[philbaum]

Canon already have a mirrorless solution. Nikon, well, a smaller sensor one but it's there. A dozen other brands also have mirrorless.
There's no way for Pentax to be "first" in the MILC game, and being the first does not guarantee success. Kodak, Contax - those were "the firsts", and where are they?

Well, Canikon and Pentax were careful to come out with MILC that would not take sales away from their DSLRs. If they thought that would fool the enthusiasts, well, it didn't. The internet reviewers generally gave those cameras a polite and sometimes a not so polite "not interested". So you're right, those were the first editions, with a small sensor in the case of the Nikon model, limited functionality in the case of Canon and Pentax. And somehow these great camera manufacturers fooled virtually noone. On their reports to stockholders, Nikon promised to re-examine what they had done for Nikon 1 and fix it. Well apparently V3 is better but still a small sensor.

If Pentax came out with a fully fitted out MILC with a new mount that would allow full use of all K-mount lenses with a Pentax endorsed adapter, than IT WOULD BE THE FIRST MILC among the Canikon and Pentax Mfr to do that. I personally have used the DA-300, the DA-17-70 F4, various Pentax mount macros, the DA-35 f2.8 macro, the DA-50-135 f2.8 on both my Nex cameras in manual mode. They work great, but i'd like to make use of their AF functions too. If Pentax provided a new MILC FF mount with short registration distance and an authorized AF adapter for my k-mount lense - i would buy it today. Sure - Sony has done this already, but in my mind, they don't quite have the quality of lenses and/or numbers that Canikon and Pentax have.

Right now I think the question is not if they should eventually do it; but how to do it without sacrificing the present. There is still growth potential with the K-mount, and perhaps the best way of action is to continue with it, until they'll be strong enough to add another mount to their portfolio.

Well, i bought into the Pentax system with the K10, I've been reading about promises of greater market share every year since - and it hasn't happened. I do like what Ricoh has done. But i don't think a growth in market share is going to occur without a more innovative approach to the MILC business. The growth in MILC is 33% in the first 5 months for the European market area - the largest in any CIPA tracked area. I think Europeans for some reason are on the leading edge of their acceptance of MILC. Canikon are going to play this whole legacy mount issue very conservatively. Pentax has the incentive of more marketshare to gain by following this approach. If they play conservatively - market share gains are probably not going to happen.

its like the old story of the Swiss watch makers that invented the digital quartz watch. Convinced that it wouldn't sell, they let other countries exploit the invention. History tends to repeat itself :-( Sony isn't hesitating at all.

[ElJamoquio]

such a shit is unlikely in the immediate future. There's no emergency

I think that depends on what they've been eating.

[Kunzite]

What on Earth did I wrote? It was meant to be "such a shift" (and I used "shift" just few words before). My apologies for not proof-reading well enough.

[ElJamoquio]

No worries! I knew what you meant, I just thought what you wrote had some (bad) humor in it.

[Kunzite]

If Pentax came out with a fully fitted out MILC with a new mount that would allow full use of all K-mount lenses with a Pentax endorsed adapter, than IT WOULD BE THE FIRST MILC among the Canikon and Pentax Mfr to do that. I personally have used the DA-300, the DA-17-70 F4, various Pentax mount macros, the DA-35 f2.8 macro, the DA-50-135 f2.8 on both my Nex cameras in manual mode. They work great, but i'd like to make use of their AF functions too. If Pentax provided a new MILC FF mount with short registration distance and an authorized AF adapter for my k-mount lense - i would buy it today. Sure - Sony has done this already, but in my mind, they don't quite have the quality of lenses and/or numbers that Canikon and Pentax have.

Regardless, Sony have a large piece of the MILC market share, so does Olympus and Panasonic. Pentax cannot be anything but a late entrant.

Well, i bought into the Pentax system with the K10, I've been reading about promises of greater market share every year since - and it hasn't happened. I do like what Ricoh has done. But i don't think a growth in market share is going to occur without a more innovative approach to the MILC business. The growth in MILC is 33% in the first 5 months for the European market area - the largest in any CIPA tracked area. I think Europeans for some reason are on the leading edge of their acceptance of MILC. Canikon are going to play this whole legacy mount issue very conservatively. Pentax has the incentive of more marketshare to gain by following this approach. If they play conservatively - market share gains are probably not going to happen.

Well, be careful who is making those promises Hoya didn't, on the contrary they were talking about cost cutting and how smaller market share is fine as long as their over precious margins are met.
Ricoh OTOH is reporting increased sales (albeit, not a very sharp increase - and they don't publish exact numbers) so there is a difference.

