[jersey]

Truth, but still higher prices, even if not Leica high, will take a lot of current customers away from Pentax. We already saw this with K-3/3 guess price thread. And Ricoh, with "brilliant" presence it has on customer market will have hard time to keep old and attract new customers with higher prices. Old will not like expensive gear, new will not know what Pentax is, or will know it from YT that is mostly bashing Pentax left and right.

[Rondec]

There are Leica prices and there are Leica prices.
A *DFA lens is not cheap, but it is sold in a price range you have to calculate in in every system. The K-3III will not cater the lower price class, but it is in line with similar offers.
A shift towards upper class products with according prices does not mean they have to be obscenely overpriced in a Leica manner.
There must be a middle ground between selling cheaply produced cameras in masses with low but multiplied win and luxury goods for collectors.
Optical and mechanical quality for the price it is worth. No nonsense ground.

Very true. I expect Pentax's cheapest camera to be in the 700 dollar range if they ever replace the K-70. They have a lot of relatively cheaply priced lenses as well, but the DFA * lenses aren't cheap. They are still a bunch cheaper than Leica. I do think they offer very good performance for the money.

If/when the K-1 II is replaced, I expect them to go up at least to 2500 dollars for the replacement. It really does seem like these days camera companies are selling fewer camera bodies for higher prices and maybe that is the way forward.

[thibs]

Truth, but still higher prices, even if not Leica high, will take a lot of current customers away from Pentax. We already saw this with K-3/3 guess price thread. And Ricoh, with "brilliant" presence it has on customer market will have hard time to keep old and attract new customers with higher prices. Old will not like expensive gear, new will not know what Pentax is, or will know it from YT that is mostly bashing Pentax left and right.

Well, you don't make money by selling cheap cameras and cheap lenses (if you sell lenses at all 'cos all thoes old compatible lenses...).
That's the reality Pentax faces. Financially, it is a lot easier if you change mount, you sell all new lenses. Even if you just stick a tube behind like Sony did at first with A mount designs.

[jersey]

Well, you don't make money by selling cheap cameras and cheap lenses (if you sell lenses at all 'cos all thoes old compatible lenses...).
That's the reality Pentax faces. Financially, it is a lot easier if you change mount, you sell all new lenses. Even if you just stick a tube behind like Sony did at first with A mount designs.

Yes, that's why I'm talking about hard time for Pentax. Most people here expect "relatively cheap" camera, when compared to same level MILC alternatives and it seems that K-3/3 (and later most likely K-1/3) will be anything but cheap.


I wonder what people in Japan are thinking about expected K-3/3 price, as this is currently main market for Pentax. And it will, most likely, remain main target as Pentax is not even willing to provide CP+ videos with English subtitles to their international YT channel.

[reh321]

Very true. I expect Pentax's cheapest camera to be in the 700 dollar range if they ever replace the K-70. They have a lot of relatively cheaply priced lenses as well, but the DFA * lenses aren't cheap. They are still a bunch cheaper than Leica. I do think they offer very good performance for the money.

Their current prices did not scare me off from
• KP
• 55-300mm PLM
• 1.4X TC
• 20-40mm Limited
over the past three years, and maybe that would have been true even if I had gotten a K-70 instead of a KP, and I am a notorious ‘tightwad’.
As it was, I chose the KP only because I didn’t want to deal with the “Dark Image Syndrome” again - otherwise price did not separate them much in my mind.
If prices were double what I faced .....?

[MMVIII]

Yes, that's why I'm talking about hard time for Pentax. Most people here expect "relatively cheap" camera, when compared to same level MILC alternatives and it seems that K-3/3 (and later most likely K-1/3) will be anything but cheap.


I wonder what people in Japan are thinking about expected K-3/3 price, as this is currently main market for Pentax. And it will, most likely, remain main target as Pentax is not even willing to provide CP+ videos with English subtitles to their international YT channel.

Good question. The feedback in Japan is probably still the most important factor for any decisions in this company.

But still, not cheap and value for money are again not so easy to line out.

