[Mistral75]

(...)

They key is to find out why market share is this low, and a good indicator of what sells is to look at succesful comparison sources. They dictate part of the market and are in this position because they found out, what people care for.
No matter how "wrong" the reasons are.

...and/or have heavily spent in various forms of marketing, which Ricoh Imaging haven't and don't.

Yet I am with you when you say that Pentax equipment is very good overall but might lack the 'je ne sais quoi' that attracts people. Weather resistance and sensor stabilisation were such assets at some point but are much more widespread nowadays. Pixel shift or astrophotography capabilities haven't had the same appeal.

Ricoh GR III is an example of a camera with a unique positioning/proposal. Its sales are excellent, well above forecast, even though it doesn't benefit from more marketing efforts than Pentax equipment.

[reh321]

It's also the reason why Ricoh made the holy trinity of f/2.8 zooms available when the K-1 was launched, even though they had to contract two of them to Tamron to overcome their limited development resources.

Ironically enough, while we were having this discussion, a member not in it spoke highly of the f 28-80 f/2.8, which again raises the issue of Pentax's wealth in older lenses
New zoom 70-200 F4 - Page 65 - PentaxForums.com

[Mistral75]

(...)

You say "concentrate on what ever Pentax can be better than others" after talking about f/2.8 lenses almost exclusively. I have a news flash for you: Pentax's strength is not in making modern lenses. Pentax's strength is the 'accelerator", which you will find out if you ever get a modern Pentax system.

The so-called accelerator, i.e. an LSI assisting the main image processor, is not specific to Pentax. Other manufacturers such as Fujifilm and Sony also use the same kind of device.

[reh321]

Particularly since we're assumed to be rabid fanboys which would defend the brand no matter what
Say something negative, completely made up, and it "must" be much worse, right?

I am not sure how you would classify me.

I believe Pentax has real strong points - otherwise I would not have switched back to them from Canon in 2015, so I object to the 'made up' negatives - but I agree with the real negatives. For example, I believe something was going on they weren't talking about that resulted in their running out of the K-3ii over a year before its replacement {which this thread is supposed to be about} was ready.

[Mistral75]

(...) Pentax showed a great deal of interest in the K-1, releasing the K-1ii with its 'accelerator' much earlier than refreshing the K-3ii with an 'accelerator'.

I don't exactly get your point since the K-70 (2016) and KP (2017) included such accelerator before the K-1 II (2018).

[reh321]

The so-called accelerator, i.e. an LSI assisting the main image processor, is not specific to Pentax. Other manufacturers such as Fujifilm and Sony also use the same kind of device.

I have heard only about Pentax in this regard - mostly complaints from those who are offended by the thought of not having 'raw' files be an exact transcript from the sensor.

I do know that Pentax has much better high ISO performance than Nikon and Canon do.

[reh321]

I don't exactly get your point since the K-70 (2016) and KP (2017) included such accelerator before the K-1 II (2018).

My point was that the K-1ii was released much earlier than expected, so no one can should complain that Pentax has neglected full frame.

[Kunzite]

I have heard only about Pentax in this regard - mostly complaints from those who are offended by the thought of not having 'raw' files be an exact transcript from the sensor.

Perhaps a combination of double standards ("Star Eater on steroids") and Pentax offering us the chance to compare basically the same camera with and without the accelerator.
Of course everyone is processing their "RAW" files... but they get away with it, unless there's some obvious damage. Unless they're Pentax.

[Mistral75]

I have heard only about Pentax in this regard - mostly complaints from those who are offended by the thought of not having 'raw' files be an exact transcript from the sensor.

(...)

No RAW files are an exact transcript from the sensor: they would be awfully noisy. Before the addition of LSIs RAW files were processed by the image processor only. Now the latter is assisted by an LSI.

See below: Bionz is Sony's name for the image processor (Ricoh's is Prime) and the LSI is the other chip with Sony written on it.

[Mistral75]

My point was that the K-1ii was released much earlier than expected, so no one can should complain that Pentax has neglected full frame.

The K-1 could have had included an LSI from day one (announced four months later, the K-70 did) except that its development took a lot of time. Ricoh started to develop the K-1 before coupling an LSI with the image processor became usual (same reason for the K-1 using the USB 2.0 protocol instead of USB 3.0) and didn't want to further differ its launch to integrate the LSI. They chose to launch the K-1 Mark II two years later instead.

[reh321]

They don't have a competitor for the accelerator because most of what the accelerator does can be more-or-less replicated in post processing. And they have their own version anyway; aggressive lens corrections are exactly the same thing. Although, those being a not-Pentax thing, their raw baking-in gets a free pass

’Baked In’ is a myth, because it simply means the photographer cannot reverse the process - so what? People do not want to add original noise back into an image, Pentax has said they use info not in the ‘raw’ file, and the process as implemented by Pentax does not ‘eat stars’.

[monochrome]

The K-01 was developed during the Hoya era, therefore you can't blame Ricoh for going back and forth by terminating it.

Well, yes, yes he can. Maybe (we) shouldn’t, but when did that ever stop anyone here?

[SirTomster]

I don’t know where these “leaks” came from... if someone can give us some dependable source it would be nice. Even give some hints whether something that they learnt is an estimation or a certain spec of the new camera. I will wait a bit more for an official announcement, because high hopes are being building up and this is the fastest road to frustration and disappointment if the real specs are not so advanced when announced...

Still fun to speculate.

[Mistral75]

Well, yes, yes he can. Maybe (we) shouldn’t, but when did that ever stop anyone here?

Sorry for my poor English...

[luftfluss]

Sadly true.

On the other hand, every single camera manufacturer should have a look at mobile phones. What they get out of the crappy data is quite impressive.

Perhaps as cameras grow more computationally powerful they will do so. But large-sensor cameras have much more data to process.