[davemdsn]

Rumors of Pentax's demise have been floating around since the late '90s, if not longer. They continue to prove the rumors wrong.

RiceHigh, I still don't understand why you are here. You never talk about photography, only what you think is wrong with Pentax. Your contributions make this forum less fun to participate in. Since that appears to be your goal I have probably just given you a compliment. Oh, well.

[RiceHigh]

Pentax will be around for many years to come and I look forward to passing on any Pentax lenses that come my way (as I can afford them) to my children.

I hope too for myself too. But I don't know if my hope will come true when other things happen in reality.

As for Ricehigh, well there is lots I would like to say about him but I will bite my tongue and just say Benjikan has put his credentials out there and he has shown us what can be achieved with the current Pentax offerings on the other hand we have Ricehigh who has no professional qualifications in anything related to photography as far as I can see. I trust Benjikan and believe he has put forward an honest account of his meeting with Pentax.

What's the relevancy for a pro photographer when we are talking about published news and/or rumours?

Ricehigh, please just take a camera outside look at the world take a shot of something beautiful and post it on here or anywhere - just one photo.

You have explored the technical side now do yourself a favour and look at the art that the camera lens see.

Thanks for your care. I do take some photos each week with my K100D although not as much as I did with my *ist D. Now that my K100D counter is (only) at near 3,000 for 9 months I own the camera (against I took nearly 10,000 with my *ist D bodies within one year).

But anyway, I think most of my taken photos sucks as Ken Rockwell is right: "Measurbators, the bottom level of photographers (at the "hell" as an analogy of religions), do not take photos. Even they bother to make some, their photos usually suck" - Ken Rockwell (not the exact wording, though, but very close). Well, that's a good reason why you have never seen even one photo posted by me on the net! :-)

[NaClH2O]

Maybe I'm just one of the "old school" Pentax fanboys outthere! ;-)

I think the Hoya merger and Pentax is being eaten is a good thing only if Hoya has the insistence to keep camera business running, like the "old school" Pentax board members do. However, Hoya's CEO has said in interviews after the merger that Hoya are mainly interested in Pentax medical optics business and that if the camera division starts to lose, they will consider to sell it off or just stop the business (well, that's what our trustworthy Pentax insider source guy Roland Mabo told us too)

Well, for if Pentax will be profitable or in big loss, who knows? If we bet for Big or Small, what will one put the bets on? :-D

First of all who said anything about being eaten? If you've read the full merger statments, Hoya defers full autonomy on Pentax's optical division. I hardly consider full automony = "being eaten". In fact, Urano the former CEO was to retain his position! Is that "being eaten"?
Of course Hoya's major interest in acquiring Pentax is because of Pentax's medical imaging division! It's their largest division by far. To say otherwise would be as silly as saying "We want to buy out Coca Cola but we're not interested in their soft beverage division"
I equally discount the "if Pentax Optical becomes unprofitibale...." statement. That's just common old fashioned business sense. You re-assure your core holders that you won't let the new acquisition drag the company down. As a point in fact if Pentax optical does become unprofitible, (unlikely as they are doing quite well) they would be going down anyway, no matter if owned by Pentax, Hoya, Fuji, or anybody else. As a case in point look at the Mercedes/Chrysler merger. Chrysler division continues to loose money. What is Mercedes trying to do? Unload Chrysler. BUT!!! you fail to take on fact into your "doom and gloom" scenario...Pentax Optical is NOT unprofitible! In fact it is doing the best of all the Pentax divisions! Why on earth would Hoya want to sell it? Makes no sense, not to me, and not to Japanese business experts.

NaCl(you, of course can believe what ever you want to)H2O

[RiceHigh]

no text and no text!

just looking at standard business practice happening elsewhere, camera division once acquired can be shut down pretty easily and written off by the large entity if it is not performing (and in case of hoya this might mean 20%+ margin) noone would blink an eye... and that has nothing to do with the future marketplace competition but with internal "new entity" politics. Not to mention that any merger is a HUGE disruption to any business, takeover is better in that sense, but even a takeover is a drag on resources and kills focus in the entities merging.

Just looking at Minolta, while it might have been bleeding money at the time... a few successfull product launches would put them straight back into the game. However after the merger the new entity, lead by Konica, decided they can do without the photo business... which was at least sold, as opposed to terminated, as in case of Contax/Yashica and Koyocera.

