[mee]

Yet how many telephoto lenses does Pentax offer? Most of their value has been in small primes and zooms. It is silly, imo, to expect us to use bulky FF lenses on our APS-C bodies just because they don't want to introduce new lenses on both.

Besides, the price difference is easily a 30% increase from APS-C to FF (if not much more).

I can understand it though from the PoV of Ricoh -- they want to get the most return for their effort. Both in the lenses they release and also in keeping the production/support resources as small as possible (a current Nikon problem).

I expect DA* to get updated.. but just no where near soon.

Another thought that just occurred to me, is perhaps this is there method of making FF look more attractive? I mean if you are buying FF lenses for your APS-C body. Eventually you might have a large enough collection to warrant the jump from a K-3 to a K-1. It's all business.

[OoKU]

No, Japan. K-1 is assembled in Vietnam.

Some people say has handed over assemble to pentax

[beholder3]

But the compact market is all but disappeared; cell phones are taking over. No use have an increased share in a non-existent market. I'm pretty sure Nikons volume is going down in compact.

Nikons compact/action whatever market volume is dropping like a stone. But others seem to have been much more decisive in leaving that dying market, so what ever is left has a relatively large Nikon part in it.

When looking at figures its interesting to see that while some voices have tried to make the impression that the move is towards "premium" and "FF", the profits by DSLR bodies and lenses sold by Nikon today is on 2005 level, while they actually have to sell about x2,5 as many units to get there.
If you throw all DSLR and DSLR lenses into one bucket they today make an operating profit of 35 EUR per DSLR or lens. In 2006 it was 90 EUR.
So it seems the cheap stuff is ruling the world. Which fits nicely to the game changing smartphones.

[Class A]

K-1 is assembled in Vietnam.

I may have the only copy that has been assembled in the Philippines then.

[kenspo]

I may have the only copy that has been assembled in the Philippines then.

You are so correct Sir. I was a bit quick there

[thibs]

Perhaps RIAC saw the deep level of interest in the K-1, compared to any crop body they've released, and decided that is where the money is located? The interview is also interesting to me in the response about having a broad product line (up into last year would have been boasted about by RIAC) is now considered a potential liability to them (in that they claim it could be confusing to the consumer).

True but remember this is a question of marketing (the point he makes I mean).
A mirrorless, let's say APS-C, by Ricoh would not bring as much confusion. Because it is a different brand (and we all know the guys behind are the same).

[mee]

True but remember this is a question of marketing (the point he makes I mean).
A mirrorless, let's say APS-C, by Ricoh would not bring as much confusion. Because it is a different brand (and we all know the guys behind are the same).

Absolutely. If they do ILC mirrorless (with EVF; ie seriously) I fully expect it (at least at the start) to have Ricoh branding.

[Winder]

No, please, that's just not true.

Whether a sensor is a crop sensor or not is with respect to the format the mount was designed for.

The K-mount was never designed to work with 70mm film. It's native image format is 36mm x 24mm and any sensor not utilising that image size is a crop sensor.

In a similar vein, while some people claim that "MF" refers to a number of format sizes and that it is therefore not justified to refer to the 645D/645Z as cameras with crop sensors, it is clearly the case that the original film 645 used a larger image format and that the 645D/645Z mount is designed for an image format that is larger than that these cameras currently support.

"Full-frame" does not have any absolute meaning across camera systems, but it surely is not a term with an arbitrary meaning.

Your missing the point. The 135mm format was created by taking 70mm film and cutting it in half. That has nothing to do with the lens mount. What we call a FF size sensor and all of the later mounts are derived from what was called half-frame 70mm movie film.

If the argument is that the K-1 is a FF because it has a sensor that is the full format for the mount it was designed for (not cropped relative to the mount), Then you have to apply the same logic to the Fuji GFX since it has a sensor that is designed for specifically for the GFX mount. So relative to the mount, the Fuji GFX has a full frame sensor. The 645z has a cropped sensor relative to what the mount is designed for, so that means the same sensor would be a crop in one mount, but a full format in the other mount.

[Kunzite]

No, please, that's just not true.

Whether a sensor is a crop sensor or not is with respect to the format the mount was designed for.

IMHO the term "full frame" was just a marketing ploy by Canon, to make their more expensive cameras appear "superior" to the APS-C's - competition's (Nikon being late on the 35mm digital market) and their own (users being compelled to "upgrade" regardless if the format suited them better or not).

[redrockcoulee]

Most film was cut down from huge rolls so calling film half or full frame based on the original film size is pointless. The same roll could have 35mm and 8X10 cut from it.

