[johnmflores]

If Sony could not successfully compete with Nikon on DSLRs how can we expect Pentax to successfully compete with Sony on MILC?

I'm not talking about competing with Sony. I'm just talking about the camera that I want. It could be a complete flop and sell just 4 units. As long as I get mine I'm happy.

[photoptimist]

I'm not talking about competing with Sony. I'm just talking about the camera that I want. It could be a complete flop and sell just 4 units. As long as I get mine I'm happy.

LOL!

Now that's sentiment we can both agree on!

[Kunzite]

Please take your "complete flop" requests to some other brand; as I want Pentax to survive and continue making the products I want.

[Biro]

Please take your "complete flop" requests to some other brand; as I want Pentax to survive and continue making the products I want.

So do I. But I haven't added anything to my Pentax kit since the K-3 body. I'm happy about the K-1 for those Pentaxians who wanted a full-frame option. But I'm not one of them. I made a decision to get away from the size and weight of that kind of gear more than a decade ago. And I'm certainly not going to pay the going rate for K-1 lenses.

I'm patiently waiting to see what the new APS-C flagship will be. I suspect it will be priced at about the same point as the K-1, given the price of the KR. If that's the case, Pentax will have had to advance by leaps and bounds in terms of autofocus and video capability in order for me to even consider it. I'm not holding my breath.

In the meantime, I have my micro-four thirds and Fuji gear to sustain me. I don't think I'm alone. I'm willing to bet that many other Pentaxians have been dealing with the limitations of their kit by quietly buying into other systems. That's money that isn't being spent on Pentax.

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Last edited by Biro; 05-07-2017 at 08:19 AM.

[johnmflores]

Please take your "complete flop" requests to some other brand; as I want Pentax to survive and continue making the products I want.

I want Pentax to survive as well but they aren't paying anyone in this forum to be their product manager. And as a Q and K-01 owner, I have a unique affinity for their flops

[Kunzite]

I have no qualms with people buying into other brands; that's the smart thing to do if Pentax doesn't have what you want.
I'm talking here about expressed selfishness - which I guess was exaggerated to make some sort of a point. But what kind of point would that be? "I don't care about anyone but myself"? "Me, me, me, me"?

L.E. Nice to see that John Flores actually want Pentax to survive, instead of making series of 4 products (and go bankrupt in the process)
I'm more tempted by their success products, though. I have the K-1, and the 150-450, and I'm waiting for those primes...

[johnmflores]

I have no qualms with people buying into other brands; that's the smart thing to do if Pentax doesn't have what you want.
I'm talking here about expressed selfishness - which I guess was exaggerated to make some sort of a point. But what kind of point would that be? "I don't care about anyone but myself"? "Me, me, me, me"?

L.E. Nice to see that John Flores actually want Pentax to survive, instead of making series of 4 products (and go bankrupt in the process)
I'm more tempted by their success products, though. I have the K-1, and the 150-450, and I'm waiting for those primes...

Most peoples' "This is what the next Pentax camera should be in order for them to thrive" posts are little more than thinly veiled "This is what I want Pentax to make for me" posts anyway.

I thought that I'd just take the cover off of the charade

[Kunzite]

It's weird how so few seems to believe that Pentax can thrive with their successful products - one of them being the subject of this thread.

[Biro]

It's weird how so few seems to believe that Pentax can thrive with their successful products - one of them being the subject of this thread.

But is Pentax thriving? I wish I knew. I hope so but it seems like a Catch-22 situation. Ricoh keeps Pentax in the black by not spending too much money and moving along very slowly and cautiously when it comes to new product. But that policy also allows Pentax to fall further and further behind the competition, and forces otherwise loyal Pentaxians to seek what they want elsewhere.

[Kunzite]

"Thriving" wasn't introduced by me, and it wasn't introduced seriously. So I won't say if Pentax is (or will be) thriving... as a side note, there were people thinking that about Samsung, about 4/3 (which was supposed to replace the "film-era dinosaur mounts").
What I do know, is that now I have options unavailable just a few years ago. In my backpack.

I also know that their well-being is linked to long-term profitability, rather than with the ever changing demands and "strategies" made up on forums. I will observe again how this thread's subject - the K-1, selling not only to a small base of hardcore Pentaxians - is ignored. Even in your post, yes, how about the loyal Pentaxians who don't have to seek full frame DSLRs elsewhere?
What I'm seeing here is changing the goalposts. It was full frame, now it's whatever else and if they fix that, the goalposts would change again.

We all should learn to stop nitpicking, and look at the good things we could do with our tools.

[biz-engineer]

Is That your Biz?

That comes from being in a marketing function: add one feature, see how much value it represents in the eyes of the customer, if there is not competition set the price to maximum until customers can't buy.

[camyum]

^^^^THIS!!!

