[Digitalis]

now people said K5 is too heavy to carry around

Hey, some people don't have a gym membership...

[ZoeB]

No, they did not provide that option to me. Sounds like a nice feature, though. Maybe it will be offered as an accessory in Canada.

I should hope they will! Not gonna lie, the heated battery case for long aurora shoots where you spend a lot of time freezing your ass off in the dark!

[Clavius]

A larger lensmount would a not only allow pentax to make faster lenses - it would also give lens designers greater freedom with telephoto and wide angle optics, going for a larger mount would also have the upshot of making working with lens adapters a bit easier, so if Pentax decided to reduce the flange by half it wouldn't prevent people from using the older K series lenses.

Thanks, I hadn't realised that at all. More (U)WA options always sounds good to me. And a new mount without losing backwards compatibility sounds excellent as well.

Men become so weak nowadays....
Pop photo 1994 Nov issue, page 60: Popular Photography - Google Books

"For Kerrick James, nature photographer, the problem was finding a camera offering large image size and system portability.
Solution: the PENTAX 67"

"I carry about six lenses almost everywhere I go, from 45mm to a 300mm.The whole kit - including two bodies - fit in a backpack. I can easily take it to the remotest regions to get a shot like this, or slide it under an airline seat. That's portability! "...

now people said K5 is too heavy to carry around.... LOL

Men also seem to be more gullible back then as well. "Everywhere I go" and "That's portability" he said. Do you really actually believe the man went out with his friends on a Saturday evening with a Pentax 67 and six lenses stuffed down his jacket pockets?!? Anyone doing that with with the K-5? Of course not. So it's not about weight, but size. No, actually size isn't the problem either, it's my own photography interests:

I like always having a camera around, because the best photo-oppertunities have a way of turning up unexpected, when we leave our bulky gear at home:
- That pretty girl behind the bar staring when I'm out with my friends.
- The cows standing like black ghosts in the morning mist when I'm commuting to work.
- The way the light from the restaurant reflects in my glass of wine.
- Farmers harvesting when I'm commuting back from work, leaving a giant dustcloud behind them, being the only stain on a otherwise completely pink sky.
- I once photographed a cop that pulled me over for speeding! (The man's look and stance just radiated authority.)
- The destroyed public phone booth just outside the hotel on a business trip to which I will probably never ever return agian.

I can't help it, it's a compulsion. I see so many beautiful or impressive scenes everywhere I go in everyday life. How often do the same scenes come by? Probably never. And I have to capture those.

When I take a backpack full of tele's and go into nature, I only see flying rats, crawling rats, muds and weeds of all kinds of different shades of ugly.

I hate having to shoot with smartphone quality and at the same time have my high quality gear just laying around there in my studio. A Q doesn't make that any better. I'm an ideal canditate for that strange collapsable Voigtlander 40mm f/2.8 Heliar lens that was announced at photokina.

Anyway, to be a bit ontopic again, if Pentax would like me to field test their ultra compact FF ILC, with set of three collapsable pancake lenses, I'd be all over it. And I surely wouldn't be able to keep it at low profile. So, I'm disqualified already.

[/spoiled brat rant]

[monochrome]

I have Never. Disclosed. Anything.

Never.

[pento57mm]

Hey, some people don't have a gym membership...

And the ones that have a gym membership will have it terminated if......... figure the rest out. \tZ $pe(ia! + lite w8 and Tiny Tim will be healed.

[normhead]

I have Never. Disclosed. Anything.

Never.

No one ever tells me anything they don't want disclosed.

I'm the guy they tell secret stuff they want leaked. Telling me not to disclose it just means they don't want people to know where it came from, not that it wasn't supposed to be leaked.

TO me a non-disclosure agreement would mean " be really careful covering your tracks, if we can figure out you leaked this information, so can everyone else, and you're fired."

[kenspo]

No, not yet.

[rawr]

No, not yet.

That's kind of interesting.

If they are aiming for a October launch, then surely by now Ricoh must have some pre-production FF's already baked and ready to serve.

Probably they are testing the body (and lenses) in the field already, but keeping the process very in-house within Ricoh and it's partners.

[Digitalis]

I have Never. Disclosed. Anything.

Neither have I.

[kenspo]

That's kind of interesting.

If they are aiming for a October launch, then surely by now Ricoh must have some pre-production FF's already baked and ready to serve.

Probably they are testing the body (and lenses) in the field already, but keeping the process very in-house within Ricoh and it's partners.

My answer is with last conversation with them in mind. Things change fast. Will ask them for a update

[Kunzite]

No, not yet.

Probably the only serious answer in this thread

[kenspo]

Probably the only serious answer in this thread

I try to be serious most of the time

[stevebrot]

It came in the mail today...I know it looks a little rough, but it is a working pre-alpha mule, not a finished camera. Rumors regarding K/F mount cross-compatibility have turned out to be true as is the mirrorless design.





Steve

(Apologies to the good folk at Konost from whom I lifted the image of their prototype...)

[patarok]

i bet there are several different modular bodies ready for testing(only internal) but none is in production state yet... according to the engagement forum(on ricohimaging.com) and some pentax ambassadors(i recently had a FB-Chat), Ricoh is still collecting data about expectations and wishes for the full frame data. My guess is that they will start making final decisions in the first days of july - at the end of july there will be 2 or 3 "candidates" assembled for extensive testing and feedback from ricoh testers, who will stay under permanent surveillance - then they will take the big step and choose ONE of the 3 creatures and THEN start production somewhen in august.
If your infrastructure is ready, i am pretty sure you will be able to produce the first devices within one month. Just take a look at smartphones, educational robots, intelligent home devices and such. I know that is something completely else, but those devices are complex alike and they pop out of kickstarter companies and nowhere in NOtime.

[rawr]

My guess is that they will start making final decisions in the first days of july

Although I have absolutely no firm knowledge on the matter, my personal guess is that they have already reached the final 'feature complete' decision stage (and worked their way through many design and engineering mockups in the process). By now the physical design[s?] and specifications are locked, and it's just the engineering and build phase.

No matter how nimble modern companies can be, leaving important decisions on the hardware and design of a flagship product until just a few months before [unofficial] product launch in Q3 2015 doesn't seem prudent, IMHO. Too much risk.