[Blue]

I have an inside source at Pentax. The told me that they are working and a limited production special release DSLR that only a very select few will get. It is called the k20d "RH" edition. What it does is that when the shutter release is pressed, the user gets a 20,000 volt zap in the underpants. It should work great for portraits because the photographer will no longer have to "say cheese."

[jake123]

Bloomberg? Nikkei Financial News? Hoya themselves??

What's the quote from Ned's email tells actually? Anything that we don't know or have already known well?

Yet, he've told one more fact. Canon and Nikon are both profitable, despite that their profits declined (ditto Hoya). But, how about Pentax?

In Hoya's report, it is told that the camera business is to be downsized and production volume is to be cut to save cost. Hoya bash Pentax??

You subject title in your OP doesn't make any sense at all, I would say, Lance.

Last but not least, why not invite Ned to post his views and some insider knowledge that can be disclosed directly instead of you copied his words for him? Would it be more direct and messages will be more exact?

I think you guys should look at the words only and not the person. And realize that you guys are just rationalizers(I am one too but I am aware of it).

Every CEO must speak in that optimistic way. Pentax imaging division is still not getting the amount of support it should(according to some of you, self sustaining???). Pentax is still not able to reach the 10% profit mark Hoya imposed.

But it's still best to see what Pentax does in Photokina before making any conclusions or become too optimistic.

[wlank]

What a bunch of Turkey Lurkeys!!! You are all so blind that you cannot see. The threat is real; Pentax is dead. As soon as all you misguided people see this you will admit I am right. When benjikan gets his hands on this beauty, that's it. Maybe he won't read this post. Or maybe his agreement with Holga is long term, like until 2023 or something, maybe even 2034.

[kenyee]

The Arches are Falling! The Arches are Falling!
Gravity, erosion rob Utah park of popular arch - CNN.com

On a different note, Canon is losing way more market share than Pentax is. Nikon is on a serious roll w/ the D300/D3/D700/D90. The Canon XSI is just a lukewarm response IMHO. For anyone starting out w/o any gear, I'd be pointing them at a Nikon D90 if they had to choose only from Canikon...

[Blue]

I think you guys should look at the words only and not the person. And realize that you guys are just rationalizers(I am one too but I am aware of it).

Every CEO must speak in that optimistic way. Pentax imaging division is still not getting the amount of support it should(according to some of you, self sustaining???). Pentax is still not able to reach the 10% profit mark Hoya imposed.

But it's still best to see what Pentax does in Photokina before making any conclusions or become too optimistic.

Yeah yeah, but most people don't know Pentax is still around. Most think they died in 1990 or some such thing.

Edit: I still want to see the special edition K20D RH manufactured for a select few people.

[Ash]

Oh no! Quick, transfer all shares onto the Spongebob squarepants ltd edn flash camera co.!
Look out Pentax, they may liquidate you!

[benjikan]

What a bunch of Turkey Lurkeys!!! You are all so blind that you cannot see. The threat is real; Pentax is dead. As soon as all you misguided people see this you will admit I am right. When benjikan gets his hands on this beauty, that's it. Maybe he won't read this post. Or maybe his agreement with Holga is long term, like until 2023 or something, maybe even 2034.

I am already sponsored by "Sponge Bob Square Pants" camera's...They are so bad that they are GOOOOODDDDDD!!!

Ben

[Gooshin]

couple of points

Hoya has only bee at the wheel for a couple of months, why such press releases or rumors bothering anyone is beyond me...

Ben still owes me money for predicting the FF pentax that is not going to come out by the end of this year

I think canon is plummeting because they havent done anything yet to replace the 5D and the 40D in my opinion is a serious flop compared to everything else that came out (as a previous poster mentioned)

OR, they are planning something BIG, id watch out.

Rice HIgh needs to be left alone and ignored.

um

that is all for now.

[Lance B]

Bloomberg? Nikkei Financial News? Hoya themselves??

What's the quote from Ned's email tells actually? Anything that we don't know or have already known well?

Well, *you* didn't know it. It's *much* better than *your* hypothesis of doom and gloom with *NO* proof or facts to back it up.

Yet, he've told one more fact. Canon and Nikon are both profitable, despite that their profits declined (ditto Hoya). But, how about Pentax?

But both Canon and Nikon suffered the same reductions in revenue due to a shrinking market which is the result of a global mini recession and the *only* reason that Pentax was not profitible was that the purchase by Hoya was the acquisition cost was factored in. Canon and Nikon didn't have any acquisition costs that needed to be factored in.

In Hoya's report, it is told that the camera business is to be downsized and production volume is to be cut to save cost. Hoya bash Pentax??

What?? How do you ascertain that parallel? This is called restructuring and streamlining like all companies do when they acquire another company. You seem to think that the loss, due to the acquisition *cost* of Pentax to Hoya, means that the Pentax/Hoya tie up is therefore not profitible long term. How you can come to this conclusion is quite a mystery at this *very* early stage.