In Live View mode, a DSLR is an MILC. The only thing that current DSLRs lack is an EVF to preview/review images through a nice shaded eyepiece instead using the sun-bleached back panel.

Add an EVF and a DSLR offers the best of both worlds -- silent MILC mode and zero-lag, natural-image, low-power OVF mode -- along with every feature, control, and high-performance spec of a full-sized DSLR.

Why carry two bodies when all one wants is a small EVF integrated into the main pro-level camera?

I am totally with you. In live-view shutter is open, and the camera behaves (or could, given needed tech is implemented) like a MILC. Therefore a better on-sensor AF-system is needed, of which also video mode would profit.

Improvements on ELECTRONIC SHUTTER are heavily needed, nearly as much as improving AUTOFOCUS...

A hybrid viewfinder would be a cool thing to have. but i can live with using the main screen as a finder, if it doesnt come up that ricoh wants to spend a fortune on going into a technology others have dropped.(Fuji)
though they could improve on the excitation/drive-level of the Autofocus a bit for video mode.
I also do a bit of vid on wedding parties.

So i am thinking about switching back to Sony A9 or A7rII...

But what really would make me happy (and make the title of the thread true also maybe), would be if RICOH Imaging would work a bit more on the "Electric Shutter" function for the upcoming APS-C DSLR and the K-1s successor.

If you do weddings, a shutter as quiet as the one in Sonys A7II or the new A9 is just worth more than gold.
and also not a bad thing: it would save the mechanical shutters life and at the same time(when improving on ES), there would not be an excuse for not having at least 8fps in burst mode.


But at the moment, ES is only available in single frame mode.

[surfar]

But is Pentax thriving?

But that policy also allows Pentax to fall further and further behind the competition, and forces otherwise loyal Pentaxians to seek what they want elsewhere

The reality, "yesterdays hero" is a label that Pentax the brand wears well.


One lens a year, ive bought my one for this year...ha ha.....I'll keep pace with Pentax , but the other systems will get more attention.


Year of the Prime(s)....well its a third over!

[Winder]

If you do weddings, a shutter as quiet as the one in Sonys A7II

I shoot weddings and the A7II shutter is loud. Louder than the K-1 which is my primary camera.

Yes. Ricoh really needs to work on AF. It is much improved from the K-7 days, but it is still a generation or two behind when it comes to tracking a moving subject. If you are shooting a stationary subject, the K-1 with D-FA* 70-200mm is plenty fast enough and very accurate. Shooting the bride walking down the isle in bad light with a 31mm LTD and it hunts way too much. Mirrorless AF has surpassed what Ricoh has to offer. Hopefully Rich is dedicated enough the K-mount to invest in the needed technology. Face detection and eye-AF are major advantages if you are in the business of shooting people.

[Uluru]

Camera-makers are in the biz of selling gear.

If they think like that, then they better quit doing what they are doing.
In reality, they should be in the business of creating passion in people, to see and interpret the world, be imaginative.
"Selling gear" is only a capitalist prerogative, a prejudice of a current economic system that has worked out a certain way of production for more money making, not necessarily to satisfy certain human needs it 'apparently' wishes to satisfy. Humans can exist without such a mode of economy, and have existed without it.

A DSLR, produced in Japan by Asahi, or a rangefinder made by Leitz, on the other hand, came out not as a sales needed to make money, but as a creative exercise in solving of a particular creative problem to develop a visual expression. Whatever new came later on, wishes to compete against the established liberal art, and imposes itself as a sales tool. It has to. Therefore modern mirrorless is sales driven, care about real human need is secondary or tertiary concern, and takes all sorts of excuses telling us that "it solves problems". No, it is a stolen excuse, it is a lie.

Starting and then growing a new mount, like the EOS M, is a way to sell lots of new equipment. I would not rely on the old DSLR brands to just sit there and keep iterating the same old same old. Sooner or later, they will want to start with a clean sheet if only to secure future production savings and appeal to a new generation of customers. Maybe not tomorrow but it will happen, I think.

People still have same old same old eyes. Are we required to pluck them out when new artificial eyes arrive?

There is no clean sheet in anything. Clean sheet mean totally destroying the old paradigm, even the memory of it. That is also a false preset of the evolutionism — just a quick glance at a complex world or different organisms around shows it is an utterly wrong view, forced by competitive and merciless capitalism, which destroys itself because it follows such a 'clean sheet view'. That is a parasitic view, but even parasites stop at a certain obstacle — when there is no enough food, or the environment is too hostile. Yet 'clean sheet' view is so irrational it itself alive.

It is destructive, as is visible from trends that arose in various forms in economy and politics from WW2 onwards. It is sustainable insofar as there is lots of propaganda and deluding of audience, and enough of 'old environment' to draw the energy from. But when the old environment is gone, gone is life too.

'Clean sheet' is too blind to see it.