I’ll explain the Q&A part of the Pentax Meeting event in this post. When registering to attend the session, there was a space to add a question to the product planning team. Obviously with 2000+ attendees, it wasn’t possible to answer every question one by one, but they grouped them together to come up with the top three themes. They were pretty much what you’d expect, so counting up from the 3rd to the 1st most common question, here is how they responded to them.
Q.
Is there going to be a successor to the KP or K-70
A. Right now they’d really like us to buy the K-3 III - they were smiling as they said this. However, they realize it’s important to have a more accessible model, because there needs to be an attainable way for beginners to experience a DSLR. Beyond that they didn’t say anything specific, but we can assume there will be a low or mid-range APS-C camera at some point.
Q.
What lenses are coming?
A. They started by apologizing that it had taken so long to deliver on the roadmap. They are working on the remaining lenses, but that is not all. They are also working on several lenses that are not on the roadmap, and some of these might come out before the roadmapped items. Reading between the lines, I get the feeling they don’t want to put new things on the roadmap unless they are really sure they can deliver. They asked users for ideas for what lens they’d like, and the 135mm and super telephoto seemed to be the most requested in the Zoom chat.
Q.
What about the next full frame camera?
A. For a start, the K-1 II is their full frame model for time being. It is getting a firmware update in December to add a new custom image mode. It doesn’t look like it will be replaced in the immediate future. They talked about how difficult and how long it would take to come out with a model with a new prism like the K-3 III. It sounds like the expectation of a full frame version K-3 III with the prism of K-1 II is the most realistic.
They also have other ideas for cameras like a model with the same body design as the K-1 but a lower resolution to enable faster operation. They also mentioned the idea of a full frame manual model, which could be a lot smaller than the K-1 by removing some of the automation. It was interesting to hear that the designers do really think about some of the more out-of-the-box ideas, like people discuss on the forums.
Other parts of the event today
- A showcase of the DFA21mm Limited. They did this by having five of the developers go out and take pictures with the lens that they think are both good images and that illustrate something the think is characteristic of the lens. This brought up various stories about the development of the lens. Then they asked the audience to vote for the the best set. It was quite a good way to talk about the lens and show that the designers are keen photographers themselves.
- Showing the winners of a photo contest
- A video made with user submitted photos of their cameras. It was done like a 102 version of the Pentax 100 video they did two years ago.
- A giveaway of cool display of the individual lens elements of the DFA21 Limited, like a real version of a lens element diagram in a glass case. The contest itself was a bit of a shambles though.
- The new President Noboru Akahane closed with a speech at the end. It was just a nice closing speech. He didn’t really say much about strategy or anything like that.
Obviously, this was an engagement event, not a product announcement. The main feeling was of a company trying to be close to its customers and trying to listen. I honestly thought they would show a mock-up of a lens or two, but it was a not an event like a press conference. We probably have to wait for something more public like CP+ for that
Last edited by JPT; 11-30-2021 at 06:19 PM.
Originally posted by JPT 
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