[Ratmagiclady]

Well, I kind of feel for you. Unless it actually comes about I need something Pentax can't do for a different *job,* though, I'll probably be sticking around a while. Even if I could only capitalize on a *few* panic sales of gear. )

Europe seems to have long had trouble really getting the prices on Pentax stuff really down into that market that the other companies kind of shaft, to begin with: they may figure, 'With these exchange rates, you gotta be rich to buy camera stuff with Euros, anyway, we may as well get a good price while European operations are doing so badly.'

Maybe we can work out our own grey-market photo-economy, "Send Ilford, we'll send DA*'s. "

[rparmar]

Here's a rather scary comparison. I know it's apples and oranges, but that is the point. Say you are getting into digital at these new price levels and want a killer kit. You're into art shots so you check out the K-7 and FA 50mm for a total of £1640.

Or you could get the Nikon D700 and Nikkor 50mm F1.4G AF-S for £2100. That seems like a very small premium to step into full frame, gain all the benefits of a top-notch body, smaller DOF, higher ISO use, etc.

Or say you want the traditional dual pro zoom kit for weddings, journalism or what have you. Compare: K-7 + DA* 16-50mm + DA* 50-135mm = £2950.

With: Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm F2.8G ED AF-S + Nikkor 70-200mm F2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR = £4550.

That's only a 50% premium to go full-frame and gain the benefits of a major support network. I can't see any pro choosing Pentax based on these prices.

If these prices maintain, Hoya just killed Pentax.

[SCGushue]

I agree, everyone seems to ignore the rising inflation and collapsing world economy all around them.

While the price of glass may be up, there is no inflation going on in the major world economies. The opposite is true. In a year or two you certainly will see inflation when our spendthrift Western governments try to beat the inflation curve with the worthless projects they are currently pissing their money away on by writing blank checks today.

I will admit, that even though I make my living as a photographer, these price increases are pretty heady stuff. Some of these lenses simply don't warrant the applied price increase based on performance alone.

The biggest question a devoted Pentax user needs to ask themselves at this time is... do current lens offerings have practical viability on any potential FF Pentax DSLR in the near future. I am not saying that the current sensor can't or doesn't do a great job, because it does, but many like to move up. IS a DA purchase at these prices the best move at this time?

Stephen

[lol101]

Over on the UK forum Chris from SRS has confirmed the new UK prices. For those who don't know, Chris is a great person to deal with and his firm does a lot to promote Pentax. I wish them luck with these prices!

what is everybody complaining about?

Aren't you happy Pentax found a cure for y'all suffering from LBA and is now distributing it generously for free?


Seriously though, it really looks like some marketing technique: keep the body prices affordable and charge as much as possible for lenses and accessories.

Don't be afraid though, you'll soon see very interesting "rebates" offer coming out (it's always great to see a 50€ rebate on a lens that just jumped 250€ two months ago...).

Just one cure for that kind of policy: don't buy (or buy used).

[deejjjaaaa]

You're into art shots so you check out the K-7 and FA 50mm for a total of £1640.

Or you could get the Nikon D700 and Nikkor 50mm F1.4G AF-S for £2100. .

with D700 equivalent will be 85/1.8, not 50/1.4... but pricewise should be the same

[lol101]

3) Limited means exactly that ... so most Pentaxians must make some effort to buy even one.
4) The prices for FA Ltds seem high only is you think that you can buy one in the future. Believe me that an EOL announcement from Pentax will clear all stock even at these prices.
7) I always believed that Hoya bought Pentax so they can sell high grade lenses so it makes no sense to act contrary IMO.


Radu

The problem is that we don't have any choice: if you buy a Pentax body and want to use it with primes, you either have to buy DA Limiteds (expensive) or DA* (very expensive)...

Limited and * series would make sense if you could have a "non-limited/non *" more affordable lens lineup alongside but right now, where is the alternative to Limited and * for the ones wanting good quality without the fancy dressing or small size at an affordable price?

I have only one source for this kind of lenses right now: eBay!

If Hoya want to see Pentax become an elitist brand with a small but wealthy customer basis they are basically kicking me out so...

[Mr. The Guy]

aren't you happy pentax found a cure for y'all suffering from lba and is now distributing it generously for free?

lol, lol, lol

[Steelski]

I really doubt the new prices will stay around for too long.
It is mainly down to exchange rates. If you do not believe me then have a look yourselves how much they have changed since last August.
Roughly 1 Euro was worth 165 Yen in August last year. and it was worth around 115 all through mid Jan to end of Feb this year. You can read that as a 40% increase in the price of the YEN. Now things are getting better, I think that eventually prices will fall. Hoya are still subsdising the prices of kit and consumer lenses, they never make any money on these anyway.
The US price hike has just come and its a smaller one that in Europe. because the Yen has had a similar pattern since November last year to the Yen, Still the Yen was stronger so the price has not risen by as much. Right now the price is of the Yen vs USD is around 12% higher than it was during the long stable period in 2008. but it was around a 25% higher ealier this year, when prices were being thought about (probably).
People forget about the economy very quickly. I wonder if there was a price hike in Japan. or if there will be one????
Besides, Pentax could throw in a cashback scheme. to subsadise the new costs.