Meyer Optik Görlitz just announced the Primoplan 58mm F1.9 II lens for $899.
Leica announced the APO-Summicron-M 35mm F2 ASPH for $8,195.
Pentax announced the HD PENTAX-FA 31mm F1.8 Limited for $1,049.95
the HD PENTAX-FA 43mmF 1.9 Limited for $599.95
and the HD PENTAX-FA 77mm F1.8 Limited for $799.95

The first one is manual and mainly catering nostalgic feelings with solid build and "interesting" optical properties
The second is top notch in both
The latter are also useful on a modern camera.
I think the price point is well chosen, but not cheap.

[ThorSanchez]

I'm also an advocate of Leicaization of Pentax, but I doubt company knows how to do this.

I don't think you can just decide to do this. It rarely works. It's like deciding one day to be the cool kid in school. Or a company making a decision that they're not going to make economy cars any more, instead they're going to beat the Germans at the luxury car game and only sell $75k cars. If Subaru decided to stop selling $30k cars and only sold $80k luxury cars only some tiny fraction of their current base would continue with the brand, and it's altogether unlikely that many outsiders would suddenly shift their views of Subaru from solid value cars to the new Mercedes. Pentax can't just wake up one day and decide to be Leica and magically have it work.

[jersey]

@ThorSanchez - very true, but if they want to become value brand (if - that is also a question) then they have to start somewhere. Sure, they will not suddenly drop a 8000$ camera, but if Pentax wants to become Leica-like the price will need to go up and with it camera bodies and lenses that are offering "something" worth the money. And Pentax needs to be able to communicate that "something" to customers.

[Wheatfield]

Will you buy Pentax gear at Leica prices? If not, then it means that Pentax will loose all or most of current customer base and will have to find new ones. Is it ready to do so? Technically maybe so, it's gear is already good enough. But with current marketing I doubt it will be able to find new customers if it was offering Leica equivalent at 1/10 of a price.

And I think Ricoh knows this as well.


I'm also an advocate of Leicaization of Pentax, but I doubt company knows how to do this.

I'm already buying the most expensive stuff Pentax sells, so yes, I'm prepared. What people are missing is that:

A) the "current" customer base that you are talking about is why Pentax is now a name on Ricoh's door rather than their own company. They got there by selling their gear at too low margins for too long. They attracted in a user base that wouldn't pay market value for the product, and now that user base is upset because a reality check is being forced on them.

and...

B) the "current" user base that you say is going to abandon ship will have the choice of spending as much with another brand, settling for their cell phone, hoping they can get adequate gear from the used market, or taking up goat yoga.

---------- Post added Mar 17th, 2021 at 07:55 AM ----------

Don't pay too much heed to what Sony, Canon or Nikon is flogging into the low end camera market, Sorry not sure what your talking about LOW END?

Entry level, the market segment that is getting beaten up by cell phones.

[Pål Jensen]

Pentax users willingness to pay higher prices is underestimated. A reality check can be had by looking at second hand lens prices on e-bay. Nikon and Canon are significantly cheaper on comparable lenses of the same generation. A K-lens can easily cost 3-5X more. Up to 10X more in extreme cases.
Pentax new prices are comparable to the competition. Anyone who these days choose Pentax because they (they - the customer) are cheap, haven't done their homework and are barking up the wrong tree.....

[Wheatfield]

Truth, but still higher prices, even if not Leica high, will take a lot of current customers away from Pentax. We already saw this with K-3/3 guess price thread. And Ricoh, with "brilliant" presence it has on customer market will have hard time to keep old and attract new customers with higher prices. Old will not like expensive gear, new will not know what Pentax is, or will know it from YT that is mostly bashing Pentax left and right.

Those "current customers" aren't doing anything for the bottom line.
Look, the camera bubble has burst. If you are younger than about 50 tears old, you have grown up with a camera market that has been in a growth bubble for your entire life. I get that you may think that bubble is the normal for the industry, but it isn't.
The camera industry had a couple of happy coincidences that kept it in a strong growth position for several decades, but there aren't any more happy coincidences on the horizon. The market is saturated, the equipment has matured to the point that longer product cycles are going to be the norm, and with the market in freefall, companies don't have the luxury of volume sales to keep prices down.

