Originally posted by MMVIII I see a lot of shifting goalposts and strawmen in some arguments here. As others have pointed out, it is not a very useful thought experiment of how much they could sell if they would produce a lower resolution camera, if your wishes include swift responsiveness (sports camera) while dreaming of an basic price, way below anyone actually offering such a combination. As also others have pointed out, the development of speedier components for the smaller format might give us a hint what could be possibly/probably transferred to small format (aka FF). We can do some calculations, estimating the possible speed of data throughput with the new processing pipeline, considering a higher resolution sensor and a lower one. But as basically all components would be the same I can not see the price advantage of a lower resolution model beyond a possible price difference in the very sensor, which might be just marginal in purchase for Ricoh. Sure, they might bring out two models with exactly such a resolution (and therefore speed) difference, but I would highly doubt one of these might be significantly cheaper. Which does not mean that they might still be good offers in comparison to other companies models, but for sure they can not reach the street price of a previous generation model still on sale or be just plain "entry model cheap" in FF.
There are no shifting goalposts and strawmen arguments in my comments. As you and others, I posted my opinion based on several things, from the argument of why 24mp full frame cameras are the most sold ones in other brands (which is a reason that 24mp cameras are still released today, D780 being an example) and up to my shooting experience with 24, 26, 30, 36 and 45mp full frame cameras.
To landscape photographers the number of mp would probably count (especially for the ones who print and sell large). To wedding photographers on the other hand a 45mp camera can be a nightmare due to various reasons (very demanding sensor, slow fps and buffer clearing as long as it will not have a dedicated processor, it will require big, expensive and modern memory cards, etc.).
---------- Post added 01-10-20 at 04:13 PM ----------
Originally posted by reh321 They will have to in any case - and lower specs for the lower one; that is what "entry level" means.
I think there is a confusion here. I'm not talking about an entry level. K1 and K1 II are both the Pentax flagships. I would love to see how a 24mp Pentax flagship will look like at the price of 2000$ (which I think it was the price of K1 and K1 II at their release), not an entry level one.
And by flagship I'm not talking about a D5/1Dx level. I'm talking about a flagship based on the resources that Pentax has at their disposal.
Even a lot of pentaxians who have K1 say they don't need the K1 resolution so why not try and please the ones who really don't need high mp cameras? Because if you ask me, higher they go in terms of mp, more niche the use of those cameras will be.