[boriscleto]

I. Ought an Epson PhotoPC in 1998. At that point it was already a couple of years old. It could hold 16 640x480 JPEGs or 32 320x240 JPEGs on its 1MB of internal memory. It didn't,t have a built in LCD so you couldn't review what was in the camera, but you could buy an external LCD that connected to the serial port...

[niiicedave]

Looking at the PR for the new Sony, the first thing that jumps out is the lens costs. Insane. Tell me -- if you were running Pentax, would you actually risk a lot of money making a camera that only a few people would buy? Does anybody actually want 24MP, let alone 36MP? Whatever for? There are very few professionals left... and, of those, VERY few who would ditch their existing Canikon gear collections. Forget that one.

What's left? Retiring baby boomers, who finally have time for photography hobby, share their images on the internet, and never print larger than 11 x 14. That's 16MP territory with cropping room to spare. But -- this group is price sensitive, and is NOT going to drop $1,000 on a lens. Not very often, anyway... the very rich 1% of this group is probably off in Leica-land anyway.

No. The K-3 is the perfect high-end camera for this demographic... and with the 16MP price range going down to the K-500, it's a complete lineup. All that's needed is to SELL it. Next time I get an AARP magazine, AAA's Westways, or National Geographic, I want to see a full page Pentax ad inside that front cover!

I was just searching for a full frame Pentax, just to see if one exists, because Nikon is getting dangerously close to stealing my business with their D600.

[jon404]

Of course you'd want to consider the effect smartphones will have on all this. Assume that the lenses will be much better; assume zoom, assume 16 MP images, and assume that the phone will come with complex presets, like Lightroom, to yield picture-postcard results almost every time. Plus -- later than sooner -- a new greatly increased bandwidth standard, or some new way to hyper-multiplex huge still images and videos over whatever succeeds wi-fi. And we haven't even touched on Google Glass.

Will this trivialize the serious-photography market? Will we be like audiophiles, endlessly arguing the merits of analog vs. CDs, unheard and unnoticed by the larger society of smartphone users?