Originally posted by LXNights It was a mistake for the outgoing CEO to say that there will never be a Pentax mirrorless. That's unrealistic. You never say never in this business. If Pentax could find a way to use the K-mount with a mirrorless camera, that could be a huge boost.
I think it's worth taking stock of what Pentax actually said in their statement last year and what they did not. The page is here.
PENTAX PRINCIPLES | brand | RICOH IMAGING
Their main sentence was: "Pentax believes in the future of SLR photography"
- They didn't say "Ricoh Imaging believes . . ." clearly Ricoh Imaging as a whole has products that are not SLRs.
- They didn't say "Pentax believes SLRs are the future of photography", although some sites and commenters reported it as if that is what they said.
- They didn't say "Pentax will not make mirrorless cameras in the future", although again plenty of people have exaggerated the message to claim that is what they said.
All they really said was that SLR cameras are pleasurable to use, and espoused some other values about photography that most people can identify with. This makes complete sense, because at the time Pentax was getting working up to the release of a new SLR camera. It doesn't mean that can't or won't make a mirrorless camera in future under the Ricoh or even the Pentax brand at some point in the future. I don't think this is imminent, but you can be sure that Ricoh won't be talking up mirrorless until they have one to sell you.