[Pål Jensen]

The answer isn't quite as definitive as I was originally told it was, but I think it's still fair to say that we have our official confirmation, especially considering the dramatic change in their answer since Photokina. If the head of product planning thinks that FF is a good idea, then IMO that's just good as saying that the camera will be made. Plus, he clearly says that development of the FF is advancing, which you can't really argue with. I wonder what gave him such a change of heart since Photokina?

Perhaps they just got the final goahead?
BTW Pentax have had working FF prototypes since before 2001.

[Pål Jensen]

To play the devils advocate again: who says they don't just produce these rumors to prevent people from jumping ship? Past year, more people then ever abandoned Pentax. And those people were very open about it too, announcing it in various threads. Pentax had to come with a more promising outlook to prevent more jumpers. Didn't they play this same card much to often to fool every one for a 30th time? And if they really have multiple working prototypes, why don't they just display them at CP+!? "Dear user, we are anxious to show you these three exiting early prototypes. Please tell us which one to continue to develope."

Pentax markedshare is on the increase; they don't loose customers; they gain them. FF don't sell well and the release of the D600 and the entry level Canon made no impact on FF's share; still about 5-7% of the DSLR market. BTW Canon's mission now is to release more cropped lenses....
Expect Pentax FF camera to be a high end model developed from the high end APS body to come.

[normhead]

The issue still remains... the current standard for guys like me is the Nikon D800 and the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 AFS, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 AFS and Nikon 70-200mm VR II. I don't own it, but if I felt confident I needed to upgrade, that's where I'd go, with appropriate primes filling in where needed.

It's a package. I can't even begin contemplating moving to a Pentax FF body until I see a comparable set of lenses. Who knows, maybe the currently available lenses will stack up...but Pentax doesn't really have any Digital Glass versions of these lenses for FF. RIght now my upgrade path is dependant on deciding it would be worth my while to spend a lot more money, While I'd jump at the chance to use my existing lenses on more than one format...

My Studio instructor once said , "find the lens you like and buy the body that goes with it." Out of the gate, without covering the 14-200 zoom range with Digital Glass, I'm not sure a an FF is a starter around here. If they're thinking they're going to sell me a $3000 camera with a kit quality lens hoping for better to come along later.....

How embarrassing would it be to be carting around a Pentax FF with a 20 year old 35-80 on the front of it? They can sell me the FF glass before they come out with the camera. I'm not so sure it would work the other way around. I still listen to my Photography Studio teacher, 50 years later.

The only piece of Pentax Glass I'd buy specifically to make use of existing lenses would be the 31 ltd. and maybe the 77. And I'd want to rent and test before I bought. 31 is a long way from the 14 available in high quality glass on Nikon.

It makes me wonder, what glass does everyone have that you think would perform well on an FF camera?

[Kunzite]

Kunzite: As DigiCam companies go Pentax was larger than Ricoh, so, as we recall, the Ricoh camera assets and employees were transferred to Pentax, fomring Pentax Ricoh Imaging Co, Ltd.. That's just smart business.

I'm saying that the US is in such disarray (relative to the other developed markets) that fixing the US is necessary to achieve the kind of volume Pentax needs to compete well. Success fixing PRIAC is the key variable globally if Pentax is to be more than a Japan-centric, consumer, colored camera company. Anf fixing the US is so expensive (doable, but very expensive) that PRIC Ltd. hasn't authorized the business plan yet.

You might be right; the success of a high-end product depends on the sales volume and "fixing" PRIAC is one way to increase it. But, it's not the only way. Maybe they prefer at first to expand in easier markets (Asia?), for the US applying a gradual, less expensive strategy.

It is smart business, I agree - but I still find it somehow ironic, and fortunate (IMHO Minolta lost themselves through a merger and a buy-out).

I actually never said that Pentax promised FF every year. I specifically said that they DIDN'T promise FF, just fueled rumors.

They haven't done that, either. People fuelled rumours, not Pentax. You said:

a) Pentax having the balls to keep trotting out the '...we're really, seriously, totally, maybe, thinking about FF, at some point. Like, almost completely...' line, every damn year, with a straight face.

but can you point to one... something (interview, press release etc) where they actually did that? Pre-Ricoh, of course, and excluding the 2001 prototype which they planned to launch but was cancelled.

Gentleman's wager on seeing any official proof of a Pentax FF body in the 2013 calender year? Loser puts '[Winner's handle] is always right.' in their signature for a year.

Why would I bet over something I never claimed?

[monochrome]

You might be right; the success of a high-end product depends on the sales volume and "fixing" PRIAC is one way to increase it. But, it's not the only way. Maybe they prefer at first to expand in easier markets (Asia?), for the US applying a gradual, less expensive strategy.

Well I think at what would be a high end price many sales would depend on photographer business leases - and those would depend on business-level service that PRIAC doesn't even come close to supporting now.

From the outside PRIAC appears to be a paper company, outsourcing everything, with only a very few (numbered fewer than 20) "accounts" to cover. Apparently from what I've read they have 1 National Accounts Rep, John Carlson, James Malcolm and about 40 other employees at the Denver offices. I'm not even sure where they ship from when you order from the Pentax WenStore - Denver?

[bwDraco]

Why does everybody have to panic every time Pentax makes a statement regarding full frame?

I've said this before and I'll say it again: The sky is not falling.

Pentax is not dead and it will not be dying anytime soon. Ricoh is a huge company, and it surely recognizes the potential of the Pentax brand that Hoya had failed to harness. It's important to realize that the name Pentax once represented one of the world's foremost camera and lens manufacturers. All I ask of you is to continue waiting patiently for the next-generation Pentax camera.

