[Rondec]

Are you serious?! Even Hassy moved their behind and joined the party. Realistically, it is now a one man race, Fuji. For a new 645Z, they do not have lenses for it and they are 200 meters behind in a 400 meter race. Why bother?

Focus on a new K1 and hope people still care enough to buy it. Flippy screen is one feature I loved about the K1 line. Do away with it and watch what happens. Talk about backward thinking. Pentax used to innovate now they are reverse innovating. What a shame.

JPT has answered already, but he said that Pentax is focused on the K-1 II sequel.

They are also indicating that they haven't given up on medium format. It sounds to me like they believe that full frame medium format is going to be the only way forward to deal with Fuji's medium format cameras. As far as I know, the Fuji mount won't take that size sensor and so Pentax would only have Phase One as a direct competitor. The problem, of course, is that such a camera will be lots more expensive than the 645Z.

[house]

- The panelists were saying that they don’t like or don’t use the K-1 II flip screen. Kawauchi-san responded that they have great feedback from it and that they hear many people wanted the screen on the K-3 III. Interesting to hear the Pentax guy defending the flip screen.

I fully understand it's not going to happen but I do think Pentax desperately need two ff models. They don''t have to be price differentiated but rather designed for different use cases.

1. Pentax ★ camera: Designed to match the ★ line of lenses, a model focused on performance, ruggedness and control at the cost of size and complexity. (K-1 III)
2. Pentax Limited camera: Designed for travel, urban and vintage + limited lenses, a model focused on experience, handling and simplicity

In my view the 2:nd option shouldn't be full on retro but I think Pentax would make great models with the above goals.

[Ian Stuart Forsyth]

Just a question about the sense of increasing pixel density on the 645. What is the diffraction limit on 100mp at crop medium format size?

Typically when people start to talk about diffraction limit they picture the blur created by diffraction to be around the size of a pixel but that really does not equate well a the point no more detail can be captured. The first problem is that blur spots don't just line up like a grid on the sensor when in fact they are many overlapping blur spots of different sizes depending on the wavelength of light.



This is typically what people have in mind as you can see what happens is the blur from many different spots create an overlapping pattern the above not accurately record how they fall with just a single photo site. Next we run into the problem that only a single photo site is only recording a limited wavelength of light and to correctly record more detail we really need to sample the spot with more than one color


here more sites are added to help with recording different wave lengths of light but dividing the photo site into 1/4 still does not allow us to sample how the blur spot is formed let alone overlapping


here we are getting at a good start as to how the spot being formed dividing it into 25 but again it really does not help with the spots overlapping

We also run into the problem of false detail I know I still have the problem while using a FF 36mp (with an AA filter) using F16 to combating this problem and it still appear every once and a while. With more mp we can really start to use diffraction to aid in reducing this problem by push it into frequencies that will not be viewed in our final image.

Next as we reduce the size of the photo site we can also increase the amount of light the camera can store this will help in reducing the noise found in the tonal ranges we are trying to capture. This can also push the noise again into the frequencies that we will not display our images at.

[JPT]

So I’m still not understanding it fully, but it seems that what you’re saying in that more pixels will help to combat the effects of diffraction.

I fear I’ve pulled my own thread off topic! Ban me now!

---------- Post added 02-11-23 at 12:20 PM ----------

I fully understand it's not going to happen but I do think Pentax desperately need two ff models. They don''t have to be price differentiated but rather designed for different use cases.

1. Pentax ★ camera: Designed to match the ★ line of lenses, a model focused on performance, ruggedness and control at the cost of size and complexity. (K-1 III)
2. Pentax Limited camera: Designed for travel, urban and vintage + limited lenses, a model focused on experience, handling and simplicity

In my view the 2:nd option shouldn't be full on retro but I think Pentax would make great models with the above goals.

I agree that two models each for APS-C and full frame would be ideal. Honestly, I think a KP style model with the previous tech and K-1/3 style model with the latest tech would work well in both formats. But clearly that isn’t happening any time soon.

[Digitalis]

it is now a one man race, Fuji. For a new 645Z, they do not have lenses for it and they are 200 meters behind in a 400 meter race.

This is purely speculative:


But there is something Pentax could do that would throw Fuji out of the race if they dared to create it. Ever heard of the Hasselblad Acrbody? With the underutilized imaging circle of 645 lenses: A 33X44mm sensor in a body that can utilize movements such as tilt/shift with great precision with any 645/67 lens, would be a superb tool.



Fuji users would be stuck with fixed focal planes, which for landscape/studio/macrophotography can be quite limiting on larger formats. Fuji would have to develop their own line of T/S lenses to counter it, which would be quite expensive for their users and rather restrictive on the choice of focal lengths.

