Originally posted by D1N0 Partly due to exchange rates. It is a very capable camera but it is going to punished for AF performance. Again... It offers IBIS and pixel shift res over Fuji (and weather sealing over the cheaper x-t20) But Fuji have Better AF and better Video. The AF isn't totally useless though but video will almost certainly be rudimentary on this camera. No monitoring jack, no HDMI, digital SR that does more bad than good for IQ.
I wasn't being critical of the price
necessarily, though it is difficult to read the post I made and not interpret it as critical. I simply observe, as you do, that this is an interesting camera that will appeal to a certain set of buyers, not the entire general Pentax customer base - and we shouldn't critique it based on 'general' expectations.
I wrote upthread I think this is a one-off, with a planned production run that they will make and move on. They've probably planed some quantifiable profit number ($1,000,000 or something, like a limited silver edition) and be happy to have it. Meanwhile, they're getting some experience with a couple of apparent new technologies - which is textbook Pentax. This could have been designated K-S3 just as easily.
I bought a K-01 pre-order. Still my favorite Pentax digital. There are probably 125,000 people on earth who will say that about KP in 5 years.