[Winder]

Pentax has obviously spent a good bit of time/money on developing OIS for the new 90mm 645D lens. I would not be surprised if OIS was the plan for FF.

The new F/2.8 AF sensors will greatly improve AF accuracy with fast glass. This is also something Pentax had to be before a FF would be viable. Maybe now that AF is getting up to par and can handle longer fast glass we will see Pentax actually produce some.

[KungPOW]

Hey Pentax,

While I wait for you to get your act together, do you mind if I just keep shooting Nikon?

Oh, and I will also be shooting Sony, because their mirrorless system was a better solution to use with my M lenses. And I am tempted by that lusty looking RX100 as well.

Did I mention that I'm really temped to go check out the new Fuji gear? Talk about a company that was able to come out of no where. Two years ago, just the X100 demo at Photokina, now look at them!

I don't think I'm the only one that has lost the interest I once had in your company.

[mecrox]

Many thanks indeed for the interview. I skimmed it except for questions I was interested in so the following may or may not be the case: I found it revealing that when the (inevitable) question about FF came up, the one who answered was Mr André Dierickx and not Mr Shigeru Wakashiro. Until then Mr Dierickx (his eyes averted most of the time) had been careful to leave the field to Mr Wakashiro.

Both looked a little nervous at this moment, I thought, with Mr Dierickx scratching his nose and tugging his ear while the question was asked before giving a rather awkward and elliptical answer about FF being more "in the air" which could, frankly, mean almost anything - or nothing. Afterwards he exchanged glances with Mr Wakashiro of the "is that OK?" kind. My take FWIW is this: Pentax Japan do not want to produce an FF camera and have become touchy and defensive about the whole topic - hence the question being fielded by a regional manager outside the inner circle who was careful not to say anything which might offend them. Pentax may well produce an FF camera eventually but this will be the result of pressure on Japan from above (their new owners) or from outside (regional managers in Europe, the USA, etc. - another word for market forces, really). One can see the difficulty. Ricoh presumably would like Pentax to become much more of a worldwide CE brand whereas traditionally Pentax has been a very Japanese company happiest when looking towards Japan (where they have been and are pretty darn successful with "small, rugged and sometimes cute" despite the naysayers). So the struggle here is as much cultural as economic. An antipathy towards FF has its justifiable side, too - mirror-box DSLRs of any format are probably on the way out so why plunge into something which requires a whole heap of money towards the sunset of its life. And cheaper FF DSLRs from Canonikon can be seen primarily was a way of selling highly profitable lens catalogues which Pentax doesn't have.

Of course this is just speculation. I make no claims ... Mr Wakashiro was much happier talking about things like "outdoors" and "HD" which both involve getting more from small sensors.

[phylej]

Hi everyone,

I'm new here, but enjoying the discussions.

I was wondering if older FF lenses provide enough FOV to work with shake reduction on a FF sensor. I recall reading an interview where the Pentax rep said that DA lenses could somewhat cover FF sensors because the APS-C sensors needed to move around when SR is on. In that case, perhaps legacy glass may not work so well with a FF that has SR?

[Fontan]

Hey Pentax,

While I wait for you to get your act together, do you mind if I just keep shooting Nikon?

Oh, and I will also be shooting Sony, because their mirrorless system was a better solution to use with my M lenses. And I am tempted by that lusty looking RX100 as well.

Did I mention that I'm really temped to go check out the new Fuji gear? Talk about a company that was able to come out of no where. Two years ago, just the X100 demo at Photokina, now look at them!

I don't think I'm the only one that has lost the interest I once had in your company.

They say you go right ahead. I am going to do the same too. I am just fascinated with Sony RX-1, and Leica monochrom. You see, I am willing to spend over $10,000 on gears for the hell of it, and they just don't want to take it from me . . .

[Transit]

.........

Of course this is just speculation. I make no claims ... Mr Wakashiro was much happier talking about things like "outdoors" and "HD" which both involve getting more from small sensors.

very nice interpretation mecrox

[twitch]

Both looked a little nervous at this moment, I thought, with Mr Dierickx scratching his nose and tugging his ear while the question was asked before giving a rather awkward and elliptical answer about FF being more "in the air" which could, frankly, mean almost anything - or nothing. Afterwards he exchanged glances with Mr Wakashiro of the "is that OK?" kind. My take FWIW is this: Pentax Japan do not want to produce an FF camera and have become touchy and defensive about the whole topic

I think that's the most reasonable interpretation of all the non verbal communication going during the FF question and response. Actually your whole post sums up the likely tensions and situation extremely well.

[solar1]

There wasn't shake reduction or any of the other much later technology in the *istD. Hence smaller.

The point that, I think, Adam made about the *istD having been intended for a 35mm sensor, sticks in my mind. I have a *istD (for which I paid a lot of money, and which walked all over the Canon competitor at the time) and my point is that it is tiny compared with the K20D, or even a K-5. So, if that's true, not only does a FF Pentax not have to be monstrous, but there must be a fair bit of corporate knowledge to be drawn on from within the company, even so long after the event.

[awaldram]

This has to be one of the most amusing threads ever

I bunch of guys who have no inking what it takes to design and develop a FF camera discussing how long it will take a company that has not made any announcement that they will make such a product.

You couldn't make it up

[interested_observer]

For what it is worth, a full frame sensor body will probably not be able to be shown any time sooner than the next Photokina in 2014. If the first engineering contact between Ricoh and Pentax was in April - 6 months after the purchase, that is telling. The first 6 months was Ricoh going through Pentax and determining just exactly what they bought. Also, if I remember correctly Ricoh had some layoffs a year ago (across their entire company), and their last financial quarterly report recently featured some red ink - especially in the camera/imaging area. So, they have been in the process of figuring out, what in the realm of potential is actually possible within this current economic climate. What of their wishes are actually possible and feasible.