[texandrews]

I was going to start multi-quoting from this discussion, but then thought it ridiculous. So as a dedicated FF and digital 645 Pentaxian I'll commend a bunch of folks for good posts and thank JPT for a great report and thread! My thoughts on all of this:

• Starting with Digitalis's perceptive post: yes, Pentax is in a position to leapfrog Fuji in one way---generally leveraging the lens line for a larger sensor or different sort of camera. I'll add also that for more than casual users, lenses are the biggest investment typically, not the body. So it is for me, and having those legacy lenses made my move into digital MF possible---w/o them it would not have been. It seems to be true for some new users I see coming into the fold. But chasing Fuji for the sake of chasing them is a fool's errand I think for Pentax. And more so because I think Fuji has been making some negative noises of late.
• That Pentax continues to say it is working on 645 in whatever way is a positive. An advanced 645 film camera would have some niche appeal; a larger senor digital camera would be ideal, and yes would cost a good bit more. But remember that both the D and the Z were groundbreaking cameras, first in price and then in performance and price. So it's possible that it would be a more expensive camera yet also be groundbreaking in price, too. My 2014 Z is still a superb camera, nearly all the camera I want; I will still do what I can to buy a new model. But I don't think we can say with certainty that another crop frame 645 isn't being considered. The comment from the Pentax representative about limiting the MP is a bit odd, though, and I think wrong unless we are misinterpreting him. There are good uses for higher MP, despite the pepper/mouse poop comment above.
• It makes sense that the K mount is taking precedence---even as a 645 user I think that is correct. The comment about having a "standard" camera (which perhaps is the KF) seems sound, and the discussion about the K1 line is promising IMO.
• The explanation about 2022's behind the scenes work makes sense to me, especially coming out of Covid related (and other) supply chain issues.
• Seems like 2023 could be good for us.

[AfterPentax Mark II]

I mean they understand there is limited demand for a new 645 and that the existing lenses would have performance problems. Anyway, they are focusing on K-Mount.

Here in Europe that is quite obvious seeing the huge discount on 645 lenses: https://pentax.eu/nl/collections/exclusive-offers There are only five items left now but there were many more than this last lot. Imagine a €3000,00 discount on that 300mm lens.

[kypfer]

Interesting to read the reaction to the "Seasonal lens-specific custom image profiles" … I'll be keen to see a change in strategy here

[RGlasel]

There are good uses for higher MP

If we limit the discussion to photographs intended for public viewing, I would disagree. We look at photographs as a single image in an instant of time; even if our eyes go back to focus in on an element that grabbed our initial attention, there are limits to how deep we want to dive and viewpoints that extend beyond our natural field of vision get broken into smaller snapshots of the overall scene. The medium used to display a photograph plays a part, the unnatural luminosity of a backlit LCD monitor tends to overemphasize colour and contrast over fine details and we tend to narrow our field of view (think of hovering over the display on your smartphone in relatively dark surroundings). Print media is limited by its lack of depth (to get a three dimensional sense requires blurring of details and graduated colour shifts) and there isn't a one to one relationship between sensor resolution and printer resolution. Regardless of the display medium, there are limits to the ratio of display size to the distance between the image and our eyes and limits to how much detail we can cognitively process at once.

I viewed the Imagine Van Gogh exhibit a couple of years ago. I've never seen a Van Gogh original, so my frame of reference is limited to paintings by other artists, along with printed photographs of Van Gogh's work. Imagine Van Gogh is essentially a collection of digital reproductions of his paintings, back projected on dozens of huge hanging screens in a large, dark room with a high ceiling. The images are in motion, from screen to screen, with changing perspectives (from the entire painting to close-ups) in a predetermined sequence that takes about an hour to view from start to finish. If you just want to feel the colours and mood of his work, this format works quite well; if you want to critically analyze a particular painting, it is very disorienting (to the point of inducing motion sickness in many people). My point is that the resolution for people who want to look at photographs at natural levels of enlargement is not particularly high. It could be argued that the extra information contained in higher resolution digital files can be used to enhance images displayed at lower resolutions, but similar enhancements can be achieved with software, to the point that the human viewer can't be sure if natural or artificial (or more accurately, a particular combination of both) is preferable. None of this is taking the disadvantages of higher pixel density into account, either.

None of this matters when it comes to selling cameras worth several thousands of dollars. Buying decisions are not rational (I have 26 years of experience selling industrial products that required a reasonable level of technical complexity to manufacture, to base my opinion on) and I do think any camera sold as an upgrade to the 645Z will have to have a higher resolution. If that isn't a financially sound strategy, then marketing will have to find a way to sell something similar to the current 645Z as "good enough" from the standpoint of technical specifications and superiour to more "advanced" competitors from a practical standpoint.

[house]

Interesting to read the reaction to the "Seasonal lens-specific custom image profiles" … I'll be keen to see a change in strategy here

As a raw shooter I don't actually have much use of the custom image settings but I think it's a dangerous gamble to do these kind of 'artificial' limitations. The brand looses goodwill and I seriously doubt that it increases sale of new lenses. It's Sony, Canon playbook and no one likes those brands for that behaviour. Sony gained goodwill back by the relatively open mount.