When Ford purchased Jaguar, they too had a loss in the Jaguar division due to this acquisition. I could tout any number of acquisitions where the parent company or subsidiary made a subsequent loss *due* to the acquisition cost. This is a standard result in most if not all acquisitions of this magnitude.

You subject title in your OP doesn't make any sense at all, I would say, Lance.

To *you* it doesn't make sense, but to everyone else it does. You see, *you* want Pentax to fail so that you can prance around and say I told you so.

Last but not least, why not invite Ned to post his views and some insider knowledge that can be disclosed directly instead of you copied his words for him? Would it be more direct and messages will be more exact?

Because Ned told me to post it for him. It would be no more *exact*, as you put it, because what I posted *is exactly* what he sent me in his email. Go look on DPR and see that he responded there and didn't say anything against the veracity of my post.

[Marc Langille]

Bah! Talk that Pentax is dying indeed....

I'm going to suggest a novel idea: I'm going to take photos and master the tools, not suggest gloom and doom...

Seriously (well, I am sort of serious about the second point) Lance, I am glad you posted this: it's important to remember why we chose Pentax - a sane (not insane) price and wonderful image quality. I'll stand behind my photos any day - and I still chose Pentax!!!!

Sincerely,
Marc

[dadipentak]

I read it as trimming sails in a very tough market--there's just not a whole lot of consumer cash sloshing about (and it may very well get worse.).

[RiceHigh]

To *you* it doesn't make sense, but to everyone else it does. You see, *you* want Pentax to fail so that you can prance around and say I told you so.

Lance, don't get it personal. You didn't do that years ago at DPR and I did respect you. But why you have changed now? :-(

But since I treat you as one of my old friends, I beg you to think about WHY I want to see Pentax failed. Why? (You do not need to answer me, just think yourself to see if there is any reason(s) for me to do so.)

Whether you believe it or not, you see me so negative just because there are many important things of the present Pentax bodies and system are just performing so "negative". To name a few, inaccurate and inconsistent metering, slow(er) AF, insensitive AF and hunting at indoor, non-intelligent predictive AF with lower hit rate, lower FPS, tungsten AF front focusing, hot sensor and so on. There is still no compact and lightweight entry level DSLR, too. Well, the newest digital lenses do not reproduce the good old taste and colors as the old traditional Pentax glass, too (not too old, just those FA lenses designed in the 90s, say)

If there are some real improvements in their bodies and lineup, I would be glad and happiest forever to report that in my blog and changed that into a Pentax "praising" blog. But not until Pentax/Hoya will have a real determination to do so and take actions to make things real, I bet you will continue to hate me just like what you and some others do to me now.

On the other hand, I do hate the slow and little progress for Pentax to improve their system nor I can see Hoya now plan to invest more to make the system stronger and to make Pentax products more competitive (by debugging and upgrading the longly persistent weaknesses/bugs and to introduce new *innovations* which others DSLR makers haven't made yet).

Furthermore, the most annoying thing is that the latest Pentax star primes are also asking for ridiculous high prices by Hoya since these were marketed. Take the DA*300/4 for example, it is now selling at HK$13,000 whereas the Canon EF 300/4 L is just at HK$9600 *whilst* a FA*300/4.5 sold at 2003 was only HK$5400. With such a new pricing strategy set by Hoya, which is indeed very wrong and it is nothing different than commit suicide. Even Canonians hate some ridiculous high price tags of some very fast or super tele L lenses but now that the Pentax glass are priced even more ridiculously and they are far more difficult to find. Well, we shouldn't forget Pentax is NOT Canon. Canon does always have pro or up-market bodies to support sales of those high-priced lenses and a solid user base as well, Pentax does NOT. The only way they could survive is to reasonable price their lenses with good to outstanding optical performance, just like they did before. Only that there is a reason to go Pentax, otherwise, there is none, even the DA* are priced near the L. Do note in Canon land, there is also cheaper L and expensive L, so the users have at least 3 levels of lenses (class) to choose from, for the same focal or focal range.

Because Ned told me to post it for him. It would be no more *exact*, as you put it, because what I posted *is exactly* what he sent me in his email. Go look on DPR and see that he responded there and didn't say anything against the veracity of my post.

So, afterall, you mean a single Ned's personal email to you is more official, important and true than the quarterly financial report published by Hoya to their shareholders?

[ZaphodB]

The Arches are Falling! The Arches are Falling!
Gravity, erosion rob Utah park of popular arch - CNN.com

On a different note, Canon is losing way more market share than Pentax is. Nikon is on a serious roll w/ the D300/D3/D700/D90. The Canon XSI is just a lukewarm response IMHO. For anyone starting out w/o any gear, I'd be pointing them at a Nikon D90 if they had to choose only from Canikon...

