Originally posted by ghelary I'm a bit surprised at all the comments saying that APSC has no future etc...
No kidding.
The last year has seen the most phenomenal growth in SLR cameras ever.
And 95% of that growth has been from APS-C DSLR's. They've "made" the market, so to speak.
FF is the afterthought, only made possible by capital gained from the sale of APS-C. Without the cost-effectiveness of APS-C there would have been no FF development. There is very little FF demand comparatively and for many it is not a new entrant purchase, but a buy-up for a very small segment of the consumer market.
Measured by market dynamics, APS-C has been a stunning and widely accepted standard contributing to one of the most explosive, creative phases of the industry by any measure (Flickr, Facebook, and mobile phone cams have also been a factor).
Leica has been a total failure. It's wracked by poor management, loses money hand over fist, is heavily subsidized by another industry backer as a "hobby" business, and produces dated cameras that appeal to legacy and nostalgia buyers. Put another way, without their lenses, they'd be 6 feet under—a rotting by now.
The game changer is going to be M4/3 or equivalent, plus video. The historical trend for camera improvement has been miniaturization of an equivalent feature set. FF goes the complete opposite direction. It's success will plateau due to form factor alone.
And, no, a $2,000 camera was not $500 20 years ago in real terms as an absolute measure. You are applying a discount rate assuming that relative net worth has also appreciated along with buying power corrected for inflation. Most Western middle class incomes have stagnated over the last decade. You need more data points to make that equation work. Another factor is that P&S cameras now offer quality shooting not competitively available 20 years ago. This has been the saving grace of production: high quality images at relatively low cost with an improving technology dynamic. That's why the major growth markets have been in Asia and non-Western countries where most buyers do not have personal computers. So they shoot JPEG and edit in camera.
That's the future. A smaller, complete camera and editing system, linked to the cloud. In 10 years that will be 75% of the market having grown 5x faster than every other segment. FF will be a footnote. Cameraphones are a fad limited by the optical laws of physics (there is a limit to lo-fi). APS-C is likely the right size to get the higher-end of that market, but I would not be surprised to see M4/3 make up the bulk of the segment.
If Pentax wants to stay relevant, it should not be putting scarce resources as a market like FF with a very small growth projection compared to the possibilities elsewhere, not when the current segment is crowded, even over-crowded. One S2 vanity purchase will eclipse 7 potential Pentax FF potential buyers. Who wants to compete in a non-utilitarian, boutique, highly variable market like that, full of whiny semi-pro wannabes? The maintenance overhead on product lines like that is brutal, sucking creative capital out of a company. Is Leica a financially healthy enterprise? No. Do you value your K-mount investment? If you answer yes to the last question, you'll want Pentax to survive not by engineering itself into a niche. If you want FF, find another brand.