If the company is small it has a harder time fighting, but it is also more flexible and can dig out a niche if it doesn't work with mass scale... but once such an entity is inside a bigger one, the "small" is not worth keeping so it is killed as it's not death of the corporate entity merely restructuring, while it is clearly death for the consumers of the product.

If Minolta survived we might have at least had an A3 prosumer, and several new DSLR's by now, which could be right in the fight for market share, they would be forced to innovate even more in order to survive, but this is now Sony with different corporate culture and customer relations etc... good for some bad for others.

In case of Pentax-Hoya I wish all the best to Pentax Imaging if it goes through, but I am afraid that without some quick surge in market share capture and profitability this is doomed from the start as the division will be seen as a drag on other Hoya divisions, and whether Samsung (someone else?) will buy or not is anyones question. In that case at least PK would survive for some more time, but Pentax as we know it now would surely die to be replaced by "me too" consumer DSLR's/cameras... but we shall see won't we :-)...

If there was no merger talk I think it would have been much easier for Pentax to continue on the good path they are currently on, but despite of the uncertainty there is hope. Hope dies last

[klopus]

As for Ricehigh, well there is lots I would like to say about him but I will bite my tongue and just say Benjikan has put his credentials out there and he has shown us what can be achieved with the current Pentax offerings on the other hand we have Ricehigh who has no professional qualifications in anything related to photography as far as I can see. I trust Benjikan and believe he has put forward an honest account of his meeting with Pentax.

What's the relevancy for a pro photographer when we are talking about published news and/or rumours?

Huh? Ben was talking about his personal face to face communication with Pentax brass (and not only French). In my book it beats in trust and relevance "talking about published news and/or rumours" rehashed by some biased blog.

[kenyee]

That reminds me:
Ben: did any of the Pentax folks you talked to say anything about addressing the image quality quirks that folks have dug up in various forums? Specifically:
- the weird colored dots in the imaging-resource review (which I think is also the same manifestation as the color moire pattern mentioned in ricehigh's blog)
- the VPN noise in darker areas (yep, I know other cameras also have issues so I think it might by a Sony sensor "feature")
- the HPN noise w/ the battery grip (interference from using the battery in the grip)
The grip issue probably requires a hardware fix (bad shielding). The colored dots issue also probably is, but they might luck out and be able to hack it in firmware...ditto VPN.

If the K10D is going to be around for a year, someone has to bring this up...

[RiceHigh]

First of all who said anything about being eaten? If you've read the full merger statments, Hoya defers full autonomy on Pentax's optical division. I hardly consider full automony = "being eaten". In fact, Urano the former CEO was to retain his position! Is that "being eaten"?

But the Hoya merger states clearly that, "the surviving company in the merger will be HOYA"..

Also, they still do need to keep the Pentax organisation for the medical optics in the near future, don't they? Hoya keeps the Pentax tree for short terms has nothing related to "camera or not", in fact.

Of course Hoya's major interest in acquiring Pentax is because of Pentax's medical imaging division! It's their largest division by far. To say otherwise would be as silly as saying "We want to buy out Coca Cola but we're not interested in their soft beverage division"

Yes, but they don't mention even for once they will keep the camera business..

I equally discount the "if Pentax Optical becomes unprofitibale...." statement. That's just common old fashioned business sense. You re-assure your core holders that you won't let the new acquisition drag the company down.

Hope so.

As a point in fact if Pentax optical does become unprofitible, (unlikely as they are doing quite well) they would be going down anyway, no matter if owned by Pentax, Hoya, Fuji, or anybody else. As a case in point look at the Mercedes/Chrysler merger. Chrysler division continues to loose money. What is Mercedes trying to do? Unload Chrysler. BUT!!! you fail to take on fact into your "doom and gloom" scenario...Pentax Optical is NOT unprofitible! In fact it is doing the best of all the Pentax divisions! Why on earth would Hoya want to sell it? Makes no sense, not to me, and not to Japanese business experts.

NaCl(you, of course can believe what ever you want to)H2O

What's the sources of figures you get from. I have observed Pentax's profit and loss figures for years. From what I can recall, Pentax's camera division has lost money for years and only the last financial year, they could make some profits. So, I don't agree with you that they are "always profitable".