Got to agree with you there. Contrary to what you will read on many posts here, there is no such entity as Canikon... there is a company named Canon who produce some nice kit, save it for people with vast amounts of money and then offload cheap plastic crap on everyone else, and are horrible to do business with. There is also a company called Nikon who, like Pentax, actually put decent lenses on their consumer cameras, and unlike Canon, they give the impression that they actually have some regard for their customers and the companies they work with. JMHO

I don't mean this as a dig at RH or other Canon users. Honestly I don't. They make some great gear, but their entry-level stuff is substandard, especially in build quality and especially considering the prices. My experiences of dealing with the company have not been good and I don't believe I'm alone there. Therefore I would always recommend a first-time buyer choose Nikon over Canon.

P.s. this rant was prompted by a number of recent conversations with people who have never heard of Nikon, much less Pentax, Olympus etc, yet are convinced that Canon make the best cameras... the power of advertising

[codiac2600]

Lance, don't get it personal. You didn't do that years ago at DPR and I did respect you. But why you have changed now? :-(

But since I treat you as one of my old friends, I beg you to think about WHY I want to see Pentax failed. Why? (You do not need to answer me, just think yourself to see if there is any reason(s) for me to do so.)

Whether you believe it or not, you see me so negative just because there are many important things of the present Pentax bodies and system are just performing so "negative". To name a few, inaccurate and inconsistent metering, slow(er) AF, insensitive AF and hunting at indoor, non-intelligent predictive AF with lower hit rate, lower FPS, tungsten AF front focusing, hot sensor and so on. There is still no compact and lightweight entry level DSLR, too. Well, the newest digital lenses do not reproduce the good old taste and colors as the old traditional Pentax glass, too (not too old, just those FA lenses designed in the 90s, say)

If there are some real improvements in their bodies and lineup, I would be glad and happiest forever to report that in my blog and changed that into a Pentax "praising" blog. But not until Pentax/Hoya will have a real determination to do so and take actions to make things real, I bet you will continue to hate me just like what you and some others do to me now.

On the other hand, I do hate the slow and little progress for Pentax to improve their system nor I can see Hoya now plan to invest more to make the system stronger and to make Pentax products more competitive (by debugging and upgrading the longly persistent weaknesses/bugs and to introduce new *innovations* which others DSLR makers haven't made yet).

Furthermore, the most annoying thing is that the latest Pentax star primes are also asking for ridiculous high prices by Hoya since these were marketed. Take the DA*300/4 for example, it is now selling at HK$13,000 whereas the Canon EF 300/4 L is just at HK$9600 *whilst* a FA*300/4.5 sold at 2003 was only HK$5400. With such a new pricing strategy set by Hoya, which is indeed very wrong and it is nothing different than commit suicide. Even Canonians hate some ridiculous high price tags of some very fast or super tele L lenses but now that the Pentax glass are priced even more ridiculously and they are far more difficult to find. Well, we shouldn't forget Pentax is NOT Canon. Canon does always have pro or up-market bodies to support sales of those high-priced lenses and a solid user base as well, Pentax does NOT. The only way they could survive is to reasonable price their lenses with good to outstanding optical performance, just like they did before. Only that there is a reason to go Pentax, otherwise, there is none, even the DA* are priced near the L. Do note in Canon land, there is also cheaper L and expensive L, so the users have at least 3 levels of lenses (class) to choose from, for the same focal or focal range.



So, afterall, you mean a single Ned's personal email to you is more official, important and true than the quarterly financial report published by Hoya to their shareholders?

your price comparisons make no sense RH...

Most of those inexpensive L series lenses have been around for many years... 5+ to be exact and as they refine production and demand drops so does the price. You really need to STOP bringing in falso information into this without doing all the research.

Not too mention all the L stands for is "Less likely to be a bad copy" unless it's a unique lens like the 85mm 1.2 (which has tons of bad copies) or the DO lenses.

Pentax is working on new lens diagrams or revised diagrams and building everything up from scratch for the most part, while Canon has been making the same danged lenses for 5+ years in which the price starting was higher and the US dollar was stronger. New lenses for canon... um, 75-300 mkIII, the 18-55IS and the 55-250IS. New lenses for Pentax in the same time frame... um 50-135, 16-50, 17-70, 18-250, 300, 200, 55-300, 18-55II and the 35 Macro. We will soon see many new lenses that will make almost every shooter happy.

Can't wait for the 5D replacement myself. 45 Af points, faster drive finally, weathersealed, but heck the D900 already did all this and for the same sale price

[deejjjaaaa]

Pentax is working on new lens diagrams or revised diagrams and building everything up from scratch for the most part.... New lenses for Pentax in the same time frame...18-250

poor tamron