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View Poll Results: Will Pentax Succeed with the New K-7 and Strategy?
Yes 19592.86%
No 157.14%
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05-15-2009, 11:45 PM   #211
RaduA
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QuoteOriginally posted by nanok Quote
radu: you crack me up. "in verva" tonight, as they say, eh ?
Hi, Nanok!

Nothing better to get you in the zone than a grueling week of work with no perspective of getting any better over the week end!

Radu

05-16-2009, 09:41 AM   #212
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Can Pentax win with K-7 ? Will Pentax survive with K-7?

How can they win? Pentax captures less than 10% global market share in dslr sales. Imagine a world where half of all Canon & Nikon & Sony & Olympus & Panasonic & Leica owners all of the sudden dump all their equiptment to buy a Pentax K-7 and full array of currently offered lenses without even touching it.

Locally I have zero places that will carry K-7 & lenses for hands on considerations. Lots of places I can buy online, like WalMart. But locally no WalMart carries Pentax inperson. So no touchy feely test drives for me and anyone else in the 1/2 million person sized county.

Whereas I can go to several places and handle new D700 & 5D Mark II & some lenses.

Will Pentax survive with K-7, sure there's lots a buzz about it and it puts the pentax logo out in public for free. From what I've read K-7 does (((everything))) except use canon and nikon lenses.

I want to know what the launch price is going to start at. Isn't that the bottomline? Whats it cost to be in first wave of buyers? With that bit of info then I can guess where it will be buyable at in 9 months. All manufacturers launch high, I got burnt a couple times by this so its highly unlikely I'll ever be in first wave of any brand camera buyers again. Once lens prices settle out they hold their most of their purchase value but dslrs are disposable. Virtually worthless in 5 years or less.

I'll watch the Pentax timer click to zero. Its been a good marketing plan for those who follow pentax products. I'm sure Pentax is seeing the hits are way up on their webcounters and this is sure to please Hoya.


I wonder if K-7 msrp will be included in details& specs on day one?

May 20-09:

$1500 plus or Under $1500.




QuoteOriginally posted by RiceHigh Quote
I know Pentax is still unable to make a Full Frame body at this moment, nor they are willing to bear the risk.

So, now they go in another way to compete - make a high grade body with most updated features, the best possible ergonomics and compactness as well as with highest possible build quality, so that it makes itself an unique product with all those valuable differentiating characteristics in the current market. But, it is still an APS-C DSLR afterall!

So and so, what do you think if this would succeed? Image quality wise, I still not believing that any APS-C can beat those of the current Full Frame lines. And price wise, the price difference is not very big. Say, if you pay just a little bit more, even one can get the old Full Frame Canon 5D MkI which can still be bought brand new in the market for the time being. And then for a little bit more, the popular Nikon D700 is there!

All in all, Do you think that Pentax can win in the game and competition? Or, just to continue their life in the DSLR battle field with the new K-7??
05-16-2009, 10:00 AM   #213
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QuoteOriginally posted by Samsungian Quote
How can they win? Pentax captures less than 10% global market share in dslr sales. Imagine a world where half of all Canon & Nikon & Sony & Olympus & Panasonic & Leica owners all of the sudden dump all their equiptment to buy a Pentax K-7 and full array of currently offered lenses without even touching it.
How can they 'win?' Realistic conditions of victory.

Canon and Nikon are playing for market supremacy. Pentax only needs to secure a piece.

(Edit: To elaborate a little: Canon and Nikon are kind of like, say, Toyota and ..., say, Ford. Huge companies with huge infrastructures to support: mass markets, yes, but also beholden to those mass markets. Quite often with consumer products, there are two big competitors, and smaller companies competing for the #3 slot. That can be a very capitalistically-healthy place to be, actually. All Pentax needs to do is be Subaru, not 'kill' one of the Big Two. Also, it's good for *us* if Pentax isn't too big: the less inertia, the more likely it is they'll keep tailoring things to the needs of those of us who, for watever reason, didn't fit into the bigger companies' pricing and design schemes so well. Like with the Subaru analogy, you didn't see *them* relying on competing over who makes the biggest and most bloated SUV's even when we all *knew* gas prices were bound to go up.