--DragonLord

[pxpaulx]

My Studio instructor once said , "find the lens you like and buy the body that goes with it."

Easily the most sound, practical comment in this thread so far (that goes for everyone), thanks!

[glanglois]

Here is the essential conundrum for Pentax (doesn't matter who owns Pentax).

The USA market, whether or not largest on earth any more, is at least the marginal market for high-margin products. Everything depends upon whether the USA is a relevant market for Pentax now and in the future. Without an effective marketing and distribution channel in the USA Pentax has a very tough challenge achieving volume at high-margin prices. We've seen that Pentax doesn't desire volume at low-margin prices. Canon and Nikon dominate the store trade - box and boutique.

Pentax can have all the products we want, complete, ready to manufacture - but until PRIAC gets its act together and PRI comnmits long-term, repetitive investment into market development PRIAC is going nowhere. Without PRIAC high-margin products aren't likely to achieve launch volume globally.

Without PRIAC there won't be - there can't be - any Pentax FF camera (and lenses, and attachments, and accessories).

Until just 6 months ago Ricoh's business plan was essentially, lay off employees of IKON Office Systems (restructure) globally to recover fromt the disastrous 2008 acquisition of that company. Pentax cost $100MM +/-, not a small sum in the middle of a losing period, but not a backbreaker, either. However, the add-on investments necessary to rebuild Pentax (not the product stuff, which they have - the distribution channel), especially in PRIAC, was a deal-breaker. When you are retrenching in one division expanding in another just isn't going to happen - the Finance Guys won't allow it, and money always has the deciding seat at the table. Always.

Pentax is telling us they have the desire, they have a plan, they have the technology, they have the prototypes, they have the business relationships with third-party suppliers --- they have the Product!!

But they don't have permission of the Finance Guys yet. And they won't get that until PRIAC is fixed. Good luck on that, Mr. Malcolm.

Ogl - you don't know your business as well as you seem to believe. Its all about money. Always has been, always is and ever shall it always be.

I usually agree with you, monochrome, but here I'll differ.

It's not unusual to cut back in one market, one business unit, one product line to make investment possible in another. Tellabs just announced that today, I think. Dropping a recently-introduced router product line to divert resources to a more advantageous part of the business. AT&T and Verizon have been starving their wireline business to invest in wireless. There are more, just in telecoms, but you get the idea. It happens because the finance guys demand it. (Admittedly an oversimplification.)

And I wouldn't be at all surprised if Pentax can get an FF product line into the market w/o turning around PRIAC first. There's a lot to do here but the FF deployment may be an integral part of the turnaround - done concurrently rather than consecutively. In the Americas at least, the slogan (associated with an image of the alphanumeric-string-of-your-choice body) could be "This is the face of the new Pentax!" Together with Pentax staff (hired again through a temp agency) visiting shops in LA, NY, and Kendrick, Idaho. Or is that Poseyville, Indiana? Almost certainly not Hell For Certain, Kentucky. That's Kodak country. But I digress ....

I am, though, eagerly awaiting more energy and better execution from Golden, Colorado. Probably more so than an FF body requiring glass I cannot immediately afford.

[thibs]

It makes me wonder, what glass does everyone have that you think would perform well on an FF camera?

K30/2.8 (with full K-mount please, thank you)

[VisualDarkness]

The CEO of Canon Imaging for a start. Actually he didn't say that, not precisely, but that's how his remarks seem to have been interpreted elsewhere. Anything similar from Nikon would allow the view to settle that it is game over for the APS-C DSLR even if it isn't. The format will slowly migrate to mirrorless using new lenses with a shorter registration distance, if you believe Mr Canon (or the implications behind his recent remarks). Of course that doesn't have to be true but perception is all - hence marketing and reassurance become especially important to present APS-C DSLR-makers and their customers. They won't want folks holding off or going to a competitor's mirrorless instead.

That interview was simply weird. At first he hypes the coming 70D but after that declares the DSLR APS-C hopeless and dead in the future. Why should one invest in the 70D if it's a dead mount?

[monochrome]

It's not unusual to cut back in one market, one business unit, one product line to make investment possible in another

Indeed. But that isn't what Ricoh has done. Granted, Ricoh is (potentially) emerging from their period of retrenchment and restructuring and anyone who invested with them last summer at the nadir of their business transition has done very well.

I simply try to explain in real-world terms what otherwise seems to be inexplicable behavior.

[Fontan]

Ned, is that you?

You blew my cover.

[ElJamoquio]

My Studio instructor once said , "find the lens you like and buy the body that goes with it."

Out of sheer curiosity - have you used a Nikon lately?

[Fontan]

What really should happen is that Pentax comes out with a camera with a sensor size somewhere between FF and 645, in a body as small as K-5, for about $3000.

[ElJamoquio]

What really should happen is that Pentax comes out with a camera with a sensor size somewhere between FF and 645, in a body as small as K-5, for about $3000.

1) The packaging shouldn't be a problem
2) any large change in sensor size would make a different mount a bit more advantageous (are you asking to not-use k-mount?)
3) The economies of scale (with Nikon/Sony) that exist at 24x36 wouldn't exist at an 'oddball' sensor size.
4) Pentax already has that camera, between APS-C and 60x45. It's the 44x33 645D.


I agree with you in theory, but in practice it just doesn't work out that well.

Now a miniaturized-645D mount (with shortened-register-distance, but otherwise completely compatible with tube-adapter) 645 mount would be quite awesome. Some have speculated on a mirrorless 645 but I'm a fan of the OVF for a few more years.