Originally posted by fikkser No, Aristophanes - the current market can not handle 5 suppliers, THEREFORE IT HAS TO GROW which you told us is impossible like ten times per post. OMG. And how do you know facts about the Sony sensor supplies or other manufacturers ability to produce sensors? Everything about FF is impossible to you, why have you decided it's impossible? Did a FF camera do something EVIL to you as a child?
Generally to people in this thread, you are like a bunch of 10 year olds arguing about who's father is the strongest. Speculating about something that probably no one on this forum fully comprehends, and trying to make his own point the truth time and time again is pointless and to me very annoying.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_05VaN1rgby0/SlSSgPfGpVI/AAAAAAAABfU/TVDGW_yPbHA/s4..._internet.ashx You know who you are.
Please stop repeating your "truth", bring something new.
I have many FF cameras. MZ-S, MZ-6, Super Program, ME Super, Olympus 35RC, Minolta X-500, Rollei 40, Yashica Electro GSN, Canonet QL17III, Fuji Natura, Olympus MjuII and a few others scattered about in closets.
Ohhhh..you mean a "digital" SLR.
What information do you bring? We do know through industrial profiles and interviewers like Thom Hogan that only Canon and Sony make FF CMOS sensors right now. The Leica sensor is not up to DSLR snuff and is a CCD made by a company that bought the facilities from a Ch. 11 Kodak. Canon is a closed shop and Sony's FF tech is partially designed by Nikon, who have a common enemy in Canon.
The traditional means to get a foothold in an established market is to do something new, like Olympus did with their OM/Zuiko stuff back in the 1970's. Pentax followed suit. But the investment threshold to source an FF sensor is staggeringly different. It's somewhere in the hundreds of millions of $$ to set up an industrial fab. So the long term return has to be there, guaranteed. That's a tough sell.
In high tech industrial supply chains with lots of co-dependencies items like sensors are not simply available on an open market. They are designed and made to order on guaranteed volume deliverables locked into front and back end contract. Pentax simply does not have enough standing market share to get there by trying to move a portion of its APS-C base to FF at $3,000 a camera. So their demand would be so low as to make the sensor substantially more expensive. The costlier it gets, the less competitive it is. Or, as sherman suggest repeatedly, Ricoh should take a bath on profits for the sake of the few FF wanters on PF.
Also, I called the D700 staying in production a a much lower price point and posted so on this forum months ago and was correct. I have my sources.
The good thing is that FF will move a notch lower in price point with the D700 move (and rumours of a D720 are about as well, same price point, slightly updated). If the generation after this notches down one more price point, then FF sensors become more of a commodity product than defined order and Pentax can get in. We've seen Canon's response, and we are still at cameras in the price stratosphere. Now we await Sony. For Pentax the FF possibilities are all about price.