[jersey]

Ricoh and Pentax waved their rather short thing :P with DSLR is our future tatoo left and right in last year or so. You think backpedaling on this would give them more sales or be any sort of future for them now? Who would believe that they will not change their course next years to something else?

[normhead]

Ricoh and Pentax waved their rather short thing :P with DSLR is our future tatoo left and right in last year or so. You think backpedaling on this would give them more sales or be any sort of future for them now? Who would believe that they will not change their course next years to something else?

I think it would kill the company not save it. There will aways be people that people an OV. The people who will switch to use an OV is potentially larger than those who want one but haven't purchased one yet.

[Pål Jensen]

The worlds number one optical viewfinder company (Pentax*) will not discard the optical viewfinder in their interchangeable lens cameras anytime soon. Get over it - there are plenty of alternatives out there for those who wants something else.



* They made the first japanese SLR camera and committed to it like no one else. They are the SLR company. They were 63 years old before they made the first non-SLR camera...

[VictorDA]

the older gentleman gave me his business card which I promptly put in my wallet

Note for next time: this is not the expected behaviour when a Japanese person hands you their card - the ritual is expected to last several seconds looking at the card, (thanking and bowing a little depending on the giver's position are appreciated), and then respectfully sliding it somewhere safe when it won't get damaged.
It's even better if the receiving party also has a card of their own to share, but then the movement for a fluid exchange is quite tricky - I haven't quite mastered it yet
(I don't mean to be patronising, I've just learned that working for a Japanese company, although quite far from the camera business)

[Wheatfield]

I met 2 people who I was told were Ricoh Imaging/Pentax representatives 5 years ago. We broached on the future of GXR, mirrorless and 645.

When it was time to leave, the older gentleman gave me his business card which I promptly put in my wallet.

Much later when I got around to organizing my overstuffed wallet, I glanced at the card. It read

Noboru Akahane
President
Ricoh Imaging

(I have pictures )

The most unpretentious, down to earth gentleman.

Pentax has to chart its course for mirrorless.

To boldly go where every man has gone before. (Or follow in their footsteps.)

There are no questions of whether it can be done any longer. It has been done. Every technology to make the mirror box and mechanical shutter obsolete is out there.

Both Canon and Nikon have caught up with Sony in a short time.

Backward compatibility is no longer a holy cow. Sony has put out 5 generations of adapters. Nikon and Canon have adapters. Every guy with a garage seems to be making adapters.

Sigh, here we go again.

[biz-engineer]

The thing is though that AF probably needs to be at least K-3 III level even in an "allrounder". It can have lower fps but I do think the AF bar has been raised by milc. Expectations are much higher now. A sports camera is expected to do pretty crazy af stuff.

AF bar has been raised by MILC, but there is a lot of confusion about AF bar has been raised. I used the Z7, I wasn't impressed by AF speed nor low light focusing compared to my K1, but I was impressed by the number of AF points and frame coverage on the Z7, the bar was raised but not on speed or tracking for such MILC cameras. Now, considering the Sony A9 , A1, Nikon Z9 and Canon R3 that employ stacked sensors, yes the AF bar was raised for speed and tracking, but those aren't priced $2000, more like $4500 to $6500 price range. But, I often read broad generalization such as MILC have improved AF over DSLR, without mentioning what was improved and at what price. Fuji GFX50 is a MILC, but doesn't even match a Pentax K1 is low light.

[jslifoaw]

I think it would kill the company not save it. There will aways be people that people an OV. The people who will switch to use an OV is potentially larger than those who want one but haven't purchased one yet.

There is likely more upside staying with the OVF as others have stated. Mirrorless is so saturated with companies with vast resources and various lengths of head starts that despite a large addressable market, Pentax's strengths are likely to not bear fruit.

There seem to be a few different proposals floating around:

K-3/K-1 but swap out the mirror and OVF for an EVF - keep Pentax ergonomics (appears to be one of the most universally praised / least frequently panned qualities) but lose access to potentially modern shorter registration distance lenses and therefore cannot adapt other SLR or rangefinder lenses easily (popular cottage industry for those who aren't shelling out for new lenses - many Pentaxians can relate). Alienate OVF users (potentially any Pentax shooter today).

K-3/K-1 but create short registration K-mount and adapter - Canon and Nikon went this route - their ML cameras have a good bit of DSLR DNA in them. Nikon/Canon are also building out their mirrorless lens ranges while offering fairly painless backward compatibility with EF/F lenses (though Nikon omitted screw drive). Pentax may not have the resources to pull this off, and even if they could, the MO of many people familiar with Pentax is to stick to K mount lenses for too long to give Pentax a chance to recover its investment.

Brand new ML - Sony more or less started their ML from scratch comparing against their pre-ML Minolta-inspired bodies. They spent years building out a very broad body and lens range, and just like Canon/Nikon, their high end GM series is the most visible. I actually think my K-01 isn't particularly terrible - if it got more real Pentax ergonomic guts and an EVF, maybe that's viable?

L mount - is this a lens and/or body play for Pentax? How many buyers would choose a Pentax lens over Sigma, or a Pentax body over Panasonic, and wouldn't have chosen K mount if that was Pentax's only offering?

What could Pentax offer that these companies could not for ML? Pentax cannot easily go head to head on specs, which leaves their branding/legacy, design, or price. Price is almost certainly a no-go. Brand is a wild card but would likely lean on being a bit eccentric/nostalgic - no guarantees it will resonate with those who can afford to pour money into Pentax (who weren't already sold on the brand).

This leaves design - The K3-III can act like a boxy mirrorless. It would be awesome to have some sort of transparent OLED overlay in the OVF for edge detection/peaking, zebra, face/eye detect, etc., but that's another engineering effort (time and money) and every bit of light that feeds this system makes the optical view that much dimmer (ML doesn't need to split the light, except for very minor artifacts for phase detect). To compete with true ML, Pentax also needs on sensor phase detect AF.