In the film days half frame cameras produced images that were 18 by 24. In roll film cameras the image could be from 6 by 4.5 to 6 by 17 from the same roll size. Was 645 ever called half frame because it was half of 6X9?

[TwoUptons]

Does that mean that my APS-C camera is suddenly full frame because it covers the full area of APS-C film? Or would APS-H be the full frame one since -C was a crop of that.

So all of my DA lenses would have a 0.9 crop factor from APS-H...

Does anyone even remember APS film?

I'd say it's all become a bunch of nonsense, but I think it's been that way at least since Leitz started shooting on movie film...

-Eric

[sbh]

This is what Dr Andreas Kaufmann, Leica chairman, said in an interview with Focus Numérique during Photokina:

Photokina 2016 ? Entretien avec Andreas Kaufmann, président de Leica

My English translation of the last paragraph:

Are you optimistic about the future of the photography market in, say, 10 years?

If all goes well, it will be a very exciting market with many new things. But, if everything does not go perfectly and deep changes are not undertaken, some competitors will inevitably disappear. Some have already withdrawn, like Samsung, others already have a foot in the grave. (Silence) I really do not want this to happen that way, because as a historical actor we do not want to see a long-time companion pass away, even if it's a rival. But if they do not move fast enough, I greatly fear for their future. What is certain is that Leica will never enter the action cam market. It was launched, forged, consolidated and locked by GoPro, which have incredible marketing resources. Above all, this is a market that is declining rapidly and we do not want to be part of his fall along with GoPro. Anyway, what are action cams outside of holiday? You won’t film yourself while you are working, will you? (Laughs) The only niche market which Leica has wanted to enter for ten years is the smartphone market. But hey, this is not really a niche ... If you really want to make money, the film industry seems much more appropriate to me and I'm thrilled that Sigma think the same as we do.

Thanks for the translation. Interesting to see his thoughts even though they seem a bit strange. Some of them make me raise my eyebrows, for example seeing the word "smartphone" and "niche" in the same sentence even though he was rolling back again on that.

Is there a general opinion on who he hinted as the graveyard-candidates?

[Kunzite]

I take it as them not having many choices - they want to keep their ILCs at a premium level, yet they desperately need volume - and try to find it on the smartphone market (not being able to find a profitable and durable niche).

[AndrewG NY]

For telephoto lenses there's no difference in weight and hardly in cost whether the lens is made for FF or APS. You do get size advantage on APS as you can use a 50% shorter focal lenght for the same angle of view.

The designs can be a bit different.

Getting a short end of 50-60mm (as opposed to 70-100mm for a FF design) usually sacrifices FF compatibility.

Similarly, at the long end sometimes they can sometimes go with a slightly smaller front element for a given max aperture (though I think instead they've been preferring not to do this in favor of IQ, less vignetting, etc.)

It is disappointing that the DA* 60-250/4 and perhaps DA70/2.4 were just ever so slightly underdesigned for FF since they are oh-so-close to being legit D-FA (I know both are serviceable but it seems like it was short-sighted).

[photoptimist]

What kills companies is the mismatch between upfront spending and future sales and profits. And it's often the bigger companies that have done too much upfront spending in order to dominate markets with volume. It's the companies with too many mouths to feed, too many product lines to keep afloat, and too many big factories to pay off that fail.

A company can survive a dwindling market and intense competition as long as it makes ends meet. We'd all love Ricoh to spend big on new marketing, new lenses, new cameras, bribing retailers, etc. But that's the path to almost certain death.

We talk about cell phones killing the P&S market but that's really just hyperbole. P&S still exists even if it's at a much lower volume. And it offers features cellphones don't (and probably never will) such as better photographic ergonomics, larger sensors, smaller bodies, optical zoom, super-rugged waterproofing, etc.

What interesting isn't how cellphones have replaced dedicated cameras but the fact that the number of different types of dedicated cameras continues to rise with new categories exemplified by the Theta, GoPro, Instax, and various Kickstarter camera ideas. You can buy all of these new kinds of cameras and all of the old kinds of cameras. Heck, you can still by new large format film cameras.

That's really where the photographic world is headed -- lots of different kinds of cameras, most sold in modest volumes.

In that kind of world, a smaller company can do fine even if they never try to crush competition, launch "game changers" (a notion that really doesn't exist), or try to be everything to everyone. The K-1 looks like a great success for Ricoh. At 7,000 units a month, it's probably bringing in $100 million a year which is surely enough to keep an engineering time working on the next camera(s) and lenses.