Canon and Nikon, well, fine companies, both, but a 'photographer's camera' from them may as well have been a Mercedes as far as my lifestyle is concerned. They think like 'big money' there, ....less money means less commitment, and less seriousness: if you can't buy the 'prosumer' model you must be an idiot who wants bells and whistles and automation that's none too convenient to bypass. That's kind of a trap: frankly, Pentax got half its old rep for student cameras just cause they kept making K1000s when the other companies kept making the manual models chintzier and more 'consumerey.' The mass market's kind of like riding a tiger, that way.

Last edited by Ratmagiclady; 05-16-2009 at 10:24 AM.
05-16-2009, 10:08 AM   #214
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QuoteOriginally posted by nanok Quote
market share figures alone are not essential for determining survival. what ratmagiclady mentioned is, strangely, exactly why the market share of pentax is more than numbers: niche, to put it in a word.
But niche only works if you can command a higher price premium / higher profit margins to offset the lower sales volume/ lower market share. Pentax 645D can do that, but not so for the other cameras. K series cameras compete head on in the mass market, and they do not possess any unique features which allow them to be sold at premium price. If anything, they have to be priced lower than Canon/Nikon to generate sales. Not sure what K-7 would bring, but I doubt they can get a higher profit margin than the other cameras in this class.

05-16-2009, 10:35 AM   #215
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QuoteOriginally posted by nosnoop Quote
But niche only works if you can command a higher price premium / higher profit margins to offset the lower sales volume/ lower market share. Pentax 645D can do that, but not so for the other cameras. K series cameras compete head on in the mass market, and they do not possess any unique features which allow them to be sold at premium price. If anything, they have to be priced lower than Canon/Nikon to generate sales. Not sure what K-7 would bring, but I doubt they can get a higher profit margin than the other cameras in this class.
It's not even necessarily in those terms, Nosnoop: profitability has to do with assets and liabilities. Pentax can have a profitability-per-unit advantage cause they're investing in manufacturing outside Japan: Canon's actually encouraging its employees to *have more babies* cause the pension plan's gonna be difficult to meet (not very responsible, I think, but this is a problem with having a *huge* company dependent on *growth* to remain profitable)

Pentax has much smaller overhead. Touch-screens on a P&S with Aston Kutcher on prime time to tell people frustrated with Iphones that they need em doesn't come free.

I mean, it's good for me, now, if they're constantly *comparing* my K20d, assembled in Phillipines, where I hope the conditions are good, but a paycheck does go further, to D300s and even 5ds, it'll work. It's solid stuff. I'd like to see them keep putting stuff out on this scheme: do something different: for instance, maybe keep making K20-type bodies at the kind of price they sell for now, for the completely-neglected crowd that's just out to get the most-serious-they-can-have-on short-money-cause-they're photo-people... make the K-m style for the new entry-level automated-little DSLR market, ....make the K-7 line the whole nine yards.... they'd have something.

That's what's 'interesting' to me.

Last edited by Ratmagiclady; 05-16-2009 at 10:52 AM.
05-16-2009, 01:24 PM   #216
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as ratmagiclady said, and: i am not sure where you get the idea they must make a higher profit for each unit, anyway. they are, literally, not as big as canon or nikon, and you would be surprised how this can mean less operational overhead (less wasted money), also, they really don't need to make as much money as nikon or canon, they just need to make enough.

by niche i didn't mean the features of the cameras, not necesarily. as i mentioned on another occasion, what really sets pentax apart is their attitude, and the niche is the people who appreciate that, and care about attitude. you could say pentax is for photographers who just want to take pictures and not be hassled by their vendor, and have nothing to prove through the writing on the pentaprism -- but that would be too narrow and unfair. it's actually hard to define exhaustively what their demographic is, and this is, imho, their hardest task at this moment, after they figure it out, "all" they have to do is go get them. perhaps they already did figure it out, and the k-7 is a result of just that. we will see.