Is that a real growth or an expected growth i.e. overproduction and oversupply? The 2012 "crysis" was quite based on the insane expectation that the market would grow some 35%, which obviously didn't happen. I could still buy a 4 years old Olympus mirrorless for peanuts (E-PL1 for 180 euro), which was included in the CIPA production/shipments data but was never sold...
That huge increase, by the way, still means that the decreasing DSLRs are 5x the MILCs. It could be just unusually low shipments one year ago, and things getting back to normal this year?

[Uluru]

The manufacturing cost for a pentaprism is probably pretty linear to the mass of the glass need for the prisrm. A FF pentaprism probably need 2-3x the mass of a APS-C pentaprism.

Using FF prism in both FF and APS-C will save some cost for the FF DSLR, but will make the prism in APS-C much more expensive.
Making FF 5% cheaper by making all APS-C DSLR 25% more expensive might not be the best strategic plan when APS-C is 90+% of the sales.

I don’t know why some believe that the pentaprism is a price issue, or an issue at all? Where do people get such economies? Based on what? Users of any Pentax forum have no idea about internal economies of the company, what they can or cannot do.

For all we know they may be getting 250,000 best pentaprisms money can buy as a yearly Christmas gift from an anonymous benefactor.

[ROBEFFY]

I wonder what the breakdown of sales is?

The camera club I belong to has 2 Pentax, mostly Nikon and a Canon user.

As far as I can tell, most people bought solely on price, and had no idea what they bought. Most did not know what F-stop, ISO stood for and shoot in auto mode.

So, who is the market? Experienced or beginner users? What is the breakdown?

[mee]

As far as I can tell, most people bought solely on price, and had no idea what they bought. Most did not know what F-stop, ISO stood for and shoot in auto mode.

So, who is the market? Experienced or beginner users? What is the breakdown?

I believe it. A friend of mine recommended Pentax when I was looking for my first DSLR. After some online research, I determined the K-x was the more powerful camera for the money (better SnR at high ISO, faster burst, high sensor rating). I had no idea about mount type ecosystems or anything of that variety. I figured once I had the big camera, that was pretty much it.

I only bought a second lens after I realized I needed something longer when preparing to attend an airshow. No idea bout image quality differences in lenses.. aperture differences.. or even focusing speed.. just basic focal length.

Ironically, the same friend who recommended Pentax to me ended up buying a Canon T2i a few months later because he got it cheap at a Target store. hah. Now he has an assortment of Canon gear.

Price does matter. Especially to the novice.

[Rondec]

It is funny. A teen girl that I know purchased a kx on my recommendation -- she didn't have much money and used it was pretty cheap. She used it for 6 months and then sold it -- because it was the wrong color (black) and she has since purchased another used (but white) kx that is perfect.

[ElJamoquio]

I wonder what the breakdown of sales is?

The camera club I belong to has 2 Pentax, mostly Nikon and a Canon user.

As far as I can tell, most people bought solely on price, and had no idea what they bought. Most did not know what F-stop, ISO stood for and shoot in auto mode.

So, who is the market? Experienced or beginner users? What is the breakdown?

Dunno, but in the past year, on average, cameras got ~8% more expensive.

[rawr]

A teen girl that I know purchased a kx

A teen girl I know of bought a D610 recently, after apparently working and saving hard for it. So far, I have only seen selfies come out of it.

This 'democratization of FF' is why Pentax needs a FF today. In several body colours too.

[RonHendriks1966]

Well, Canikon and Pentax were careful to come out with MILC that would not take sales away from their DSLRs. If they thought that would fool the enthusiasts, well, it didn't. The internet reviewers generally gave those cameras a polite and sometimes a not so polite "not interested". So you're right, those were the first editions, with a small sensor in the case of the Nikon model, limited functionality in the case of Canon and Pentax. And somehow these great camera manufacturers fooled virtually noone. On their reports to stockholders, Nikon promised to re-examine what they had done for Nikon 1 and fix it. Well apparently V3 is better but still a small sensor.

Canon's M isn't even available in Europe, the second model. So no succes for it I guess, but I did see large salesnumbers for Japan. Q has a to small sensor to be the serious player in the field. Nikon brings a new type off model with the 1 V3, but as you say a small sensor. Well they made a choice at the start and now can't change that since lenses for the system are made for that 1 inch sensor. Somehow I think that it will be the right choice in the long run and 1 inch sensor will be a large player. But the 1 system is expensive and lacks a great superzoom to compeet with all those bridgecamera's where Panasonic is putting a 1 inch sensor inside a 25x zoom camera.

