Originally posted by Winder Wedding photography makes up a huge percentage of professional photographers.
And that's 1% of all DSLR sales.
Professional photography is a tiny part of the whole market.
The US$ average earnings for the occupation of "photographer" is $14,000 per year.
The market is made up of soccer Moms and Dads.
Originally posted by Winder Call Fuji. Tell them they screwed up by rolling out a premium camera with only 3 lenses and no real support. Or maybe we should call Apple and tell them that there is no way the iPhone can compete against a giant like RIM.
Fuji is bleeding money from its camera division. Their sales are not actually all that good, even in core market Japan. Their market share has hardly budged.
Originally posted by Kunzite Wrong, you enter a market without all your well-established competitors have to offer; just because trying to do otherwise is an impossible task.
You're buying a system, not a body. these aren't like cars where you can make a light truck and then make a sedan, then an SUV in following years.
Relying on Sigma or eBay $30 glass is how you kill future sales and water down the brand. Not an option. Suicide.
Pentax is an optical company. It makes money off of optics, not camera bodies. After-market lens and accessory sales are the beating heart of the industry. The entire purpose behind proprietary mounts is to get people buying your sand and not the other guys'.
Originally posted by Kunzite You are mistaken if you think Pentax can simply undercut others. That can make it unprofitable, as Canon and Nikon with their much higher volumes (and technology to reuse) are more able to play this game. Pentax' only chance would be to cut corners, which would put them at a disadvantage - having brand new cameras which can hardly compete with second hand Canikons.
But that's exactly how Pentax has survived in APS-C.
If you cannot compete on accessories and glass, you compete on price.
There are 3 areas where Pentax has differentiated:
1) Small APS-C primes in the DA Ltd's. Smart move. Pair with small APS-C bodies and you have a long-term APS-C founadtion.
2) Many colours.
3) WR.
Almost everything else from TAv to the Green Button to ergonomics are all subjective and not unique to Pentax given other methodologies available from the competition. In other ways the competition beats the pants off Pentax (video).
We do know that Pentax has:
1) Weak AF, with poor tracking and prediction and few cross-points and overlays. This is difficult to overcome given patents, cost, and the fact that Pentax is known for smaller form factor; part of its DNA.
2) Substantially smaller lens selection going up against 50+ FF lenses each from Canon and Nikon. This is killing Sony as well.
3) Lousy flash, tethering, lens support, etc. either internally supplied or via third parties. The whole lack of connectivity is restricting DSLR sales in general. Large file size FF is a barrier here.
DSLR's are a volume market. They are now an offshoot of consumer electronics in general.
So a D600 equivalent using the same sensor (likely) with WR and in pretty colours is going to justify a $500 premium?
Good luck with that.
How about a $1649 FF with one SD slot, WR, no top-LCD, articulating rear LCD, slightly updated SAFOX, wi-fi/USB/HDMI, all in a package about the size of the K-5 (larger prism)? Use the same 24MP Sony sensor on a second batch run at commodity prices (Sony will love you for amortizing their fab).
That's how Pentax gets some traction...if they can get the lenses right. At that price point they can do away with pro-level glass a $800 more expensive body would demand.
And lower priced glass takes away a lot of pressure from the used and legacy markets.