[normhead]

With what gear? Even if Ricoh will release a sport dedicated full frame camera and 2-3 exotic lenses (300mm f2.8, 400mm f2.8, etc.) it's a niche market and every camera/lens released to cover Super Bowl will be expensive and not appealing to crowds. Some influencers, some known portrait or wedding photographers instead?! Maybe... I would be glad to see them at least on social media a little more present...

Exactly... the day I get offered a huge action contract is the day I go buy a Canon or Nikon (and given the weakness in my shoulders, probably a Sony.). My Pentax use is completely dependant on not needing the features it's competitors offer that Pentax doesn't support.

I always hope other people are in the same boat. But we do get the disgruntled who buy into the brand without doing their research and then being shocked that things they want are not available.
(Usually Sigma or Tamron lenses but sometimes fast focusing and high frame rate bodies and lenses.)

[biz-engineer]

Pentax is a niche brand. Sad but true

What's sad about niche things? High end brand of greek jogurt is a niche product, it's not sad, it's just delicious.

[Kunzite]

What's sad about niche things? High end brand of greek jogurt is a niche product, it's not sad, it's just delicious.

And McDonalds is mainstream

[Kunzite]

I always hope other people are in the same boat. But we do get the disgruntled who buy into the brand without doing their research and then being shocked that things they want are not available.

Unfortunately it seems many people saw Pentax as "some sort of Canon/Nikon, but cheaper". Well... that "cheaper" part comes with a price

[biz-engineer]

And McDonalds is mainstream

Yep, Canon is for cameras what McDo is for burgers and french fries, both market leaders. We have the same situation for photo printing papers: the best value sold in high volumes, basically Fuji DPII sold about everywhere. The quality is standard but nothing special, a bit dull but cheap. The Hahnemuehle fine art baryta is just four times more expensive, also the output quality of the print on entirely different level.

[WorksAsIntended]

I would not call Canon the MCDonalds of camera market. I had recently a chance to see a few shots by the 28-70 f2.0. The other companies will have a really hard time beating those!

[Kunzite]

Yep, Canon is for cameras what McDo is for burgers and french fries, both market leaders. We have the same situation for photo printing papers: the best value sold in high volumes, basically Fuji DPII sold about everywhere. The quality is standard but nothing special, a bit dull but cheap. The Hahnemuehle fine art baryta is just four times more expensive, also the output quality of the print on entirely different level.

Just to be clear, my analogy should stop at the concept of "niche" and "mainstream", that is the disconnect between those and quality.

And I'd say Pentax might be a niche brand... but they're making mainstream products. Yup, DSLRs are clearly mainstream.
It's Leica's rangefinders who are niche products.

[normhead]

I would not call Canon the MCDonalds of camera market. I had recently a chance to see a few shots by the 28-70 f2.0. The other companies will have a really hard time beating those!

Your insistence that it's the camera not the photographer that makes the difference, is getting really annoying.
You choose the tools you need.

You make it sound like you think you could pick up a Canon 28-70 ƒ2 and take images like the ones that inspired you....

The cheap end of the Canon spectrum where most of the sales are, are definitely the MacDonalds camera market. They do make some very expensive high end stuff, but if you can't afford it, that's irrelevant.

[reh321]

So is Leica. Why is it sad?

Pentax users seem to spend half their time looking over the fence admiring the lawn there. I just photograph my side of the fence and don't worry about what else exists.

[Mistral75]

(...)

And I'd say Pentax might be a niche brand... but they're making mainstream products. Yup, DSLRs are clearly mainstream.
It's Leica's rangefinders who are niche products.

That's part of their problem. It's hard to be a niche competitor when you only have mainstream products.

[WorksAsIntended]

Your insistence that it's the camera not the photographer that makes the difference, is getting really annoying.
You choose the tools you need.

You make it sound like you think you could pick up a Canon 28-70 ƒ2 and take images like the ones that inspired you....

The cheap end of the Canon spectrum where most of the sales are, are definitely the MacDonalds camera market. They do make some very expensive high end stuff, but if you can't afford it, that's irrelevant.

Your personal attacks are anoying aswell. I assumed it is obvious I was talking about the image quality in terms of what the lens provides a d not the composition of the image.

In terms of composition those pictures were horrible, those were only technical test shots.

I never said a single time that a expensive camera makes a great picture. That would be stupid to assume.

[Dan Rentea]

I would not call Canon the MCDonalds of camera market. I had recently a chance to see a few shots by the 28-70 f2.0. The other companies will have a really hard time beating those!

The 28-70mm f2 lens is superb. I shoot with it each time I have a paid job but I'm not going to buy it because it's very cheap to rent it and is heavy enough that I know I wouldn't use it for other things than paid jobs. That being said, that lens is more like a statement which has nothing to do with photographers on a budget. A lot of people won't buy other lenses than 18-55mm, 50-200mm (or 70-300mm) and maybe a cheap 50mm f1.8. For this market it's a big battle and each company use different strategies and marketing campains to make people buy those cameras. Are those entry levels bad cameras? With good lenses, a little patience and proper technique you can get amazing results. But, those cameras are not called entry level cameras for nothing either.

Pentax is far away (in the good way) than it was 5-6 years ago when I used Pentax. At that time there wasn't a full frame on the roadmap, there wasn't modern lenses like the f2.8 trinity, there wasn't third party manufacurers like Yongnuo, Cactus or Godox who are making the life of strobists a lot easier now, etc. Yes, Pentax it's still a niche brand, but at least today there are more choices for different type of photographers than what we had 5-6 years ago.