The other design wild card is 645 - people are adapting 35mm lenses to GFX because some can cover 44x33. If Pentax goes ML, I think 645 is the most viable option because there is primarily just Fuji to contend with. With native adapters for K mount and 645 (with or without speedbooster), it would afford a lot of flexibility and make spec comparisons harder against the 35mm ML cameras, which is what Pentax needs. For now, Fuji can get away with worse AF, FPS, and video than 35mm ML by focusing on the sensor and the lenses (not dissimilar from the niche of 645 in the film days). Not going to be cheap, but 35mm ML is saturated and succeeds on strengths that do not align with Pentax.

[c.a.m]

Pentax has to chart its course for mirrorless.To boldly go where every man has gone before. (Or follow in their footsteps.)There are no questions of whether it can be done any longer. It has been done. Every technology to make the mirror box and mechanical shutter obsolete is out there.

@jhaji, You're correct that developing a MILC system is technically feasible. However, how would Ricoh Imaging Pentax stand out from the rest of the MILC crowd? What could be their unique selling proposition that would ensure a profit?

Did you have something in mind?

- Craig

[biz-engineer]

This leaves design - The K3-III can act like a boxy mirrorless.

Add on sensor PDAF in LV mode and you have an hybrid DSLR / MILC camera that costs more to make.

[BROO]

@jhaji, You're correct that developing a MILC system is technically feasible. However, how would Ricoh Imaging Pentax stand out from the rest of the MILC crowd? What could be their unique selling proposition that would ensure a profit?

Did you have something in mind?

- Craig

I would suggest a Fujifilm X-T4 style ff camera (Pentax LXd) with three limited lenses and two zooms licensed from Leica (24-90 f2.8-4 and 90-280 f2.8-4)
would be a good start.
Pure fantasy I know but there is one USP.
A Japanese Leica🙂

Heck what was that patent?

I think the elephant in the room is what Ricoh are missing out on buy not having a mirrorless option. I am talking about the technological opportunity cost and not necessarily the sales.
Nikon have just released a camera without a mechanical shutter.
Would they have achieved this goal without embraces mirrorless tech?
Manufacturers need to keep in touch with technological trends in order to remain relevant.
I hope Pentax continue to produce DSLR cameras but now they have abandoned their miniature MILC option they may consider replacing it with a ff camera featuring an EVF?

[repaap]

Biggest positive thing for K-3III is that it is not mirrorless.

I did buy mirrorless camera for ’hybrid/easy highquality video”. Panasonic S5. For video, it is great! For photography………..not so much. If I’m looking at Pentax, it would be quite likely that it would be something like Panasonic or Sigma FP, if it was mirrorless.

AF is much better than FP as well as Panasonic and image quality is very good even when I do compare K-3III to S5? If only option would be to have Pentax as MILC and not with OVF, I’d choose something completelly different, like CaNiSo. Now when Nikon has also got their gear up to those 2 others standards.

It might be that Pentax could fare well, but it could be the end. Perhaps 645 line could compete, since speed is not that important and Fuji is not that speedy either.

Well, we will see, but there is little to no reason to sacrifice OVF on the altar of EVF. EVF is practical, yes. But OVF feels so much better. And now when they have really taken huge step forward with AF(ricoh) why stop? If it was not big step forward, then by all means…but it is and it can be even better AND, OVF!

I will propably change my Panasonic to ’one of better brand MILC’, and have one proper video camera to be main camera, but I will not sell my Pentax for that. In fact I’m already very much waiting to get K-1 III with what ever they’v put in K-3III but with increased image quality and big bright OVF. Don’t mind if it’ll have same FPS as original K-1, rest should be updated. If it would be EVF and low performance,I would not bother, really(even if it was high performance).

[c.a.m]

Pure fantasy I know but there is one USP.

Yeah, it's fun to dream about the possibilities! I would say the challenge is to conceive of a profitable product line.

A Japanese Leica

But doesn't Leica already make Leica?

- Craig

[BROO]

Yeah, it's fun to dream about the possibilities! I would say the challenge is to conceive of a profitable product line.



But doesn't Leica already make Leica?

- Craig

I think it would be a highly desirable product that would appeal to people who appreciate a compact form factor.

I would be surprised if the Fujifilm X-T4 wasn't profitable 😉

Yes a Japanese Leica for half the price.

[RobA_Oz]

Yeah, it's fun to dream about the possibilities! I would say the challenge is to conceive of a profitable product line.

But doesn't Leica already make Leica?

- Craig

We could start a rumour that Ricoh is preparing to sell the Pentax division to Leica.

Or even better, sell it to Zeiss. After all, they were the source of the name.

Seriously (as if any of this is serious) some of us are happy with our present Pentaxes, and are looking forward to adding new glass for them. I know at least one user* who vows and declares that he’s bought his last new Pentax body and lens, and that lasts – right up until the next one appears.

* “user” means just that, not just a talker – not even a talker.

[TwoUptons]

Yes a Japanese Leica for half the price.

I thought those existed already, and were branded Panasonic...

Ricoh would be hard-pressed to stand out in a way they could make money from in that market...
They're already hard-pressed to stand out...

I'm not saying I might not like shooting with a Pentax branded compact mirrorless interchangeable lens camera... I just don't think it is going to happen... or should...

Especially since we already have mirrorless Pentaxes on the market now... just switch to mirrorless mode and bam!
And the mirror could be the sensor protector like the one the Z9 uses if Ricoh ever decides to lose the mechanical shutter...

They have plenty of challenges in the meantime.

-Eric