ps: interesting idea about the k20, ratmagiclady, i would love to see this camera turn into a k1000 of sorts, i am so in love with this camera i think i would easily buy it a few years from now and would never feel i have to appologise for my pictures, or be frustrated while using it. i honestly think the k20d was the finished k10d, what it was meant to be in the first place, but couldn't wait to finish (amazing job they did with the k10d, if that's true), given this, i am genuinly curious what they can offer in the k-7 to blow our mind so much as to make me want to ditch my k20d, i doubt they will. i hope they keep producing the k20d as a "poormans obsoleted camera, oh well, you can get the dinosaur if you really can't afford a modern camera", i'd buy two, one as a second body, and one as a spare; no, make that 5, the two i mentioned, a spare to the first body, a spare to the second body, and a spare to the spare (one can never be too carefull), and one to lend to my friends when their new toy is misbehaving or whatever, okay, that's six.. you get the point
05-16-2009, 01:41 PM   #217
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QuoteOriginally posted by nanok Quote

ps: interesting idea about the k20, ratmagiclady, i would love to see this camera turn into a k1000 of sorts, i am so in love with this camera i think i would easily buy it a few years from now and would never feel i have to appologise for my pictures, or be frustrated while using it. i honestly think the k20d was the finished k10d, what it was meant to be in the first place, but couldn't wait to finish (amazing job they did with the k10d, if that's true), given this, i am genuinly curious what they can offer in the k-7 to blow our mind so much as to make me want to ditch my k20d, i doubt they will. i hope they keep producing the k20d as a "poormans obsoleted camera, oh well, you can get the dinosaur if you really can't afford a modern camera", i'd buy two, one as a second body, and one as a spare; no, make that 5, the two i mentioned, a spare to the first body, a spare to the second body, and a spare to the spare (one can never be too carefull), and one to lend to my friends when their new toy is misbehaving or whatever, okay, that's six.. you get the point
Well, there's no reason they couldn't update some electronics and whatnot, ....but the most of a new model's cost is the R&D.

I'd say, 'Who at this point really thinks the 'mid range' needs to be 'Expensive tech dumbed down partway?'

The 'consumer' market is getting all kinds of redefined: i'd say, who buys like a 50d or d90 cause they *want* one?

More likely it's what they can *have* instead of a 5d or D300/700.

Heck, I wasn't choosing between current models and a K20d: when I got a little lucky, I was choosing between a K20d and a d*70.* And that was when I had a line on some reasonably-priced Nikkors. I just wasn't ready to live that long without metering and controls.

05-16-2009, 02:10 PM   #218
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this is actually not completely unreasonable anymore, the more i think about it: we are perhaps at the point where few people will crave for more megapixels, or things like that. the body itself is brilliant (i know i love it, and many people who use(d) it do), it's weathersealed, the image quality is up there, i think many people would buy it instead of something like a rebel, and live with the heartwrecking lack of video, the useless autofocus, and all those terrible flaws we "know" it has, as long as the price is right, the target would be people wanting to get into (digital) photography, budget-conscious, and willing to invest into a system which never left their users in the dust (backwards compatible till the dawn of time). meanwhile, pentax can work on minor firmware tweaks, and making the production (manufacturing and assembly) as smooth and thus as cheap as possible. sounds reasonable, does it not?
05-18-2009, 04:42 AM   #219
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Luminous landscape

and after reading this I think cropped camera is still a good if not best (for now) investment.

Regards

Dyl
05-18-2009, 07:15 AM   #220
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QuoteOriginally posted by ryan s Quote
Your mind's made up. A company can't make 100% of its products fit 100% of its customer base...

My Grandma bought Chryslers her whole life. If she could still see to drive and wanted a newer car, we would advise against buying one for obvious reasons.

If Pentax doesn't entice you any longer...what's keeping you? I don't want to sound like a d$%#head but really...
Pretty much nothing is keeping me, I will most likely buy into 2nd system. I was waiting for the hype of 5d2 release to settle and price come down a little, and I was also waiting for this "We will present you with a new camera in the early summer " Pentax announcement.

I will not sell my Pentax gear, resale value on it is not worth it, except Limiteds, but I never intended selling these anyways. I will still use my Pentax gear from time to time when I will need small DSLR, I just do not see myself upgrading this system any longer.

Last edited by awo425; 05-18-2009 at 07:27 AM.
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