[normhead]

At risk of being accused of launching a personal attack.. I'd then add, there is no comparison I know of that has shown test chart performance is related to images that people like to look at. IN fact one of the defining characteristics of Pentax is "Lenses for the way people take pictures, not for the test charts." If you compare Pentax and Nikon using the same fl and sensor, the Nikon will have better test chart scores, but in the opinion of many Pentax shooters, and even testers like DxO, the Pentax renders better, and when reduced to 8k as DxO does, the Pentaxes even score higher.

I personally have run polls on the forum where people have preferred relatively weak FA lenses to their modern sharper equivalents, where the test chart champion came third in terms of the way people vote.

As a former test chart junkie, I sympathize with your confusion. Go to DxO and you'll see Pentax's 7 year old K-5 still ranked higher than most modern canon cameras.

By the way "Lenses for the way people take pictures, not for the test charts" was a real Pentax slogan and is stated on the DA*60-250 patent. I'm not making this stuff up.

The current stated philosophy "Modern lenses for modern sensors" is an evolution, not a revolution. The core "Lenses for the way people take pictures" is still part of the philosophy, but they've added elements to sharpen up the corners (but that adds a lot of weight), still preferring to compare human evaluations of the images, rather than test chart comparisons. With the DFA* 50 1.4 they've matched or slightly exceeded their competition in both test chart resolution and maintained their traditional superior rendering.

Look at DxO and see what they think of Canon in the ratings before you start publicly praising their gear. You'll realize, it's not just me. You can always find specific lenses from specific companies that will perform differently, better or worse than the competition. Cherry pickers will always find an example of why you should buy their brand or a lens from whatever camera company that's better than the competitors. Every camera company makes lenses they can point at.

Don't be a cherry picker. It's about the whole system, not an individual lens. Back in the day I once saw a "100 best lenses complete with test chart scores etc. Of the top 10, no camera company had more than 2. Pentax had 1. Associating fine quality lenses with a particular brand is a mistake. Pentax still make some top of class lenses, so does Nikon, so does Canon, so does Sony, even Tamron and Sigma are in the mix.

Your example of the 28-70 ƒ2, is irrelevant to many, because it's not a focal length where we value ƒ2 and we value portability above test chart sharpness . No matter how good it is, many of us don't care.

[WorksAsIntended]

The 28-70mm f2 lens is superb. I shoot with it each time I have a paid job but I'm not going to buy it because it's very cheap to rent it and is heavy enough that I know I wouldn't use it for other things than paid jobs. That being said, that lens is more like a statement which has nothing to do with photographers on a budget. A lot of people won't buy other lenses than 18-55mm, 50-200mm (or 70-300mm) and maybe a cheap 50mm f1.8. For this market it's a big battle and each company use different strategies and marketing campains to make people buy those cameras. Are those entry levels bad cameras? With good lenses, a little patience and proper technique you can get amazing results. But, those cameras are not called entry level cameras for nothing either.

Pentax is far away (in the good way) than it was 5-6 years ago when I used Pentax. At that time there wasn't a full frame on the roadmap, there wasn't modern lenses like the f2.8 trinity, there wasn't third party manufacurers like Yongnuo, Cactus or Godox who are making the life of strobists a lot easier now, etc. Yes, Pentax it's still a niche brand, but at least today there are more choices for different type of photographers than what we had 5-6 years ago.

I can agree on this completly.

---------- Post added 02-04-20 at 09:14 AM ----------

At risk of being accused of launching a personal attack.. I'd then add, there is no comparison I know of that has shown test chart performance is related to images that people like to look at. IN fact one of the defining characteristics of Pentax is "Lenses for the way people take pictures, not for the test charts." If you compare Pentax and Nikon using the same fl and sensor, the Nikon will have better test chart scores, but in the opinion of many Pentax shooters, and even testers like DxO, the Pentax renders better, and when reduced to 8k as DxO does, the Pentaxes even score higher.

I personally have run polls on the forum where people have preferred relatively weak FA lenses with their modern sharper equivalents, where the test chart champion came third in terms of the way people vote.

As a former test chart junkie, I sympathize with your confusion. Go to DxO and you'll see Pentax's 7 year old K-5 still ranked higher than most modern canon cameras.

By the way "Lenses fo rate way people take pictures, not for the test charts" was a real Pentax slogan and is stated on the DA*60-250 patent. I'm not making this stuff up.

The current stated philosophy "Modern lenses for modern sensors" is an evolution, not a revolution. The core "Lenses for the way people take pictures" is still part of the philosophy, but they've added elements to sharpen up the corners, still preferring to test people evaluations of the images, rather than test chart comparisons.

Look at DxO and see what they think of Canon in the ratings before you start publicly praising their gear. You'll realize, it's not just me. You can always find specific lenses from specific companies that will perform differently, better or worse than the competition. Cherry pickers will always find an example of why you should buy their brand or a lens from a camera company that's better than the competitors.

Don't be a cherry picker.

Nothing wrong with this. Resolution is only a small part of what lenses deliver and I still love my FA77, although it is not top of test charts.
I even love the Sigma30 1.4 ex, which is much better imo than people talk about it.
Just do other brands the same favour and do not compare them to junk food. Canon has a lot of great lenses and their new rf line up is very good in many terms, also very expensive of course.

[sbh]

...the problem being that:

• Tokina are themselves rebranding third-party lenses (Pentax, Viltrox) - the latest Tokina optical design dates back to September 2016 (Firin 20mm f/2 FE)
• Tamron are now focussing on short-flanged lenses (lenses for mirrorless cameras), not SLR lenses

You can't safely rely on third parties when you are a niche brand (Pentax) on a niche market segment (DSLR) and we're going there.

Hm... I don't see a problem there. A challenge may come up if DSLR cameras would completely go away overnight. That is very unlikely. Every market is changing with time and Pentax can adapt their strategies and tactics just like any other competitor in order to make the best of it. They can cope with small volumes much better than the large ones.