Originally posted by dstar Do you really filling they paid attention about our worry
Pentax/Ricoh has to choose between customers and I assume it's not easy. It's impossible to satisfy everyone's needs given how small is Ricoh as a player in the photo market. It's imposible also for Canon or Nikon to satisfy all the needs of photographers, but at least they have a mature system behind.
As I said, there are:
1. customers like Rondec who will buy new cameras and lenses (first class clients),
2. customers like Normhead (second class clients) who bought K1 and use it with legacy lenses or with third party lenses due to the fact that there are not f4 zoom lenses and no wide angle primes
3. customers that buy only second hand products and these clients are good because they count as numbers, not for increasing the sales
The problem of the lenses will be solved someday (we don't know when but I'm pretty sure it will not be in 1-3 years) so some Pentaxians are waiting the slow release of Pentax lenses given the fact that they don't make a living from photography or simply because the trinity from Pentax is enough for them.
The problems for Pentax are (in my opinion):
1. the customers who start to invest in a second system to fill some gaps in Pentax line. These are difficult clients because they can leave Pentax if they find that the other system is more suited to their style so they sell their Pentax gear to finance the aquisition of lenses for the other system.
2. the lack of new customers (25 to 50 years old) due to:
- slow release of new lenses
- articles which are missleading regarding the future of the Pentax, regarding the af or the lenses, etc.
3. the new generation of photographers who don't have a clue about Pentax and they don't give a .... about legacy lenses. Some will say that they don't count so much, but they do because they spend money blinded by aggressive marketing.
Ricoh has to pay atention to what their customers are doing since K1 was launched and with all this craziness about mirrorless, they have another difficult choice to make: stay with DSLR and became even more a niche company due to their lack of marketing or try to keep their market share by doing something to be seen in the online market.
---------- Post added 06-07-18 at 09:26 AM ----------
Originally posted by Rondec Most of these are T4i/T5I type cameras with kit lenses or D3200s. I have seen occasional Sonys, but never an Olympus or Pentax.
It's because these cameras are:
- cheap
- well marketed (Canon makes videos in which they say about their entry level cameras that are suited to action, to families with active kids, etc.)
- can be found everywhere
The former Nikon ambassador from Romania went to Olympus and I'm amazed about how many people jumped to Olympus because of him. Even guys with D500, D810, 5D Mark IV sold their gear and went to Olympus. A single guy changed the sales figures a lot in Romania for Olympus. Could Ricoh would have benefit from a guy like this? We don't know since no one from Pentax Romania approached him and ask him what he want to promote Pentax. Now Sony and Fuji wants to give him cameras for tests hoping that he will leave Olympus.
But if Ricoh is expecting to see clients falling from the sky without doing anything to attract them...