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12-31-2008, 04:37 PM   #46
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Samsungian, why competitive with Hasselblad and not with Mamiya?
Come on, none of us know what Pentax will do - and guessing is just... guessing. Their lips are sealed, more than ever! Only few hints, here and there... portable, rugged cameras, FF-like quality, lenses we don't know anything about... aaargh, if only I could find more details about what will come, you know, about "that" camera... Not that I need an upgrade, not that I'm unhappy with my current camera, but simply not knowing is killing me
This, while my K20D is screaming from it's bag: "Use me! I'm right here, you m*r*n!"

12-31-2008, 04:50 PM   #47
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Because Ned, Prez of Pentax USA said so...

Ned compared 645D to 31mp hassy, not me. Ned said it will use same 31mp kodak sensor as $18,000 hassy uses. He said $3,000-$5,000 price wasn't happening.

You ask him. I never see him post on photo forums anymore. He used to post occasionally, but no time for chitchats now I suppose. His email and office phone number use to be on Pentax USA website and now his contact links have been vanished.










QuoteOriginally posted by Kunzite Quote
Samsungian, why competitive with Hasselblad and not with Mamiya?
Come on, none of us know what Pentax will do - and guessing is just... guessing. Their lips are sealed, more than ever! Only few hints, here and there... portable, rugged cameras, FF-like quality, lenses we don't know anything about... aaargh, if only I could find more details about what will come, you know, about "that" camera... Not that I need an upgrade, not that I'm unhappy with my current camera, but simply not knowing is killing me
This, while my K20D is screaming from it's bag: "Use me! I'm right here, you m*r*n!"
12-31-2008, 04:57 PM   #48
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Well, the same sensor doesn't means the same price
And AFAIK the sensor can be easily upgraded, so even the 31mm sensor is not a given.
12-31-2008, 06:39 PM   #49
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QuoteOriginally posted by Art Vandelay II Quote
Not quite. The MSRP on the 5D Mark II body is $2700. The Nikon D700 MSRP is $3000, but it is currently selling for $2350 from some "safe" online stores. And of course the old 5D can be had brand new for under $1800 now.

Keep in mind all three of those are full blown magnesium built tanks. There is no reason Nikon couldn't build a full frame "D90". If they can sell an APS-C D90 body for $850 then there is no reason they can't make a full frame version for $1500 or so. I suspect it would be a huge hit with all the people (and there are lots of them) that want FF, but simply can't justify the cost of the pro-grade bodies currently on the market. I still say if Pentax wants to gain market share they should be the first to make a consumer grade FF SLR instead of waiting till last like they did with the KM/K2000 in the affordable APS-C war.
And do keep in mind that all of them has MSRPs around the 3000 USD mark, seriously 2700 or 3000 USD is close enough for me.

Well yes they are well build bodies, But I would not want anything less from pentax personally... Especially with all the talk about rugged outdoor camera.

QuoteOriginally posted by Kunzite Quote
Samsungian, how do you know that?
I mean, 3000$ is ridiculous, but so is 15000 (that's Hassie price level, you know? ).

Happy New Year anyone!
My guess would be that they would price themselves around Mamiya levels and not hassy.
BTW I have an offer for a new 39MP hazzy + 80mm "kit" lens that says 16000 USD (before VAT) and that is a danish price. so you would be able to get a 39mp Sensor at that price level.

Will get a weekend loaner somewhere early 2009 to test it

QuoteOriginally posted by Samsungian Quote
Ned compared 645D to 31mp hassy, not me. Ned said it will use same 31mp kodak sensor as $18,000 hassy uses. He said $3,000-$5,000 price wasn't happening.
It has been compared to a number of different sensors over the years IIRC, from 18MP and up. My dream would be the 60MP fullframe 645 sensor announced by Phase One... but that would likely push the price well past the 20K mark and probably closer to 30K and by that out of my range anyway.

12-31-2008, 07:44 PM   #50
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QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
If Hoya really wanted to shake things up they would upgrade the AF and Frame Rate mechanics in a fashion that would transfer across the pro-enthusiast bodies, retool for those beautiful MESuper prisms and . . .

bring back the MZ-S with the new mechanics as a

PFFF

Pentax Full Frame Film Camera
Amen to that...This makes sense!
12-31-2008, 08:32 PM   #51
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QuoteOriginally posted by jgredline Quote
Amen to that...This makes sense!
Why am I not surprised you replied?
01-01-2009, 07:25 AM   #52
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QuoteOriginally posted by Art Vandelay II Quote
It's an old article written back when the 5D Mark I first came out, but it's still pretty good for listing the pro's & cons.
Because you feel the article is worth a read I now had a second look.
It basically says: "the successor to 35 mm film is, indeed, digital APS-C". And it provides some arguments to support this point of view. Basically saying this is so because digital provides better quality than film in the first place.