I expect a price change in August/Sep to reflect market change. If all things go the way they are going. I hope the Yen depreciates a little and the sterling and Euro gain on it so we can have the old prices back.

Incidently, the August to Feb period, the GBP LOST 35% of its value against the Yen... (in other words) The Yen gained 52% over the GBP. This is why the UK increase is MEGA BIG!!!!!.
I have lots of my savings in pounds, and now live in a country which is fixed to the Euro, I lost nearly 25% of my savings in this time period. Now its more like 13%

What most people need is some global perspective. Hoya wanted to increase margins, so they have, they also wanted to compensate for the Yen. I see overall a real price rise of around 10%, which is something I can live with. if the company I support sees it as something necesary to keep the brand alive for the future then so be it.
I see than many will hold off the K-7 purchase..... for me that is good........ but I doubt you can hold off for too long ;-) price will decrease and I will get what I want. when prices fall in the fall we will rejoice and buy many a camera and lens

[Billgscott]

Towards the end of last year, some of my (deeply hi-tech) workmates were telling me that all Jap imports in to the UK were going to rocket in the first part of '09 due to the exchange rates.

That, and the VAT reduction and £100 rebate triggered my K20 / Grip / 16-45 kit from SRS just before xmas, and my Sigma 10 - 20 EX DC last month.

The rise was slow in coming but looks like it is now here. I think in the long term that the prices will drop, but not back to the levels of just a few months ago.

I would also imagin that Cannon / Nikon prices will also go up. It may be that they have profits enough to keep their prices low now to try to kill off other brands like Pentax.

The K-7? I thought long and hard about waiting for the new model before getting the K20 and I am glad I did as the Faster AF and Frame rate are not important enough for the extra price.

Lovely though the K-7 is, it can wait for a while for me. I do think though that it will woo new people to Pentax, I just hope that the price hike is short enough to stop people going the other way.

Bill

P.S. The K20 kit was £800 including Saturday delivery.

The problem is that we don't have any choice: if you buy a Pentax body and want to use it with primes, you either have to buy DA Limiteds (expensive) or DA* (very expensive)...

Limited and * series would make sense if you could have a "non-limited/non *" more affordable lens lineup alongside but right now, where is the alternative to Limited and * for the ones wanting good quality without the fancy dressing or small size at an affordable price?

I have only one source for this kind of lenses right now: eBay!

If Hoya want to see Pentax become an elitist brand with a small but wealthy customer basis they are basically kicking me out so...

Oh, you DO have a choice, in fact you have multiple choices: Sigma has lots of primes in K mount for example, you can buy used lenses, you can buy from another country (at least in the E.U. it's easy and risk free) or of course you can switch systems. What bothers me is that some here pit Pentax to the big 2 in performance and quality but want Sigma and Tamron prices for the lenses. You want superior quality, silent AF, weather protection but for free if possible. It seems is no longer possible but this don't imply at all that the user base will shrink. Some will go, others will enter and I bet Hoya knows this very well.

I want to make myself clear, I am as upset as anyone about this especially since I think this will be the norm in the future and not a temporarily fluke. But a lot of people speak at rage now and when the dust will settle the Canikon alternative will be still much costlier.

Radu

P.S. Most of the time in this message *you* means a Pentaxian in general, not you, Lol101!

[nanok]

Oh, you DO have a choice, in fact you have multiple choices: Sigma has lots of primes in K mount for example, you can buy used lenses, you can buy from another country (at least in the E.U. it's easy and risk free) or of course you can switch systems. What bothers me is that some here pit Pentax to the big 2 in performance and quality but want Sigma and Tamron prices for the lenses. You want superior quality, silent AF, weather protection but for free if possible. It seems is no longer possible but this don't imply at all that the user base will shrink. Some will go, others will enter and I bet Hoya knows this very well.

no. you don't understand. i want pentax glass, and i want premium pentax glass. not sigma, not tamron, as long as what i need is available from pentax. it's not loyalty, it's just that i prefer their glass, and it's part of the reason i chose pentax. of course, it doesn't matter what i want, the options you presented are valid, but tell me, how good will pentax do if we start buying bodies and maybe kit lenses, and all the premium stuff from sigma and tamron?

I want to make myself clear, I am as upset as anyone about this especially since I think this will be the norm in the future and not a temporarily fluke. But a lot of people speak at rage now and when the dust will settle the Canikon alternative will be still much costlier.

