Originally posted by Kunzite Ditching the K-mount is not an option; and I'm once again amazed how on a forum supposedly for K-mount users, this is considered desirable.
The main reason: lenses. With K-mount, newly introduced "FF" lenses would also be bought by the much larger APS-C user base. Going directly for a new mount, guess what:
- no user base to buy lenses (except those who'll buy into the new FF system)
- K-mount users upset and worried about K-mount's future, likely impact on the APS-C user base.
I'm not saying they won't/shouldn't launch a new, large sensor MILC system (i.e. with a new mount), sometime in the future. But that would have to be done starting with higher volume APS-C, building an user base and then, when that user base is large enough, a FF option would be viable.
MHO.
Exactly. It's highly desirable for there to be an upgrade path - you start with cheap bodies and cheap lenses, and as you grow you can trade up lenses and bodies for more capable versions. Were Pentax to decide to produce a FF, it makes exactly zero sense to make up a new, incompatible mount when they already have one. "If you're going to have to sell all your Pentax gear anyway, why not just get a Canikon/Sony FF while you're at it" is the obvious thought process that users would have.
Someone else mentioned Sony, that's a pretty good comparison. I disagree a bit that Sony has gone "multi-mount crazy". They currently have two mounts - one DSLR (now considered legacy), one mirrorless. All their DSLR lenses are full frame (A-mount), some of their mirrorless lenses cover APS-C only (E-mount) and some cover full frame (FE-mount), but both E- and FE-mount are still the same mount though, and it's the exact same thing Canikon do with the EF/EF-S and FX/DX labelling, or Pentax with the FA/DA, Sigma's DG/DC, etc. It's not confusing at all if you bother to learn what the terms mean.
Regardless though, Sony's not a bad example of how this could be done - and in fact, how the K-01
should have been done. You can use any of your A-mount lenses on your E-mount camera with an adapter (contrast-detect or with a PDAF pellicle mirror), boom, backwards compatibility. You can use any of the full-frame E-mount (FE) lenses on your APS-C NEX, boom, forwards compatibility/upgrade path. In comparison the K-01 is clearly a kludge, you get the disadvantages of the DSLR mount (size) and no possibility of things like phase-detect AF Adapters, short-register alt glass, etc. It's a nice camera within its limitations, but in comparison the selling point of the NEX is that it has very few built-in limitations.
In fact basically no one I know who shoots a NEX actually shoots real E-mount glass on them very often. Everyone is adapting rangefinder glass, good Canon FD-mount stuff, Konica, etc. Sony really flopped on the glass and their sales are more or less based on pure body sales. Their camera director appears to be seriously ADHD, he's stated that
he latches on to a new direction every 6 months or so and it really shows in the trail of half-finished camera lineups they've left in their wake. Pentax can clearly do better than that - the Limiteds are a very cohesive lineup of a caliber that Sony never had.