However, following this reasoning and given the technical progress in sensor technology, the successor to 35 mm film ought to be the FourThirds format.

I differ from the point of view given by this article for the following three reasons:
  1. A body and mount should match the sensor, like FourThirds or FF, and unlike APS-C with K-mount. Why carry a FF body if the sensor is only APS-C?
  2. FF sensors aren't much more expensive than APS-C sensors (anymore, something which may have been different the time the article was written).
  3. In the digital age, image quality requirements surpass those of the film era. Not because it is required. But because it is possible.
And the article didn't even mention why 35mm was a sweet spot in the film era: Because the cost of the medium wasn't neglegible the way it is now in the digital age.

01-01-2009, 08:33 AM   #53
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Well, the successor to 35mm film is the digital APS-C. And only because it's cheap enough, easy to use and offers (more than) good enough image quality. For those characteristics, it's the most used DSLR format.
I'm sorry, but I don't get the "body and mount should match the sensor" idea. Is that from an Olympus commercial? Can you explain (Olympus can't, Canon/Nikon/Sony won't bother trying) what exactly is a mount that match the sensor?
And what do you think is the price difference between FF sensors and APS-C ones? IMHO, it still should be pretty big...
01-01-2009, 08:58 AM   #54
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QuoteOriginally posted by falconeye Quote
Because you feel the article is worth a read I now had a second look.
It basically says: "the successor to 35 mm film is, indeed, digital APS-C". And it provides some arguments to support this point of view. Basically saying this is so because digital provides better quality than film in the first place.

However, following this reasoning and given the technical progress in sensor technology, the successor to 35 mm film ought to be the FourThirds format.
Well following that reasoning the modern successor to MF film should be digital FF. That make sense both in price and weight.

QuoteQuote:
I differ from the point of view given by this article for the following three reasons:[LIST=1][*] A body and mount should match the sensor, like FourThirds or FF, and unlike APS-C with K-mount. Why carry a FF body if the sensor is only APS-C?
I have a pet theory that 4/3 (not micro 4/3) is a bad design. A small sense with a long register distance gives little advantage in shrinking the lens size. The Olympus ultra wide zoom are pretty big. Their tel zooms are smaller.

QuoteQuote:
[*] FF sensors aren't much more expensive than APS-C sensors (anymore, something which may have been different the time the article was written).
....
Actually FF sense is 10 times more expensive than a APS sensor. This has to do the bigger size cut of the sicilon waffer has exponential higher chance of getting a bad sample.

Here is a link of the guy talking about a 200mm wafer contains 20 FF sensor but you can print 200 APS sensors on the same wafer. And that's not account for the special "stitching" technique for the FF sensors.

http://www.chipworks.com/blogs.aspx?id=4626&blogid=86

Last edited by whatever7; 01-01-2009 at 09:43 AM.
01-01-2009, 09:46 AM   #55
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QuoteOriginally posted by Kunzite Quote
I'm sorry, but I don't get the "body and mount should match the sensor" idea. [...] Can you explain
The Pentax K mount roughly has a mount diameter which is almost the same as the image circle diameter (43mm). And the register distance is such that the mirror (which has a size proportional to the image circle size) is able to flip up.

As a consequence, mount diameter and register distance are proportional to the sensor diagonal. Therefore, a DSLR body MADE for APS-C should have roughly 1/1.53^3 or 28% the volume of a body made for FF. It does have 100% its volume. Therefore, in the long run, either the mount for APS-C will change or the sensors will become FF. I opt to keep the K mount and go for FF. In an intermediate time, I can live with APS-C in FF bodies, though.

And I agree, the FourThirds mount specification is flawed (too big). They try to fix it now.
QuoteOriginally posted by whatever7 Quote
Actually FF sense is 10 times more expensive than a APS sensor. This has to do the bigger size cut of the sicilon waffer has exponential higher chance of getting a bad sample.
Here is a link of the guy talking about a 200mm wafer contains 20 FF sensor but you can print 200 APS sensors on the same wafer.
Another legend. In some of my previous posts I derived that an FF sensor is about 3 times the cost of an APS-C sensor. It was later backed by other posts. I don't remember the thread. The guy above is right for the specific layout which is unfortunate because it produces a lot of waste (unused silicon area). The situation is different with 300mm wafers.
The yield rate does decrease with the following law, going from APS-C to FF:
y[FF] = y[APS-C]^2.34

So, an 80% yield rate for APS-C becomes 59% for FF. Note that yield rates for CMOS sensors aren't very bad because bad pixels are tolerated.