[RiceHigh]

Huh? Ben was talking about his personal face to face communication with Pentax brass (and not only French). In my book it beats in trust and relevance "talking about published news and/or rumours" rehashed by some biased blog.

"Biased blog" has quoted Reuters and other news agent which I think no blog on Earth can control what they report, but probably will still be considered negative by someone who don't want to see those.

[feronovak]

What's the sources of figures you get from. I have observed Pentax's profit and loss figures for years. From what I can recall, Pentax's camera division has lost money for years and only the last financial year, they could make some profits. So, I don't agree with you that they are "always profitable".

How many times have Pentax been in top 10 sales ? Yes, it's been just for short time but it showns that Pentax did a great job with k10d. I also believe that 5th place with 'not so far' Olympus is great achievement, I remember 3 years ago Pentax had about 3%.

And I also agree with others, it's been many year doom and gloom for Pentax and they are still here and still stronger.

[klopus]

That reminds me:
- the weird colored dots in the imaging-resource review (which I think is also the same manifestation as the color moire pattern mentioned in ricehigh's blog)

It seems that IR had some bad luck with pixel remapping on their test body. At least I never saw anything similar reported in other reviews or on various forums. My K10D specimen definitely doesn't exhibit this effect.

If it's in fact there then I think it's fairly possible to fix routine pixel remapping in firmware.

- the VPN noise in darker areas (yep, I know other cameras also have issues so I think it might by a Sony sensor "feature")

VPN mostly shows when exposure is heavily "pushed" at high ISO. D200 reportedly also exhibits some kind of "blooming" (not VPN) under similar conditions. Sony 10MP CCD noise characteristics probably have some part to it but it looks like it's more related to hardware readout bug as implemented by Pentax (at least GordonBGood from DPR forums very convincingly proved it). As such it's very unlikely that Pentax can fix this in software.

If the K10D is going to be around for a year, someone has to bring this up...

Above items along with JPEG sharpening "problem" strike me more as some "fringe" usage artifacts mostly good for theoretical obsession on forums.

To my mind what Pentax really needs to improve to be competitive in realistic intended usage (not in pushing the envelope and in researching pixels) is AF performance (speed, precision, tracking and noise), AWB (especially tungsten) and to lesser extent AE (mostly reliability and repeatability). They badly need to stop treating SDM as some kind of "star" luxury and start pushing it down the ladder to consumer lens like Canon and Nikon do. Modernizing AF and AE engines will also go a long way. That's what mostly puts K10D even out of D80 league not speaking of D200 and 30D.

[*isteve]

Chrysler division continues to loose money. What is Mercedes trying to do? Unload Chrysler. BUT!!! you fail to take on fact into your "doom and gloom" scenario...Pentax Optical is NOT unprofitible! In fact it is doing the best of all the Pentax divisions! Why on earth would Hoya want to sell it? Makes no sense, not to me, and not to Japanese business experts.

NaCl(you, of course can believe what ever you want to)H2O

Mercedes are indeed trying to unload chrysler but as a going concern - ie they will put it up for tender, it will be bought, many useful assets will be included as sweetners including access to recent mercedes technology and someone will buy it....

Just like Aston Martin, Lotus, Lambourghini, TVR and many many others that have managed to hang on in there for decades.

If Hoya decided to sell the Pentax camera business, they could create a very nice self-contained carve out business, throw in some of the key patents as a sweetener, write off most of the debt and include advantageous licensing deals for the IP they dont want to give up. Whether the camera business will also contain optical components etc is another question. It may be the whole non-medical side. They will porobably also include the brand name because it has immense value as a camera brand but less so as a brand for selling endoscopes!

I have no doubts whatsoever that with all the investment recently made, Pentax Optical would make a very sweet tasty buy for any interested long term investor or PE house looking to buy into a market (advanced optical equipment) with very long term sustained growth potential, albeit one with less growth at the bottom end than at the top end.

Canon and Nikon can only grow significantly if the market as a whole grows. Someone with small market share can grow by stealing share from the competition even in a stagnant market. This is why Sony snapped up Minolta and why someone will also snap up Pentax. Its also why Samsung is working hard to break into the SLR market.

[RiceHigh]

How many times have Pentax been in top 10 sales ? Yes, it's been just for short time but it showns that Pentax did a great job with k10d. I also believe that 5th place with 'not so far' Olympus is great achievement, I remember 3 years ago Pentax had about 3%.