Pentax lack off succes with large sensor mirrorless, since the K-01 wasn't breaking salesrecords has one advantage. They didn't put a new mount on it and made lifetime choices that way. I don't think the K-01 bring lots off lost to the company since most off the engenering was chared witk K-30/K-50. I still think that a mirrorless K-mount camera should be made and be part off the camera line-up.

The question is how to approach any other mirrorless system. Instead off bringing the Q out they should have joint micro 4/3th system, but that is allready years ago and not to relevant anymore.

[philbaum]

Regardless, Sony have a large piece of the MILC market share, so does Olympus and Panasonic. Pentax cannot be anything but a late entrant.

Well, not quite late - they have the Q doing well enough, ILC and all that. They had the K01 which they learned something from. Also they are a late entrant to the FF DSLR arena, but several want them to do it anyway. Plus i'm sure Canikon and Pentax are learning what they can from Sony, Olympus and Panasonic experiences.

Is that a real growth or an expected growth i.e. overproduction and oversupply? The 2012 "crysis" was quite based on the insane expectation that the market would grow some 35%, which obviously didn't happen. I could still buy a 4 years old Olympus mirrorless for peanuts (E-PL1 for 180 euro), which was included in the CIPA production/shipments data but was never sold...
That huge increase, by the way, still means that the decreasing DSLRs are 5x the MILCs. It could be just unusually low shipments one year ago, and things getting back to normal this year?

Looks like you got me on that one. Looking at the Japan sales market, i notice that MILC sales by unit are 62% of the DSLR unit sales for 2014 through May. That would have been a better example for me to quote :-) Although judging by Canon and Nikon actions, they don't appear concerned about selling FF DSLR models in the face of a growing milc presence in their own country. Its difficult to predict what's going to happen with this situation and when. One thing we know for sure, is that traditional camera makers were caught by surprise from the impact the smart phones had on their PS compact sales. So they are not blessed with super powers when it comes to forecasting - and they have a ton more data that most of us on this forum.

---------- Post added 07-07-14 at 01:12 AM ----------

Canon's M isn't even available in Europe, the second model. So no succes for it I guess, but I did see large salesnumbers for Japan. Q has a to small sensor to be the serious player in the field. Nikon brings a new type off model with the 1 V3, but as you say a small sensor. Well they made a choice at the start and now can't change that since lenses for the system are made for that 1 inch sensor. Somehow I think that it will be the right choice in the long run and 1 inch sensor will be a large player. But the 1 system is expensive and lacks a great superzoom to compeet with all those bridgecamera's where Panasonic is putting a 1 inch sensor inside a 25x zoom camera.

Pentax lack off succes with large sensor mirrorless, since the K-01 wasn't breaking salesrecords has one advantage. They didn't put a new mount on it and made lifetime choices that way. I don't think the K-01 bring lots off lost to the company since most off the engenering was chared witk K-30/K-50. I still think that a mirrorless K-mount camera should be made and be part off the camera line-up.

The question is how to approach any other mirrorless system. Instead off bringing the Q out they should have joint micro 4/3th system, but that is allready years ago and not to relevant anymore.

Good points. I think its sort of useless to come out with a mirrorless APS Pentax camera at this point, since Sony and Canon and Fuji have that area covered.

However, i think a low priced but fully featured Mirrorless FF by Pentax would be niche product and would only have to compete with Sony. I'd buy that product. Mirrorless are supposed to be cheaper to make, so that should enable Pentax to keep the price low and yet still have good features. Perhaps they can come out with a FF DSLR and a second mirrorless FF model and let the chips fall where they may. At least that way i'd get my mirrorless FF :-).

[Fogel70]

I don’t know why some believe that the pentaprism is a price issue, or an issue at all? Where do people get such economies? Based on what? Users of any Pentax forum have no idea about internal economies of the company, what they can or cannot do.

The high grade glass used in pentaprism is a considerable cost, and as the manufacturing of the prism is done in several steps it add quite alot to the cost too. Using pentaprism in all cameras is one reason for Pentax not being able to compete on price with the cheapest DSLR on the market. I know that Pentax/Ricoh can't use magic to lower manufacturing cost.

For all we know they may be getting 250,000 best pentaprisms money can buy as a yearly Christmas gift from an anonymous benefactor.

Yes, and it's probably the man on the moon that sends them to Pentax.

[rawr]

Using pentaprism in all cameras is one reason for Pentax not being able to compete on price with the cheapest DSLR on the market.

So even the K-500 has pentaprism. Interesting. I guess this means the K-x and K-r were the last Pentax DSLR's with pentamirrors. Collectors items!