[mille19]

Sales for this K-1ii will highly depend on whether you guys that own it upgrade or K3 owners decide it's worth the jump.

I can't see this upgrade making any difference to K3 owners, if they wanted FF they would have gone for the K1.

[MadMathMind]

I think adding this tech to the K-1 makes a lot of sense. Pentax seems to be betting pretty heavily on appealing to those who value image quality above all else. But not improving the AF might piss a lot of people off...there certainly doesn't appear to be any innovation going on.

At the end of the day, improving the image quality of the camera only goes so far when we're stuck with lenses from yesteryear. I get that Canon and Nikon recycle designs too and use a lot of their film era lenses with minor updates (Canon especially), but they do have a healthy stock of lenses designed for high resolution sensors. Pentax has few at the moment.

Of course I would have liked the K-1 II to have 100 AF points like everyone else, or improved video. But perhaps it's time to accept that Pentax will always be behind in these areas.

It seems that's the case. The issue is the AF tech. It's a good 5-8 years behind at this point. There's really no excuse for that now.

When I shoot at f/2 with the DA*55, the only high resolution normal lens for the K-1, my keep rate is like 20%, if that. I have to shoot 10 images to get one or two that are fully sharp; most are close but off by just a bit. I've really gotten tired of it. A new lens would be nice but it's been two years and Pentax still hasn't produced the 50mm we've been promised....

For those that are already unhappy with Pentax I can see there may be more reasons now to go away (although high expectations for a totally different II model is what might ruined it for them). I have to say something and I'm really serious about that! Before you jump ship find good reasons for doing so (e.g. much better AF-C performance, more FPS, deeper buffer, more lens options). There are many. I would advice them though to shoot side by side with some good photographers with D850 and 5DIV with top lenses and compare the results

The image quality of the K-1 is quite good. That's not an issue, really. The product line, however, is. More than that, the message this sends is not one of confidence. It's been two years since the K-1 came out and we've gotten what for it? NOT ONE NEW FF LENS in that time. This update, to me, says "This is our product and our product line and it's not going to improve." Feels like the K-1 was a bone they threw to long-time Pentax users but they either don't have the interest or the resources to develop it into a product line that can remotely compete with the offerings from Canon and Nikon.

And I'm not even talking about having two hundred crazy lenses in weird focal lengths. A modern 35mm. A modern 50mm. A modern 85mm. We have none of those. The 24-70 is a rebadge. We've been waiting for two years for some of these products and gotten nothing.

A friend of mine had the 645Z and really loved the camera. The lack of third party support (i.e., his flash equipment which said it would work with HSS and just didn't despite his efforts) and a sense of "This is all I'm going to get" is what made him abandon it for Fuji. I may finally understand.

[Winder]

A little disappointed in the specs if true. The 36MP sensor is a great sensor, and more than enough, but its is an older slower sensor. The entire imaging pipeline with the exception of the "accelerator" chip appears to be the same. All the accelerator does is apply low level NR to the RAW file. There is no reason to update to USB 3.1 or UHS-II if the rest of the system is too slow to take advantage of the faster speeds.

This camera should probably be the K-1.02 since it appears to be more of a refinement than a new version. The only features I was hoping to see were improved AF, bigger buffer, faster write speeds and over all a faster camera.

Any word on the 645z update?

[dafbp]

It's an interesting update, although I was expecting a change in 1 of the major gripes K1 owners talk about here (AF, SD, buffer). Not bad, though, especially if the price difference is as rumoured.
It would be very interesting if the accelerator chip was also applied to Pixelshift images. Improve the improved...
Like some others, I was expecting them to try out some improvements for K3ii successor, especially AF (which would make it an option). I hope it's only a technical/time constraint, and not a lack of improvement.
Not enough to pull me from waiting for K3ii successor, though.

[Gutta Perka]

I can hardly believe this rumor anymore. Is that all?
I'll withdraw my ad selling my K1 - and keeping it.
I believe others as well will keep their K1's. And some new ones will buy a cheap second hand K1 instead of the new K1II.
Not good for Pentax Inc.

However - is there an unknown K2 coming very soon.

If You know Your K1 O (O-riginal) - it's still a very good camera properly used.

In a way I now do not believe the rumor anymore however I believe something is going on.
Anyway - I find my K3 more used than my K1.

[Rondec]

Let's wait just a bit to see what sort of high iso images that come out from it and what the differences are in pixel shift/stabilization. I'm certainly not going to rush out to get one, my K-1 is just fine, but it is amazing how easy it is to start salivating over new gear when you start seeing clean 100K iso photos showing up.

[BigMackCam]

I can hardly believe this rumor anymore.

It's best not to believe any rumours, period. We get ourselves so worked up about what could and might be, it's a wonder Ricoh / Pentax ever manages to release something we're happy with

Let's wait just a bit to see what sort of high iso images that come out from it and what the differences are in pixel shift/stabilization. I'm certainly not going to rush out to get one, my K-1 is just fine, but it is amazing how easy it is to start salivating over new gear when you start seeing clean 100K iso photos showing up.

