[reh321]

I owned the 645Z for two years and had no complaints. Also have a ongoing Love affair with the original K-1 also with zero complaints.
You are correct that Pentax has come out with some nice products in the last 10 years. However it's the current lineup and product choices in the last two years that has left me disappointed.
Offerings by Olympus and Fuji are slowly swaying me from being a devout Pentaxian much longer.
It's quite frustrating watching what i see as the beginning of the end for Pentax.
Just my 2 cents view.

When I came to Pentax in 1979, it was because of their technical reputation built by Takumars, etc.
Then I was lured away by the quiet EF system offered by Canon.

When I came back, my small Canon Elf was not performing as I desired, so I decided to get a Q-7.
My original intention was to get a silver/black one that would remind me of the rangefinder camera I got in 1969,
but Pentax had changed. They were selling yellow Q-7 and K-01 cameras - now they were addressing the ‘collector market’ in their home country, and amongst “experienced” Q-7’s {we were having financial issues at the time}, what I could find was a yellow Q-7 - then a blue K-30.
We seem to get what their home market desires.
We should be glad for what we can find - how they operate is what matters.

[Ronald Oakes]

If you look at the choice of camera's and lenses from Olympus (they just introduced the OM-1), the quality of built, the availability of accessories (100% in stock), the professional websites worldwide, and the customer service, well if you compare that to Pentax, they are a pathetic bunch of amateurs. I bet Pentax still exists only because no hedge fund wants to buy it, they are worth nothing. I even wouldn't be surprised if Ricoh puts zero effort into Pentax and they can only continue to exist earning their own money. So now they are trying to bootstrap themselves with J-Limited stuff and crowdfunding. And they retreat to Japan because they can't afford adding the cost of international transport and service. In contrast Olympus is behaving far more professional in every aspect and they might be in a far better position.

My thoughts exactly !
Aside from being M43 the OM-1 specs are mind boggling , quite innovative , and future proof for a good long time. Olympus hit it out of the Ballpark on this one !
I wish we Pentaxians could have a nice dose of that rather than a "tweak" of an existing model.....sigh.

[JPT]

If you look at the choice of camera's and lenses from Olympus (they just introduced the OM-1), the quality of built, the availability of accessories (100% in stock), the professional websites worldwide, and the customer service, well if you compare that to Pentax, they are a pathetic bunch of amateurs. I bet Pentax still exists only because no hedge fund wants to buy it, they are worth nothing. I even wouldn't be surprised if Ricoh puts zero effort into Pentax and they can only continue to exist earning their own money. So now they are trying to bootstrap themselves with J-Limited stuff and crowdfunding. And they retreat to Japan because they can't afford adding the cost of international transport and service. In contrast Olympus is behaving far more professional in every aspect and they might be in a far better position.

Pentax can't afford to advertise like Olympus, because of the very simple fact that, well, Olympus couldn't afford to advertise like Olympus. They were were notorious for heavy promotion of their products - basically the nonsense of "buying sales". They lost money on cameras year after year for a decade and eventually their parent company decided to spin them off. I like Olympus as a camera maker and I even think the micro 4/3 system is a pretty good place to be as a customer, but Olympus were living beyond their means and now they are going to have to scale things back.

The OM-1 looks really good, but remember how long they were stuck on their old 20mp sensor before that. The K-3 III is not a minor advance at all. It is just as big a jump as the OM-1 is but it's one sensor size up and costs no more. However, if you want mirrorless rather than DSLR and like the OM-1, you should get one. I'm sure it won't disappoint.

And regarding Ricoh's support of Pentax, isn't "exist earning their own money" the only sustainable way for a business to exist? You say they retreat to Japan, but there is no change to their distribution outside Japan at all. You could argue they retreated somewhat in Japan.

[texandrews]

This thread is wandering into brand bashing territory, and also OT territory. If it doesn't get back on track quickly then perhaps it should get shut down as everything meaningful has already been posted.

[reh321]

If you look at the choice of camera's and lenses from Olympus (they just introduced the OM-1), the quality of built, the availability of accessories (100% in stock), the professional websites worldwide, and the customer service, well if you compare that to Pentax, they are a pathetic bunch of amateurs. I bet Pentax still exists only because no hedge fund wants to buy it, they are worth nothing. I even wouldn't be surprised if Ricoh puts zero effort into Pentax and they can only continue to exist earning their own money. So now they are trying to bootstrap themselves with J-Limited stuff and crowdfunding. And they retreat to Japan because they can't afford adding the cost of international transport and service. In contrast Olympus is behaving far more professional in every aspect and they might be in a far better position.

Say what you will, Pentax has - and continues to - serve me well.

I wish we Pentaxians could have a nice dose of that rather than a "tweak" of an existing model.....sigh.

Adding to the K-70 the type of focusing the K-3iii has would not be "tweaking" - nothing to "sigh" about.

[MMVIII]

To just quickly take up the previous discussion some short sentences.
Cosmetic variations like these are for sure nothing to see the momentum/innovative power of a company/brand, but also not the lack thereof. They are a marketing instrument and in the form they are done they are adressed to a core user group that they know will appreciate them and not an expensive worldwide experiment, like the K01 with Mark Newson might have been.
Voicing criticism here seems, in my opinion, useless and is missing the point. And I don't oppose any criticism on the development of Pentax (edit, I don't claim all critical views are invalid), I also think they should go a slightly other direction than the latest model (instead of trying to compete in high speed photography, develop reliable versatile rugged cameras for travel, documentary, science, astro, landscape with the main focus on highest possible image quality and greatest sensor output, but this might be "obscured" by my needs and we can discuss this somewhere else)

However, as low as a limited J approach is in attracting my interest, I still do hope that some brave and unusual variants might be tested along this path, an Astro bw or full spectrum camera is always a welcome variant and this might be the only way something like this might come to market.