I do agree with Aristophanes that the pricing of the sensor is key to bringing a new body to the table, at a reasonable price. The FF sensors are just starting to reach some significant volumes, given the recent product announcements. It will probably be a year until the unit pricing will be where Pentax may feel comfortable with the commodity pricing.

Also, I believe that one of the challenges that they will be seeing, is in the area of movement that the inbody SR requires, and the affect it has on the size of glass in terms of the image circle. This was not a concern when Pentax was using FF lenses an ASP-c sensor, the additional room was there already, thus an advantage. In returning to a FF sensor, this is actually working against them, as they are going to probably need to enlarge the image circle to some degree across their lens library. Also, if they are contemplating the use of lens based image stabilization as their 90mm 645D offering may demonstrate, they will also need to have a larger image circle, and also need to figure out how to package the additional electro-mechanical mechanism within the smaller FF lens packages - thus potentially loosing more of their current advantage of small lens size in moving to FF. Canon and Nikon have been using lens based IS for years - going back to film, so they have this exercise down pat. Sigma has just started down this path, and look how large their lenses are. Also, the Canon and Nikon users have accepted the larger physical sized lenses. I do not think that this will be quite so accepted by Pentax users - since we feel that the smaller lens sizes are one of the positives of the brand.

Regardless of what the product plans are, Pentax has additional problems at hand. Marketing has always been a weak point, that will need to be addressed. It is interesting to see that some of the Regional Country Managers understand and have actually apparently gone out on their own and put together some pretty nice advertising campaigns. Maybe Japan can learn and use the expertise of their country management to market to their respective customer base - and hopefully the world wide customer base.

Product distribution is yet another - web based or retail (B&M) and if so, which ones, where and how. Some pretty nice suggestions have come from right here on the Forum. Where they go is the problem. Is anyone actually reading and listening? Which also leads us to the current MAP or MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) as B&H has indicated - lens purchases have ground to a halt with MAP. Who knows what actually happened (Ricoh or Pentax or in-between, Japan, US or somewhere in the translation), but the current lens pricing debacle shows that in the end, something happened, and it had an adverse affect on the consumers (us - you and me). The consumers responded quickly and stopped buying. Message delivered, however what will be Ricoh/Pentax's response? Did they learn anything from the exercise? Having a round 2 indicates that they did not learn enough (or anything) from round 1. Also Round 2 is still here. I have not read about any changes, other than B&H along with Adroama have suggested to not order on the web - but to call them for "special" (i.e., more reasonable) pricing.

[Jan67]

Also, I believe that one of the challenges that they will be seeing, is in the area of movement that the inbody SR requires, and the affect it has on the size of glass in terms of the image circle.

Falk talked about SR impact on FF image circle already in 2010:
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-news-rumors/107970-k-rumors-report...ml#post1117001

[phylej]

Hi Jan67,

Thanks for the link to Falk's comment. It's good to see that inbody SR for FF does not affect legacy glass.

[Greyser]

A completed product should not be expected until at least 2014

The estimation seems reasonable. However, think about what changes in technology may come out in these coming 1.5-2 years. We see $2000 FF cameras already on the market.

I would say that designing regular FF DSLR for 2014 year appearance, regardless of what many of us do like or dislike to admit, would be a suicide for Pentax. However, mirror-less or semi translucent mirror FF camera packed with all Pentax bells and whistles, e.g. immortal K-mount, compactness, WR, ergonomics, in body SR (hopefully), focus peaking, improved AF, plus FF/APS-C/square/etc. switchable shooting modes and some other newest technology achievements may work fine when the big guys still conveniently rake consumers money, following habitual single lens-reflex path.

There is also a hope that in a near future, but within these 1.5-2 coming years, the electronic viewfinder technology will be greatly advanced, matching coming FF camera deadline. As I said above translucent mirror or even something else may work too.

Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best

SG

[RobA_Oz]

There wasn't shake reduction or any of the other much later technology in the *istD. Hence smaller.

We did canvas that later, as I'm sure you noticed, and the more recent SR mechanisms were shown to be smaller than the earlier ones. As for the other "much later technology", I don't know what you have in mind, but integration is proceeding apace, and processors are getting more powerful rapidly, so I doubt the digital electronics, as such, is getting bigger.

Adding functions like video and orientation-sensing has doubtless bulked things out, but the not-much-bigger K-5 already has those, and aside from that, I can't think of much more in-body than in earlier DSLRs, though doubtless someone will help out here. No doubt, functions like GPS will arrive at some time, but integration and further miniaturisation will be going hand-in-hand there, too.

I do think my original points stand, though: so-called full frame doesn't have to lead to huge body size, and Pentax must have some corporate history from the earlier attempts.

[Caat]

Pentax needs a full range of a DSLRs first before it diverts too many resources to a FF camera.

Actually what it needs is a USP that sets it apart from Canon, Nikon and Sony. Pentax has been going for far to many quick wins like the K-01 which then fall flat because consumers don't care about potential they need the actual product to be good. Mirrorless full size K mount could work but it needed to be launched high-end as a kind of tech-demo: interchangeable EVF, high specification camera, more professional design, cutting edge CDAF and so on. Pentax have lacked the money to do all of this. Ricoh will hopefully change this but a me-too FF camera is not the answer. Nikon and Canon will most likely already be in the compact sub-$2000 FF camera market by the time Pentax launches. Pentax needs to turn up early - or at least on time - for once. They're playing short-stacked in a vicious game of poker and at some point they're going to have to go all-in.