I couldn't agree more.

Someone mentioned earlier that the high ISO performance is only useful for low light sports shooting, but I disagree. A significant number of my shots are in low light - both indoor and outdoor scenes, where I don't necessarily want to compromise depth-of-field with a wide aperture. The K-1 would do a much better job than my ageing K-3 and K-3II as far as noise is concerned, but I can't wait to see what the K-1II will manage with the KP's processor. I think that has potential to be very special indeed.

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Last edited by BigMackCam; 02-14-2018 at 09:45 AM.

[Wheatfield]

What did people expect? The K-1 is not that old really. It looks like a typical “II” update to me. This is all that the original Nokishita rumor indicated anyway. All the other parts about new sensors and so on were embellishments from commentators.

The K-5 IIs was a similar kind of minor update, and I remember it was met with similarly dismissive comments. But it turned out to be a very good camera - the K-5 with the little issues ironed out. I really like my K-5 IIs, even though I was a late adopter. I imagine that people who have been holding off on the K-1 will find the K-1 II a great camera. Also nice to see a lens kit option. That makes it easier to get on board Pentax full frame. The K-1 will have to get cheaper too.

Of course, if what you want is “newness” then this is not the announcement you’re waiting for. It will be interesting to see what else appears at CP+. I guess the pricing and availability of the DFA 50 will be leaked soon.

Calling it a version 2 of the same model is saying that it isn't a brand new camera, but rather the old camera with a few improvements. People who are looking at this with disappointment for it not being an all new product need to look at what Ricoh is calling it, not what they want Ricoh to be calling it.

[OTH]

Let's wait just a bit to see what sort of high iso images that come out from it and what the differences are in pixel shift/stabilization. I'm certainly not going to rush out to get one, my K-1 is just fine, but it is amazing how easy it is to start salivating over new gear when you start seeing clean 100K iso photos showing up.

The noise-reduction-unit from the K-70 / KP improves the quality between ISO 200-800. The new K-1 II is a nice facelift but i agree that there is no reason for K-1 users to upgrade.

[6BQ5]

Let’s also see what kind of unmentioned mechanical improvements we’ll get. Will there be upgraded to the mirror, shutter, and viewfinder? Just because it wasn’t mentioned doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

Also, consider if there were any changes to the supply. Perhaps some internal components are “obsolete” by the supplier and Ricoh needs to find a new vendor. That can drive a lot of under the hood changes we can’t suspect.

Prices for both new and used original K-1 units will go down with the release of the Mark 2 unit. This could be good for new Pentaxians who want to get in bed with FF at a lower price. Look at the used Sony A7 bodies. Remember how much they were new? It’s almost like a carnal sin not to have an A7 II now.

So, I’m happy for the upcoming Mark 2 even if I skip it and wait for the next model after it.

[Kunzite]

Let's wait just a bit to see what sort of high iso images that come out from it and what the differences are in pixel shift/stabilization. I'm certainly not going to rush out to get one, my K-1 is just fine, but it is amazing how easy it is to start salivating over new gear when you start seeing clean 100K iso photos showing up.

I must say, I was a bit jealous seeing how later models got the accelerator unit and the K-1 didn't

[pres589]

It seems like many people here are angry and hurt over this news. I assume many of those folks are K-1 owners. If any of them are so upset that they want to be rid of their K-1 at a good discount, send me a PM, because I will give them pennies on the dollar to help get that nasty camera out of their hands. I do this as a service to the community.

[derekkite]

A manufacturing refresh. That usually means an almost total reworking of the internals to lower costs of production, drop the chip count, etc. These things are made up of parts manufactured by a bunch of other people, and after 2-3 years those products have all changed as well for the same reason.

The D850 is an amazing body but too expensive. Likely something like that was considered, but a $3-4K body was decided against.

The K1 stacks up extremely well against it's similar priced competition who all have lower resolution or a different design entirely. $1700 is still a very expensive camera body.

As for resources, software rewrites are extremely resource intensive.

I'm seeing people buying the D500.

Is an upgrade that improves image quality insignificant now to photographers?

[troenaas]

It seems like many people here are angry and hurt over this news. I assume many of those folks are K-1 owners. If any of them are so upset that they want to be rid of their K-1 at a good discount, send me a PM, because I will give them pennies on the dollar to help get that nasty camera out of their hands. I do this as a service to the community.

+1

- news? what news? - just rumors.......

[LeeRunge]

Is an upgrade that improves image quality insignificant now to photographers?

I'd say yes to some, myself included. I jumped to D750 over K-1 as I'm ok with 24mp but had higher priority in AF and lens options.

If the D760 or whatever it's called is 36mp as rumored with D5 AF that is a tough call vs the K-1ii for customers IMO. Right now K-1 is a definitive image quality advantage in it's price bracket but for how long? The A7R and Rii are rapidly closing on the K-1's price point as well, they're 1799 and 2400 today.

Those A7xx series need a battery magazine compared to ILC though.