Originally posted by clackers Did you know mirrorless is losing customers too, Socrateeze? Sony down in sales, Canon and Nikon who went mirrorless saw their sales drop instead of rise, and Samsung exited the mirrorless camera market altogether because people didn't buy them?
You should spend your money how you like, but I reckon it's a mistake to think the rest of the world somehow reflects your choice. I think the number of people who will actually buy the $3500 RIV will be disappointingly small to Sony, as I'm guessing was even more the case with the A9.
I appreciate the response. My point about Pentax's long-term future relates to *market share* rather than absolute sales. Yes. I know mirrorless FF sales are dropping too. But the DSLR drop in sales is proportionately larger, is it not? That is, within the FF market there is a shift towards mirrorless and away from DSLR.
To compete in a significantly shrinking FF market a camera manufacturer needs to move with the wants of its potential customer base - ideally, they should move ahead of it (as I think Sony did, at least judging by their hugely increased market share), but that is obviously not easy to do. The alternative survival strategy is to master a niche market, and perhaps that is what FF DSLR is becoming. So unless you can tell me that Pentax's market share is increasing, I think my point stands. Honestly, I'd love to be shown that I was wrong on this.
I thought I had made it clear enough that I am perfectly aware that my needs do not reflect the needs of everyone else or even most people. If I were studio based, for instance, it would be a whole different story.
---------- Post added 08-16-19 at 04:45 PM ----------
Originally posted by Serkevan Unless it's manual focus! :P
My Tokina 80-200 F4 is around 500 g, give or take. Not too large, either.
Jokes aside, it does look like if someone wants light gear, the best option is APS-C; the sensors and the lenses are up there for the most part, it feels like... the 50-135 F2.8 is a bit less than the weight of a typical 70-200 F4 and from the pictures I've seen, the results are not much different either.
Yes, APS-C is lighter, all else being equal. But all else is not equal. Just as medium format is (all else being equal) heavier than FF and smartphones are a whole lot lighter than APS-C. There is always going to be some degree of compromise between quality of image and weight carried. Where one finds the sweet spot depends on each individual and that is dependent on such things as their age and physical fitness in relation to their photographic interests and goals – and there is no universal right or wrong answer. It's all a matter of what burdens we are prepared to (literally) shoulder for the gain we are hoping to achieve.
In my case I have a particular standard of image that I am aiming for and I'm seeking the lightest weight where I can still manage to achieve those goals. And for me, that is at FF. For many years I used just a Ricoh GR when out in the backcountry, which imo packs more image quality into a small and light camera than any other I've used. For the quality of image that I now seek in my landscape photography I need the combination of resolution and dynamic range that FF gives me. I'd take medium format if I had the physical strength and resolve, but for me, that imposes too high of a weight burden (not to mention expense).
---------- Post added 08-16-19 at 04:46 PM ----------
Originally posted by thibs Promise? What promise ? The roadmap is no promise. Never has been, never will be.
The lens road map said it would be a "Spring 2019" release. And it wasn't. When a manufacturer says something about what they will do and when they will do it – which is precisely what a lens roadmap does – it sets up a reasonable expectation with their customers about when things will happen. If a lens roadmap is not telling us what they will do and when they will do it, then I have no idea what a lens roadmap is for. It doesn't matter whether it is spoken or a lens map or whatever, so long as it is for public consumption to convey information about future actions. In my idiom, saying to your customers that you will do something at a certain time amounts to a promise that you will do something at a certain time. And when they don't, that counts as a broken promise. But lest this get bogged down in semantics, try to keep in mind that my *point* is that it is very frustrating and annoying, whether we call it a broken promise or not.