[monochrome]

Never say never... But I think it highly unlikely we'll see the new body so soon, given the effects of the pandemic

Late August announced. Shipping 5-6 weeks later. That’s the start of the concerted and coordinated “Green Shoots” narrative.

[MikeyBugs95]

To be fair, any camera is better than no camera but the speculated camera is certainly better than the pi camera.

[revelstoked]

To be fair, any camera is better than no camera but the speculated camera is certainly better than the pi camera.

Haha.. Of course it will be, and hopefully it will check the boxes that kept me from a KP. Still, the glacial pace can be quite frustrating. Especially when you see Ricoh launch a new theta every other week.

[monochrome]

Haha.. Of course it will be, and hopefully it will check the boxes that kept me from a KP. Still, the glacial pace can be quite frustrating. Especially when you see Ricoh launch a new theta every other week.

Theta (and GRlll) is paying the bills. We should thank our lucky stars every time Ricoh releases another Theta."

[revelstoked]

Actually, I love my trusty, yet slowly dying, Pentax and have been waiting for a few years now to replace it with another Pentax. I was mostly joking about the pi, although in terms of system cost, video performance, and system customization I'd say it was an accurate statement being that pi is cheap, open source and supported by a comparably massive 3rd party development community.

[Kunzite]

Actually, I love my trusty, yet slowly dying, Pentax and have been waiting for a few years now to replace it with another Pentax. I was mostly joking about the pi, although in terms of system cost, video performance, and system customization I'd say it was an accurate statement being that pi is cheap, open source and supported by a comparably massive 3rd party development community.

You weren't joking; you were mocking Pentax. Very few people want to buy into a brand most are mocking so yes, you included yourself into the group of people half responsible for Pentax' situation.
Yes, we have to be more responsible when spewing random words; people are reading.
(Reasonable criticism is a completely different case).

And you don't make any sense. Is a webcam, any webcam better than a Pentax - for photography, not web conferences - just because it's ultra cheap? Do you want to take photos, or write programs for your camera?
Raspberry Pi is all about affordable customization and programmability. It is not about performance, nor quality under any of its aspects. Any claim that it's better than Pentax as a high-end photographic camera is malicious.

[revelstoked]

You weren't joking; you were mocking Pentax. Very few people want to buy into a brand most are mocking so yes, you included yourself into the group of people half responsible for Pentax' situation.
Yes, we have to be more responsible when spewing random words; people are reading.
(Reasonable criticism is a completely different case).

And you don't make any sense. Is a webcam, any webcam better than a Pentax - for photography, not web conferences - just because it's ultra cheap? Do you want to take photos, or write programs for your camera?
Raspberry Pi is all about affordable customization and programmability. It is not about performance, nor quality under any of its aspects. Any claim that it's better than Pentax as a high-end photographic camera is malicious.

I certainly was not trashing Pentax, merely venting (admittedly in a somewhat trollish but certainly tounge in cheak fashion) my personal frustration that Pentax has not released a k3 ii replacement yet. As for Pentax sales.. Here in Canada, outside of a handful of small niche retailers (in the entire country) it is virtually impossible to find one to actually handle. Marketing is non existent and online, unless you are searching specifically for Pentax you will never see it. A couple of summers ago, when deciding whether to buy a KP, I had a down day on a trip to Vancouver. As I live in a relatively small town far from major urban centers, I decided to take the opportunity to find a KP. I actively scoured greater Vancouver and a fair chunk of the surrounding lower mainland of British Columbia. I did, eventually find one (literally one) in a camera shop in Lonsdale. It was not on display, I had to ask the clerk if they had one to even see it. Keep in mind: I knew about Pentax, am a member of this forum, am invested in K mount, and genuinely want to buy Pentax. And yet, in a densely populated urban area of perhaps 3 million people I had to spend an entire day on my phone and driving around just to hold a current model. How can Pentax or any reasonable person think that, in Canada at least, Pentax will see anything but decline in market share under these conditions? That is why Pentax wains, not my tongue in cheak frustration.

---

Last edited by revelstoked; 05-01-2020 at 03:00 AM.

[Kunzite]

At least, buy the camera when it will be released.

[BigMackCam]

I certainly was not trashing Pentax, merely venting (admittedly in a somewhat trollish but certainly tounge in cheak fashion) my personal frustration that Pentax has not released a k3 ii replacement yet. As for Pentax sales.. Here in Canada, outside of a handful of small niche retailers (in the entire country) it is virtually impossible to find one to actually handle. Marketing is non existent and online, unless you are searching specifically for Pentax you will never see it. A couple of summers ago, when deciding whether to buy a KP, I had a down day on a trip to Vancouver. As I live in a relatively small town far from major urban centers, I decided to take the opportunity to find a KP. I actively scoured greater Vancouver and a fair chunk of the surrounding lower mainland of British Columbia. I did, eventually find one (literally one) in a camera shop in Lonsdale. It was not on display, I had to ask the clerk if they had one to even see it. Keep in mind: I knew about Pentax, am a member of this forum, am invested in K mount, and genuinely want to buy Pentax. And yet, in a densely populated urban area of perhaps 3 million people I had to spend an entire day on my phone and driving around just to hold a current model. How can Pentax or any reasonable person think that, in Canada at least, Pentax will see anything but decline in market share under these conditions? That is why Pentax wains, not my tongue in cheak frustration.