[normhead]

The K1 was banking on loyal customers having legacy glass.

You ignore the fact that with both the K-1 and K-P half the customers were new to Pentax. Such a glaring, and well known omission calls into question your credibility.

I recently tried to post this image to a few sites a reduced size.


You won't see this in the Ricoh Pentax gallery or Facebook, because at the sizes they allow, it looks like garbage.

There was a problem. There is no image reducing software that can make that level of detail look good. SO going to a 100MP camera, you have to ask, will that be a good thing or bad thing for people posting places like the forum and similar places? The 11000-9000 pixels while 3 times the MP of a K-1 is only 40% more pixels in each direction....is that a good way to spend 10 grand? Not for me. This whole , I need more resolution has gotten completely out of hand. The GFX 100 is a special camera for some unique shooters. And, going on a forum that mentions it, not without its problems.

I've read the IR review. It sure sounded like they were making up stuff to try and make it sound like people might need this camera. But, for those who had successful shows shooting a k20d, the whole thing sounds like ridiculous hype.

We've finally reached the point, where too much resolution can ruin your images, if you mainly want to use them at smaller sizes. If you are an average Joe, you don't want 100 MP images on your computer, (what's the tiff size of that image?) you'll have to worry about what happens when you reduce the size, because you won't want the whole image very often, and you have to pay 10s of thousands of dollars for the luxury of prints, like very few want. You need some very high end users to make this camera worthwhile.

My own take is I so rarely use all of my 36MP (for the first time since I bought my K-1 in 2016, I sent out a print that uses the full resolution, 1:1 pixels to dpi, and prints printed at 200 dpi are almost as good.) 100 MP would be even more useless.

I'm still not sure I need more than a K-3iii. And you want to talk about 100 MP? What's the business plan? Exactly who are you talking to that you think might need 100MP. If it's all speculation and made up possibilities, with no real people involved, maybe w need to wait and see, if this is good for anyone but pixel peepers. And honestly, pixel peepers can't appreciate art. They aren't looking at art, they are looking at individual pixels that make up the art. Not composition or anything else artistic. And even if you did have on big wall for your images, would you want 100 MP images 6 feet wide? The uses for that type of resolution are minuscule.

[Serkevan]

You ignore the fact that with both the K-1 and K-P half the customers were new to Pentax.

I do recall an exec saying that the KP was popular with first-time customers, but I don't remember seeing any hard data - and nothing of the sort regarding the K-1. Do you have any link handy?

[Wheatfield]

Because 51 MP isn't enough?

For the bulk of photographers, 6MP is more than enough because their images are viewed on a cell phone screen that is little more than 2mp.
Having said that, one of the things Pentax has to look at when designing a camera is what sensor is actually available.
Upgrading the K1 to a 45 or 60mp sensor isn't going to do most of the users any good, but if they can't get 36mp sensors any longer, they have to choose a different sensor.
Choosing a smaller MP sensor isn't likely viable for them as they would appear to be moving backwards rather than forward (presuming they could get such a sensor), so that leaves the only option of packing a higher resolution sensor into a new camera.
Consumers still look at MP as a most important number when choosing a camera, and have been programmed to view more as better, whether or not it really is.
A 12mp full frame might have been sellable in 2007 when Nikon introduced the D3, but releasing one in 2023 would get the company doing it laughed out of the market, presuming that a 12mp full frame sensor could be acquired.
Photographers have a way of finding uses for new features, and that includes more MP. For example, give them enough and the lack of a 600mm or longer telephoto becomes unimportant as they now have the ability to deep crop their 300mm lens images and still have enough sensor resolution to make a decent sized enlargement.

[normhead]

I do recall an exec saying that the KP was popular with first-time customers, but I don't remember seeing any hard data - and nothing of the sort regarding the K-1. Do you have any link handy?

Not handy, but in my experience the K-1 was quite popular with first time Pentax buyers. I have and image of one, with his K-1, 150-450 and 15-30. He owned no there Pentax gear.

[normhead]

Photographers have a way of finding uses for new features, and that includes more MP. For example, give them enough and the lack of a 600mm or longer telephoto becomes unimportant as they now have the ability to deep crop their 300mm lens images and still have enough sensor resolution to make a decent sized enlargement.

I'm with you there, if I had one, I'm sure I'd find a use. But $15,000-$20,000 is a lot to spend to futz around. We may have reached the point where the average shooter can't afford max. MP. 36-42 MP is a nice number. If you crop a GFX 100 to 6000 pixels, the kind of crop you'd need to get 600 FoV from 300 FoV, you'll get more resolution with a 600mm lens and a K-1 and it's 7300 horizontal. Because of the law of diminishing returns, sure you can do it, but is it really to your advantage? It's rare I buy a $10,000 camera to avoid buying a $2500 camera and a $5000 lens. Especially since I already own the $2500 camera.