The price for electronics (even if it includes a sensor of FF size) will soon be neglegible compared to the mechanical costs of a DSLR camera. Which means that the cost of glass is everything we need to care about.
01-01-2009, 10:07 AM   #56
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Why do you assume they are using 300mm wafer now.

No offense the guy wrote a pretty long ass article, I trust his opinion more than yours.
01-01-2009, 10:24 AM   #57
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Falconeye, how on earth can you take the sensor size and extrapolate to the full volume of a camera? It's not like a camera (all it's components) would scale perfectly with the size of the sensor!
Besides, it's not like an APS-C DSLR will have the same size as a FF one, if both uses the same mount. Components like the prism will be smaller, but also the mirror chamber which now has to accommodate a smaller sensor/mirror/shutter. Components like the battery housing and electronics may be bigger with FF cameras, if more power/processing power is required (but that's another thing). Components like the LCD are expected to increase in size, while wheels and buttons should stay more or less the same.

Now, should I tell you why even the bigger registration distance of the K-mount (compared to 4/3) is not really an issue?
01-19-2010, 04:44 PM   #58
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Very Good news as Photokina is just a few months away

Very Good news as Photokina is just a few months away.


QuoteOriginally posted by whatever7 Quote
Sorry about the title. However I have done some homework on it, hear me out.

I recently collected the prcing history of Pentax DSLR bodies in the last few year. (I got them from nextag, camelcamelcamel, and old dpreview posts. Yes its not very accurate but the price change alot near the end of the product cycle. Basically it will give you guys a rough idea where the price is going.)


This gave me a clearer picture of Pentax's release schedule.

As you can see, it's a rough idea so please allow +-$100USD margin of error. And I didn't include some low end bodies because there is no space in the grid.

The "top tier" (or prosumer if you will) body ist D was announced at the end of '03, and the low end body DL was released in late '06. So it took 2 and half years for the 6mp sensor to trickle down to the cheapest low end body. For the 10mp sensor, it took 2 years exactly, K10D came out at Photokina 06 and the K-M/K2000 came out at Photokina 08.

So assuming this is Pentax's way of controlling the production cycles, the 14mp sensor will show up on the low end body 2 year after the K20D, which is early 2010. Obviously the 14mp sensor will show up on the mid-tier body first. And I remember some interview said that the K-M chassis will be shared with other Pentax bodies, then I am guessing a K300 with a 14mp sensor will come out early '09. I don't know if it will have weatherproof since it may base on the K-M body.

As for the next sensor, going from the 6mp-10mp-14mp trend, I am guessing it will be a 18mp sensor, give or take, coming out on the K30. I think it will have a list price closer to K10D than K20D. The K10D had a very reasonable $899 list price and it hardly had any price drop in the first year of its release, unlike the K20D, which droped half of its price quickly. If we don't see a K20D Super in 09, we should see a 18mp K30 coming early 2010.

Now what about the full frame. As you can see from the table, historically, Pentax's top end body, including the MZ-s came out at around $1500-1700 listed. IF Pentax were planning a FF body, it would release one when its prossible and profitable to produce a FF body in that price range.

Pentax also tradionally favor IQ over focusing speed and other pro features. So I think it just make sense. Pentax can spend $1000 to buy a FF sensor from Sony and stuff it in a K200D body and sell it for $1500, it would still be the cheapest FF and lot of people will buy it. The reason Pentax is not doing it is because going with Samsung will save them some money.

So when will the FF bodies drop to the 1500-2000 range. Right now the D700 is 2500. You can get a A900 for slightly higher. Give them two years to drop to the 1500 range is very reasonable. I wouldn't be surpriced if Nikon eventually merge the D200/D300 line with the D700 line. Two years can also give Pentax enough time to position the D20/D30 line to a lower price/market.

Anyway I am saving money for a 2010 FF body. Pentax or an used D700.
01-20-2010, 06:40 AM   #59
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I would be nice to see the table updated with the K7 and the K-x. (Not me since I don't know which reference have been used for price)
01-20-2010, 06:48 AM   #60
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I don't know that it matters so much atm. but perhaps a FF pentax(done right) would finally put to rest that voice that keeps saying to get a D700.

It really comes down to price though.
Personally, if Pentax released a body with K7 ergonomics and better high ISO performance, I could see myself getting in line to get one.
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