That's an informative and considered response. I'm sure you can see why, though, you got a little push-back on your original post. The thing is, what you've described above is nothing new... quite the contrary - it's all been said many times before by a number of members, over a number of years. We all know Pentax marketing is terrible. We all know that it's difficult to find the brand in bricks-'n'-mortar stores outside of Japan. We all know the K-3II replacement is long overdue. We all know the modern lens eco-system for full frame is growing too slowly. We've known all these things and any other frustration you can possibly think of for some time. Members are entitled to express their frustrations constructively, but my, it gets tiring hearing the same rants time and again (no disrespect intended to you personally).

I sometimes think we should have a dedicated rant forum, with individual threads for Pentax marketing, brand retail presence, product release frequency, reliability, servicing etc. I'm sure most members would prefer it if rants were confined and separated from other discussions...

[acoufap]

Pentax may want to think about actually releasing something one day... specs, hard information, maybe even: a Camera!.. At this rate it seems like a couple more iterations and THE FREAKING RASPBERRY PI FOUNDATION will be making more advanced interchangeable lens cameras. I am sure they are already winning on video performance, value for money, and customization.

Raspberry Pi announces $50 12-megapixel camera with interchangeable lenses - The Verge

surely no competition for Pentax but looks like a nice toy - thanks for sharing the link!

[ThorSanchez]

Not quite in the same league as Pentax, but very interesting to the average geek (like me). This will give much better results for wildlife cams based on the raspi. I have 4 Pi zeros with IR cams around the garden to check on hedgehogs, mice, toads and nesting birds. Just need to wait for one of these without the IR filter. I'm sure the Auto 110 lenses will work with a suitable adapter

The original post about this reflecting poorly on Pentax is obviously a little crazy.

But the Pi ILC is pretty awesome. It's not going to match a good fully-developed camera on image quality, but it's a building block for a fully customizable ILC. You can surround it with whatever hardware and software you want. You can do anything with it. You could make the world's smallest ILC, you could use it for time lapses, wildlife, implement your own pixel shift or HDR, put two together to make stereo-graphic photos, almost anything. You could mill a housing out of titanium and put shock mounts and water seals in it and have the world's most rugged ILC.


I don't know what I'd do with this, but I'm seriously considering getting one just to tinker with.

---------- Post added 05-01-20 at 07:46 AM ----------

Do you want to take photos, or write programs for your camera?

Why can't the answer be "yes"?

---------- Post added 05-01-20 at 07:56 AM ----------

I certainly was not trashing Pentax, merely venting (admittedly in a somewhat trollish but certainly tounge in cheak fashion) my personal frustration that Pentax has not released a k3 ii replacement yet. As for Pentax sales.. Here in Canada, outside of a handful of small niche retailers (in the entire country) it is virtually impossible to find one to actually handle. Marketing is non existent and online, unless you are searching specifically for Pentax you will never see it. A couple of summers ago, when deciding whether to buy a KP, I had a down day on a trip to Vancouver. As I live in a relatively small town far from major urban centers, I decided to take the opportunity to find a KP. I actively scoured greater Vancouver and a fair chunk of the surrounding lower mainland of British Columbia. I did, eventually find one (literally one) in a camera shop in Lonsdale. It was not on display, I had to ask the clerk if they had one to even see it. Keep in mind: I knew about Pentax, am a member of this forum, am invested in K mount, and genuinely want to buy Pentax. And yet, in a densely populated urban area of perhaps 3 million people I had to spend an entire day on my phone and driving around just to hold a current model. How can Pentax or any reasonable person think that, in Canada at least, Pentax will see anything but decline in market share under these conditions? That is why Pentax wains, not my tongue in cheak frustration.

I'm going to go a little off topic here... in 1997 a group of friends and I flew from Maryland to Seattle, rented an RV, and drove around the northwest US and Canada for a few weeks. One of the first few days of the trip my sister's film camera broke. We stopped in either Revelstoke or Kamloops at a camera shop and she bought a cheap camera that was in the shape of a monkey's head. It was terrible, I think it had light leaks and most of her photos were junk. And it certainly wasn't a Pentax. But I do know someone who bought a camera in your neck of the woods.

[reh321]

I certainly was not trashing Pentax, merely venting (admittedly in a somewhat trollish but certainly tounge in cheak fashion) my personal frustration that Pentax has not released a k3 ii replacement yet. As for Pentax sales.. Here in Canada, outside of a handful of small niche retailers (in the entire country) it is virtually impossible to find one to actually handle. Marketing is non existent and online, unless you are searching specifically for Pentax you will never see it. A couple of summers ago, when deciding whether to buy a KP, I had a down day on a trip to Vancouver. As I live in a relatively small town far from major urban centers, I decided to take the opportunity to find a KP. I actively scoured greater Vancouver and a fair chunk of the surrounding lower mainland of British Columbia. I did, eventually find one (literally one) in a camera shop in Lonsdale. It was not on display, I had to ask the clerk if they had one to even see it. Keep in mind: I knew about Pentax, am a member of this forum, am invested in K mount, and genuinely want to buy Pentax. And yet, in a densely populated urban area of perhaps 3 million people I had to spend an entire day on my phone and driving around just to hold a current model. How can Pentax or any reasonable person think that, in Canada at least, Pentax will see anything but decline in market share under these conditions? That is why Pentax wains, not my tongue in cheak frustration.