Top ten sales? Maybe, but just momentarily when new products was launched and in Japanese home market only.

The true fact is Pentax came last in the global shipment figures in 2006:-

RiceHigh's Pentax Blog: Pentax Still Comes Last in 2006 DSLR Global Shipment Share

Let's face it.

3 years ago, Pentax has more share with their *ist D as there was not much choices around, for "affordable" DSLRs, not 3%.

And I also agree with others, it's been many year doom and gloom for Pentax and they are still here and still stronger.

The case is not the same this time. Pentax has never been suggested to be sold to the others. The Hoya merger is for the first time. I think Zubati Kit has made a very insightful reply above for the case and the possible happening after a small company is dissolved inside a much larger one. So, I won't repeat similar arguments here. Enough said.

[bravobrown]

"Biased blog" has quoted Reuters and other news agent which I think no blog on Earth can control what they report, but probably will still be considered negative by someone who don't want to see those.

Parroting what you've read without any clue as to what you're talking about hardly makes you an authority. ANYONE can quote perfectly reasonable sources and turn it into any ridiculous conclusion they want to.

As an interested K10D buyer (and Pentax shooter from 30 years back), I've followed all of the news on the subject. The fact is, NOTHING has been decided, and anything you say is pure conjecture! It's very easy to preach doom and gloom and get lots of attention without having any inside knowledge (just look at Al Gore).

Your assertion that "no new buyers will be interested" is preposterous. The fact still remains that the K10D offers the best bang for the buck on the market. That will only continue to be MORE true as the year goes on and prices continue to drop. I'm officially proving you wrong by buying one myself at my earliest convenience.

Thanks for trying to take over a very interesting and informative thread..... let's please get back to the OT and the very helpful insight and advice from the professionals and people who ACTUALLY HAVE INSIDE INFO and know what they're talking about.

[NaClH2O]

Parroting what you've read without any clue as to what you're talking about hardly makes you an authority. ANYONE can quote perfectly reasonable sources and turn it into any ridiculous conclusion they want to.

As an interested K10D buyer (and Pentax shooter from 30 years back), I've followed all of the news on the subject. The fact is, NOTHING has been decided, and anything you say is pure conjecture! It's very easy to preach doom and gloom and get lots of attention without having any inside knowledge (just look at Al Gore).

Your assertion that "no new buyers will be interested" is preposterous. The fact still remains that the K10D offers the best bang for the buck on the market. That will only continue to be MORE true as the year goes on and prices continue to drop. I'm officially proving you wrong by buying one myself at my earliest convenience.

Thanks for trying to take over a very interesting and informative thread..... let's please get back to the OT and the very helpful insight and advice from the professionals and people who ACTUALLY HAVE INSIDE INFO and know what they're talking about.

RH I think is looking for attention, any kind of attention. He has amply demonstrated to me his lack of understanding of Japanese business practice. I prefer to put my trust in people who I know for a fact know what they are talking about, and those people are saying "don't worry about Pentax optical, they weren't doing so well for a while but they are now doing much better, and Hoya will be good for them".

NaCl(I'm outta here)H2O

[kenyee]

It seems that IR had some bad luck with pixel remapping on their test body.
...
badly need to stop treating SDM as some kind of "star" luxury and start pushing it down the ladder to consumer lens like Canon and Nikon do...

Imaging Resource claims they tested multiple bodies w/ the same issue (Pentax even supplied them w/ the replacements), so I doubt it's an isolated issue. The color moire sounded like a similar test case (thin parallel white lines), so that's why it sounded real. The fact that it was visible in a real-life test picture w/o 100% crop doesn't seem like a theoretical discussion, so that's why I mentioned it. VPN I can accept as being a problem w/ all cameras (though I wish Pentax would try to implement Gordon's fix). HPN seems real and messes up low light use for anyone using the battery grip. These all seem like real issues/bugs that should be addressed (except possibly the VPN one which isn't that bad considering other cameras have similar issues).

I also agree w/ you about SDM lenses, especially w/ the competition D40 requiring AF-S lenses. What I'm disappointed about is that we haven't heard anything more about the DA17-70. It's on the roadmap, but it's not at this weekend's Aussie PMA show. It would be a great kit lens replacement, but I'd seriously wonder if they can get the cost down enough to make it so...