Originally posted by Zygonyx Yes, we all know how Leica as an other "niche player", has made rangefinder his own success for at least 50 following years.
It's a way of presenting things. All rangefinder camera makers, but one (Leica) stopped producing rangefinder cameras or simply disappeared.
Leica, or rather Leitz as their name was at that time, had a diversified production: rangefinder cameras, SLR cameras, microscopes, binoculars, riflescopes, geosurvey equipment and more. They struggled a lot from the mid-eighties onwards, merging with Wild Heerbrugg, then being split into three separate companies, the camera company abandoning their SLR activity, raising fresh money from Hermes,...
Leica Camera almost went belly up at the beginning of the millennium but were saved by a man, Dr Andreas Kaufmann, who invested almost all his family's money (obtained from the sale of the family assets in the paper industry) and succeeded in turning around the moribund Leica Camera in transforming them from a camera and lens company into a luxury company.
But Leica Camera are still, in their own way, a diversified company: they sell rangefinder cameras but also high-end compact cameras, mirrorless cameras, both APS-C and 24x36, medium format DSLR cameras, instant cameras, cinema lenses, binoculars, spotting scopes, riflescopes, golf rangefinders,... They are a diversified niche player and a luxury brand with the prices and margins this luxury status gives them access to.
Setting aside the fact that Pentax as a brand is far less diversified than Leica Camera is as a company, one could imagine a wealthy, astute and obstinate Korean heir doing for the Pentax brand what Dr Kaufmann (who is wealthy, astute, obstinate and Austrian, not German) did for Leica.
I'm sure many people on this forum would be thrilled by the perspective of Pentax being invigorated, investing a lot in new factories, tools, products and dedicated stores, launching new product lines (such as mirrorless cameras
) and more generally becoming the Asian Leica.
Would they be equally thrilled if the price of the K-1's successor, or its successor's successor, went up to $6,895 with 24x36 prime lenses being priced between $1,445 and $10,995?