From your other words, I believe you did not purchase the KP. Why not? What have you personally done recently to encourage someone - anyone - to sell Pentax?

[Kunzite]

That's an informative and considered response. I'm sure you can see why, though, you got a little push-back on your original post. The thing is, what you've described above is nothing new... quite the contrary - it's all been said many times before by a number of members, over a number of years. We all know Pentax marketing is terrible. We all know that it's difficult to find the brand in bricks-'n'-mortar stores outside of Japan. We all know the K-3II replacement is long overdue. We all know the modern lens eco-system for full frame is growing too slowly. We've known all these things and any other frustration you can possibly think of for some time. Members are entitled to express their frustrations constructively, but my, it gets tiring hearing the same rants time and again (no disrespect intended to you personally).

I sometimes think we should have a dedicated rant forum, with individual threads for Pentax marketing, brand retail presence, product release frequency, reliability, servicing etc. I'm sure most members would prefer it if rants were confined and separated from other discussions...

This is a bit like throwing your laptop out of the window because you can't get (and fix) a bug. Acting out of frustration, which to some extent is understandable - however you're not making your issue better but worse.
I'd suggest again to be more responsible in what we're writing, and ask yourself: is this helping? Take a short break, occupy your mind with something else and get back at the problem.

I'm sorry, Mike, but this idea of a rant forum is a bad one. Unless posts would disappear as soon as they're written. Because, as I said in the preceding post, people would read it, all that garbage.
Mocking Pentax... is something that happened for decades. Like you, I'm sick of it. Other brands' users, other type of cameras users, even Pentaxians unhappy Pentax is not just a cheaper Canikon... over and over and over and over again.
Let's not fool ourselves by pushing all the blame on Pentax (whatever "Pentax" means... Pentax Corporation, Pentax a Hoya division, or Ricoh Imaging). We're at the stage when people are attacked for not hating Pentax enough. Pentax marketing? How could any marketing compensate for the constant attack on the brand, even from its users?

It's as if we're all so dissatisfied with Pentax we can't find anything good to say about them. It's as if it is impossible to be anything than unhappy with Pentax. Surely I'm being paid not to hate Pentax' guts!

And all my lenses are made by whomever, and any 1/2.3" webcam is better than my K-1.

OK, I changed my mind. Open that section... I have plenty to rant about!

[BigMackCam]

This is a bit like throwing your laptop out of the window because you can't get (and fix) a bug. Acting out of frustration, which to some extent is understandable - however you're not making your issue better but worse.
I'd suggest again to be more responsible in what we're writing, and ask yourself: is this helping? Take a short break, occupy your mind with something else and get back at the problem.

I'm sorry, Mike, but this idea of a rant forum is a bad one. Unless posts would disappear as soon as they're written. Because, as I said in the preceding post, people would read it, all that garbage.
Mocking Pentax... is something that happened for decades. Like you, I'm sick of it. Other brands' users, other type of cameras users, even Pentaxians unhappy Pentax is not just a cheaper Canikon... over and over and over and over again.
Let's not fool ourselves by pushing all the blame on Pentax (whatever "Pentax" means... Pentax Corporation, Pentax a Hoya division, or Ricoh Imaging). We're at the stage when people are attacked for not hating Pentax enough. Pentax marketing? How could any marketing compensate for the constant attack on the brand, even from its users?

It's as if we're all so dissatisfied with Pentax we can't find anything good to say about them. It's as if it is impossible to be anything than unhappy with Pentax. Surely I'm being paid not to hate Pentax' guts!

And all my lenses are made by whomever, and any 1/2.3" webcam is better than my K-1.

OK, I changed my mind. Open that section... I have plenty to rant about!

I wasn't suggesting we actually create a dedicated rant forum, but saying that I sometimes think we should. In my fantasy, it'd be nice for such posts to live in one "rant bucket" that most of us could avoid, viewing only if we actively chose to

I've got to the point where I can feel my defensive hackles raising when anyone criticises Ricoh, Pentax and/or the equipment - not because those criticisms are invalid (some are entirely warranted) but because it's all been said before so many times, and it does our brand(s) no good to vent here in the one place where you'd hope everyone would be enthusiastic and pro-brand... and I'm tired of trying, both as a moderator and regular member, to courteously redress the balance.

That said, the OP's had his say, vented but pledged allegiance to the brand, and we should probably move on now

[Kunzite]

Why can't the answer be "yes"?

Try looking for photographic opportunities while figuring out an incomprehensible compile error...