Originally posted by noser Count me in the part time pro group. In fact, count me in to the same situation as yourself almost 100%
I didn't buy into Pentax to become a pro; I bought in as an enthusiastic amateur and really liked it. The pro aspect came later, and now I feel I'm stuck - it seems such a waste to throw away all that gear to start again. I guess if I got 50-70% on it I might get one nice lens from another mount for it all, since most of it is so old.
I'm still strongly considering the 645Z; aside from framerate and the typically poor Pentax video mode it's actually excellent as an all-round shooter.
But I have only 3 non-AF 645 lenses. I have 10x more K mount lenses, most of which are FF.
Maybe Pentax reads this forum; maybe they don't.
I'd like to think they have a room of interns, each who is a native speaker of a different language, who read and report from all the online forums. But they all report to a manager that doesn't go to meetings, so no one else at Pentax ever hears what the rest of the world/market wants.
So we only get 'upgrades' when they put a Miffy decal on last years body.
But I do think FF is very soon to come, based on the new lenses and company comments. What I suspect though is it may not be a D750 competitor. And it may not be a Leica competitor.
So if those two exist on a single continuum (and that may be a wrong assumption) where the Leica is on the far left, as a one-shot-uber-expensive-let-make-some-art body, and the D750 is pretty far away on the right side ( almost where the 1D and D4's live ), which are more in the monster-feature-do-anything-for-anyone cameras, where does Pentax fit?
Is there an entire dimension to the graph I'm ignoring? It sounded like in the interview the CEO really, really, really cared about making terrific images... so more to the left?
Cheers mate.
I'm certain that there are quite a few people in our situation. Probably not in enough numbers to provide adequate sales for the FF alone, but it all adds up. I have also considered (briefly) the 645z, but the financials don't even
nearly stack up right now.
In terms of where the FF might fit into the market, I personally
do think the spot the D750 occupies is a reasonable guess (or between that and the D800). Or to put it another way, lets look at what they've done in the recent past to extrapolate the strategic approach.
The K-3 was pitched as a high-quality, feature rich and value-for-money offering in direct competition to the D7100 and 70D. It was relatively conservative, and focused on being highly refined, and easy to use with the (apparent) aim being to provide a real and attractive alternative to the big two.
So, a reasonable guess would be:
- High quality and refinement (both build and user interface);
- Feature rich (perhaps pitched more as a stills than a videographer's camera, with emphasis on ISO performance);
- Conservative. As one Ricoh exec put it, it'll be a "straight ball" (likely to be a DSLR, at least for their first foray);
- Several differentiating features: IBIS?; High ISO stills performance?; Selectable anti-aliasing?; Some other use of Sensor shift, such as dual pixel AF (recently patented by Ricoh)?
- Very competitively priced vs features, to make it an attractive financial proposition to potential new customers
I think the natural competitors will be the likes of 5d Mkiii, D800, and D750 (more so this 'second tier' rather than the 1DX and D4S level). So I would expect it to be competitive in terms of features with those bodies, whilst having a few unique qualities, and an attractive price point (circa $2,500 has been bandied about).