, usability plus connectivity. When you have instant transfer of images to you phone, you can also share instantly. You integrate the phones connectivity to the camera. You can use any hip new app to 'edit' your photo's. Al lot of people won't care for it but it will sell cameras.

[mecrox]

No it will just need to appeal to photographers. People who shoot with phones think a blurring filter equals shallow DOF. So give us controls, and speed, usability plus connectivity. When you have instant transfer of images to you phone, you can also share instantly. You integrate the phones connectivity to the camera. You can use any hip new app to 'edit' your photo's. Al lot of people won't care for it but it will sell cameras.

Imagine the marketing campaign for a new Pentax mirrorless camera. Its centrepiece image seeks to portray smartphone users as cretinous idiots. Someone forgot to tell the agency that 99 per cent of Pentax users are also smartphone users who are well aware of the differences and would rather not be insulted. Meanwhile the point of the camera, its amazing capabilities, the luxury of owning such a device, being able to go far beyond what day-to-day items (such as a smartphone) can achieve - all these are completely lost. Not likely to be a very successful campaign, is it. The head of the Ricoh imaging division remarked on its launch that the 645z was so amazingly good that it could photograph the wind. That is where one wants to be.

The connectivity you mention is already a baseline requirement for the new mirrorless cameras, remarkable only if it is absent. Nope, this is all about other things.

[D1N0]

Just because a photographer has a smartphone, doesn't mean it is a person who shoots with phones. And of course Ricoh is not going to say 'this is a camera for people who think smart phone users are cretinous idiots'. That is not what I said, but what you make of it.

[RonHendriks1966]

Whatever Ricoh/Pentax decide to do, if anything, I guess one can say that a new mirrorless camera or line of them will need to do things that smartphones absolutely cannot do, it will need to be a luxury item (all cameras are now luxury items, smartphones being the economy seating of the imaging world) and it will need to work extremely well in Japan where Pentax has its core market.

I look at this very different. It would be great if a new mirrorless could do things that smartphones can do already. Like pano's, sharing on social media and other stuf.

[Kunzite]

An interchangeable lens camera can already do things a smartphone won't be able to, ever (because physics).

[mecrox]

I look at this very different. It would be great if a new mirrorless could do things that smartphones can do already. Like pano's, sharing on social media and other stuf.

One has to be careful about this, I'd have thought. There is little point in making a camera too like a smartphone because in that case the sensible thing would be to dump the camera and keep the smartphone.

Many of the things a smartphone camera can do - like auto panoramas - can already be done by some cameras, I believe. I suspect what's happening is that a list of core requirements is starting to emerge for any brand which wants to say "This is a modern mirrorless camera". Panoramas may well be among them; plenty of other things already are. Everything else is the differentiation between brands one would expect.

However, if a brand wants to introduce a new kind of camera costing 1000 to 2000 bucks, which is where so many cameras of all kinds are heading, then they need to produce something about which they can say "breathtaking, amazing, a Zen moment, only a dedicated camera can give you this" and so forth. Otherwise, the sensible thing would be to dump the camera and keep the smartphone ...

Pentax is by far the most Japanese of the major camera brands in its outlook, imho. I've always been surprised that they don't make more of that and offer an extremely refined and unapologetically Japanese take on photography, rather than try to appeal to Western tastes all the time with the big 'n' plastic is better stuff. Did I say big is better? That must mean FF, It's big, geddit. Big. Better. Look at all that gleaming plastic. Hogwash, I say. Still, that's just me.

[Mistral75]

Why did this message from asahi man disappear from this thread?

Tell you what about a Pentax patent.

New bayonet,new bayonet sensor distance,complete electronicconnection between lens and body,compatible with K through bayonet adapter,full AF for lenses with internal AF motor.
All K lenses since 1975 are compatible with manual focus and working aperture.
Patent is 3 years old but not worldwide registered.
I think more in Yokohama, nearby the new APS-C dslr body.
Sorry I have no more information about this,only what I picked up last weeks.
Best regards

[reh321]

Forty years ago Pentax did have a product in the lower-priced tiers: its name was K1000 and it was a huge success (more than two million K1000 were produced between 1975 and 1997).

I'm not quite sure what your point is here.

My point was based on my belief that MILC will take over the lower priced tiers.
Pentax has had a foothold in that area, yes with the K-1000 and currently with the K-70, but in order to maintain that foothold, if my belief is correct, they will need an MILC product.