Radu

P.S. Most of the time in this message *you* means a Pentaxian in general, not you, Lol101!

on this one, you might be right, unfortunately, and it remains to be seen. but as things are now, at the very least, pentax/hoya has strangled the release of the k-7, as can be seen. they could have gone for a more gradual increase in price (getting the advantage of people starting to rush to buy lenses, seeing the trend, as opposed to how it is now: it hits you, and you can "take it or leave it"), and we _don't_ know if it will be this way, maybe canon/nikon (not to mention the others) will not follow, maybe they are simply waiting for things to stabilize, and are betting on it (example: the yen is strong and wester currencies gone to hell? how long will this be true? sell at rather stable prices, keep the euros in the bank, and wait for things to stabilize, and for those euros to be worth what they should, being a japanese company doesn't mean you only deal in japan anyway, so those funds don't even have to be blocked just because they are in euro; i suspect this might be why canon prices seem to have remained so stable). as things are now, the gap is scary, and people are bound to run away, or at least hold off for a while to see what happens (which is bad, it means no cash flow for a while, or very very little), don't think i haven't thought this through, i honestly can find no reasonable excuse for what is going on (comparatively), it's not that i am enraged, it's jsut that i am worried, i am starting to wonder if the hoya corporate beancounters haven't taken over the pentax engineers, made some graphs and decided to (blindly) "put things right", i have seen such things and i know what they lead to..

let's try to simplify this: (hypothetical situation) i have a k20d, the kit lenses, some old primes, been wanting to buy some premium stuff for my needs (let's suppose the two da*, and some ltd prime), things have come "around" now, and i have the cash. what do you expect me to do, realistically and honestly? have you seen the price comparison from my area, for pentax and canon glass? i have my cash, where do i put it? been waiting to spend some cash for months, my palm burns, i want to spend it, but all of a sudden i am looking at prices and something makes me dizzy, it's as if the money i thought i had are now worth half or so. when i look at canon prices (for example), my money seems to be worth roughly the same, or at least close, same for tamron and sigma. can you blame "me" for thinking about trying a 40d or something "you know, just to see how i like it.."?

another one: been wanting to get into dslr stuff (time to switch from film, everybody seems to have done it a decade ago, maybe it's time i do it too, or time to grow from that point and shoot, all my mates have dslrs, wtf.. you get the picture), the k-7 has made quite a splash, and seems very tempting, everybody buys canon and nikon, but i'm the kind of guy who thinks he's "smarter" than everybody else. my mates all have at least one premium (or at least serious, like an ultrawide zoom, maybe?) lens, and brag about it all day, so i know that's where the "goodness" is. so i look at what pentax offers in that area... i fall off the chair, and light a cigarette to calm down: provided i stick to one area (not everything from ultrawide, landscapes to birding and wildlife), either nikon or canon can actually be cheaper, the stabilized stuff from canon is the same price or slightly cheaper than the (roughly equivalent) pentax stuff, the non stabilized stuff is half the price.. now i am stubborn as hell and i want to show up with a camera my mates will look at and say "wtf did you buy? are you stupid?", but on one condition: that i can prove them wrong.

this might be just a temporary gap, and we might see everything go to (the same) hell soon, but we cannot _know_ that, here and now, it looks wrong, and if it's not obvious that this can only hurt pentax sales (of anything photographic), and i mean _now_-sales, than i don't know how to put it any other way to make it clear..

[rparmar]

Just one cure for that kind of policy: don't buy (or buy used).

That doesn't work. I bought used before. Now I will not be able to afford even that. The biog brands have much more steeply discounted used prices, and many more deals, since there are so many more people buying and selling gear. This is just another way Pentax loses out to bigger firms if they price their products higher.

with D700 equivalent will be 85/1.8, not 50/1.4... but pricewise should be the same

I was waiting for someone to say that.

But I wanted to compare apples to oranges as I said. The 50 on the full frame will be a better lens in terms of useful walk-around focal length and depth of field, possibly also centre sharpness. The art shooter (which is also me, sometimes) does not want a portrait lens but a classic normal focal length.

But that is a different thread.

[rparmar]

That, and the VAT reduction and £100 rebate triggered my K20 / Grip / 16-45 kit from SRS just before xmas, and my Sigma 10 - 20 EX DC last month.

Good thinking. For the same reasons, I did similar.

My K20D with kit lens II cost me £590 before rebate. I just traded this unused lens and another I kept in perfect shape for a lens I needed more. It's always good to have both sides of a lens deal profit! Since the purchase happened when the pound was low, I figure my K20D cost me no more than €340.

However, using the new prices, my K20D cost me an effective €30. Silver lining?

[Billgscott]

However, using the new prices, my K20D cost me an effective €30. Silver lining?

WOW - bargan!

It's always the same these days. If you wait for the price / spec to bottom out, you will never buy.

I waited for the K20 to come out to upgrade from my istD but it was too expensive so I managed to get a K10 and kit from ebuyer for £345 in April last year but STILL ended up with a K20 before the end of the year.

Don't quite know what the moral is there. I have had the istD converted to IR and have the K10 as travel / backup so am not just having fun getting to know how to use them and get good images in PP.

When I have sorted that out, I will look at some ltds and maybe the K8 by that time.

Bill

[MrMuz]

WTF are they thinking? I was really keen on getting the K7 but out of principle I'm seriously thinking about changing brands. What an utter piss take. I hope Sigma don't think they're missing a trick...