The sad fact is, the entry level market is a dead man walking, and the mid range as we have known it isn't going to provide enough sales to justify itself. The entire industry is being forced into a marketplace that has as much separation from cell phones as is possible, and that is the high end market, with high end equipment and high end prices.

The democratization of photography being something for the masses isn't ending, people will always have cell phones with ever increasingly sophisticated built in cameras, but going forward, if you want real camera gear, it is going to cost real money.

[luftfluss]

Truth, but still higher prices, even if not Leica high, will take a lot of current customers away from Pentax. We already saw this with K-3/3 guess price thread. And Ricoh, with "brilliant" presence it has on customer market will have hard time to keep old and attract new customers with higher prices. Old will not like expensive gear, new will not know what Pentax is, or will know it from YT that is mostly bashing Pentax left and right.

If people really like what Pentax is offering with the K-3 III, a couple hundred dollars is not going to drive customers away.

Pentax would be better off selling 10,000 K-3 III's at $1900 USD per unit than 12,000 at $1400.

Both Fuji and Olympus (prior to selling their camera division) have noted that their premium gear is selling very well (relatively, during Covid).

Create products people want, and they will buy it... just ask Apple.

[hoosierdome]

Those "current customers" aren't doing anything for the bottom line.
Look, the camera bubble has burst. If you are younger than about 50 tears old, you have grown up with a camera market that has been in a growth bubble for your entire life. I get that you may think that bubble is the normal for the industry, but it isn't.
The camera industry had a couple of happy coincidences that kept it in a strong growth position for several decades, but there aren't any more happy coincidences on the horizon. The market is saturated, the equipment has matured to the point that longer product cycles are going to be the norm, and with the market in freefall, companies don't have the luxury of volume sales to keep prices down.

The sad fact is, the entry level market is a dead man walking, and the mid range as we have known it isn't going to provide enough sales to justify itself. The entire industry is being forced into a marketplace that has as much separation from cell phones as is possible, and that is the high end market, with high end equipment and high end prices.

The democratization of photography being something for the masses isn't ending, people will always have cell phones with ever increasingly sophisticated built in cameras, but going forward, if you want real camera gear, it is going to cost real money.

If they don't have their current customers then they didn't have any customers,it's not likely Pentax will be pulling customers from Sony, Canon, Fuji or Nikon

[jersey]

Yes and no. I am less then 50, but first 10 or so years of my life was the rules of communism, another 10 was the transformation period where people were just poor and scraping money to live decently. Even now cameras are very expensive in Poland. My current K-50 price was, when I was buying it about 3-4 medium monthly salaries in Poland. Current K-1 Mk II is more or less same - 3-4 monthly salaries depending on region (I think it can go up to 5 in poorest ones). More or less. Camera bubble never hit this country, at least not as much as "west".

Besides I am not talking about how cheap or expensive current gear is, but that people are not willing - and they voiced it out in the K-3/3 price thread - to give more money for Pentax. I wonder if they will be willing to give more for Nikon or Sony, but that is another topic.


And also again - yeas, you are right that people who expected cheap gear dragged Pentax down (as Pentax was trying to live up to their expectations). But now, if it makes prices more realistic then it will have to rebuild the user base.

---------- Post added 03-17-21 at 07:49 AM ----------

If people really like what Pentax is offering with the K-3 III, a couple hundred dollars is not going to drive customers away.

Pentax would be better off selling 10,000 K-3 III's at $1900 USD per unit than 12,000 at $1400.

Both Fuji and Olympus (prior to selling their camera division) have noted that their premium gear is selling very well (relatively, during Covid).

Create products people want, and they will buy it... just ask Apple.

I know that, I was saying the same in K-3/3 price thread. But how many current customers are thinking so and how many new will be willing to spent money on unknown gear with negative presence in social media?

[reh321]

If they don't have their current customers then they didn't have any customers,it's not likely Pentax will be pulling customers from Sony, Canon, Fuji or Nikon

I moved from Canon {Rebel} back to Pentax because of the quality of their lower-tier bodies.