[Belnan]

I'm going to stop beating my head against a wall trying to convince people of the business logic of how impossible it is to release the camera as everyone is hoping it to be spec'd out as a professional grade FF in the same price range as an entry level D610.

If you guys were saying, 24mp, 1/4000" shutter, SR...etc etc I could believe $2000. But for a 36mp sensor with the internal parts required to handle it.... it wont be under $2500. Probably not even under $2700.


if Nikon and Canon had the resources to price the D810/5DMKIII at $2200 in the hopes of more market share...don't you think they would?

Why would Nikon sell the D810 for 2300 when they already have the d750 there. I imagine they could and would still make a profit. Think of the new FF pentax like this; it will be to the 5D mark iii what the K-3 is to the 7D mark ii. The K3 isn't as good as the 7d mark ii in some ways but better in others. The K-3 is pretty much pro grade as far as I can see. 2300-2500 is exactly where this camera will be. Not cheap but amazing value.

[Pål Jensen]

I'll pay what it costs...

[kooks]

If is a $3000 body im out.. i cant justify at this time that purchase.. if photography were my major income perhaps, but is not... if the body is at that range i'll perhaps look for something else.. at the end the only thing that i want is the FF sensor.. dont really care about high FPS, 4K video, wifi, NFC, GPS, tilt screen, etc.. I just want nice AF, great IQ and great low light performance, simple... the rest are just "fancy extras" that perhaps i will never use.

[biz-engineer]

Considering FF body only price is a mistake. The cameras life cycles are shorter than the life cycle of lenses. And the life cycles of FF cameras is longer than the life cycles of APS-C cameras. We should rather invest in good lenses. Lens prices decrease much slower than bodies (even some lenses get more expensive over time). For instance, there are a lot of obsolete second hand digital camera for sales but unsaleable because the new digital camera model are so much better. The price of the FF body should be compelling to a wider use base. The new FF lenses should have outstanding quality and sold a premium price. Paying $3000 for a FF body is a mistake because sensors will evolve, but the good optical quality of your lenses will remain.

Example:
Camera body: $3000 , over 6 years => $500 per year.
Lenses (DFA 24-70 + DFA 70-200): $3000, over 12 years => $250 per year.

Basically, you may accept to buy expensive lenses if their are very good. But paying $3000 for a electronic device supposed to be redesigned every 3 years, no way !!! Think that you'll also have to upgrade you mac or pc as well.

[Barry Pearson]

Considering FF body only price is a mistake. The cameras life cycles are shorter than the life cycle of lenses. And the life cycles of FF cameras is longer than the life cycles of APS-C cameras. We should rather invest in good lenses. Lens prices decrease much slower than bodies (even some lenses get more expensive over time). For instance, there are a lot of obsolete second hand digital camera for sales but unsaleable because the new digital camera model are so much better. The price of the FF body should be compelling to a wider use base. The new FF lenses should have outstanding quality and sold a premium price. Paying $3000 for a FF body is a mistake because sensors will evolve, but the good optical quality of your lenses will remain.....

Basically, you may accept to buy expensive lenses if their are very good. But paying $3000 for a electronic device supposed to be redesigned every 3 years, no way !!! Think that you'll also have to upgrade you mac or pc as well.

That sounds more like an argument for not buying a second FF camera, not an argument for not buying a "full" price first FF camera.

If the first FF camera has high-specification and a matching price, many people will still buy it, (because they want a Pentax FF camera), then hold onto it for a long time because of their investment in it. After all, unless it breaks, it will still continue to take the same high-quality photos. The fact that Ricoh may intend to supersede it with something better in a few years time doesn't force existing users to want or buy those new things.

[Pål Jensen]

The price of the FF body should be compelling to a wider use base. The new FF lenses should have outstanding quality and sold a premium price. Paying $3000 for a FF body is a mistake because sensors will evolve, but the good optical quality of your lenses will remain..

It doesn't work like that. Prices are not defined by how smart it is to pay for something (which is debatable anyway), but based on developing, marketing, distribution and parts costs among other things. Prices are not set randomly, and Pentax will probably not release a camera they loose money on if the can avoid it....

When it comes to sensor development things are starting to flatten out making today's DSLR's relevant much longer than yesterdays...
Then there's the law of diminishing returns that set in when you reach a certain quality level...

[Dlanor Sekao]

This is becoming much less fun as it all goes along. All we still have is an announcement of a release somewhere in Never Never Land.
I selected B because I think it will be 24mp......which is still very impressive
If its a 36mp Sony sensor which Im hoping for..... it will be higher and start at about $2500+/- and I will have to wait for a deal or price drop.

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Last edited by Dlanor Sekao; 03-11-2015 at 07:40 AM.

[drypenn]

It doesn't work like that. Prices are not defined by how smart it is to pay for something (which is debatable anyway), but based on developing, marketing, distribution and parts costs among other things. Prices are not set randomly, and Pentax will probably not release a camera they loose money on if the can avoid it....

You forgot the two most important things in INITIAL pricing:

1) the amount of targeted profit a firm wants to make for the benefit of their owners/shareholders.
2) the arbitrary amount a firm thinks its initial adapters would be willing to pay, regardless of the true cost of building the product, and all of its administrative and marketing costs.

Only a few companies can nail these two most critical factors consistently, the most prominent has been Apple, which happens to be the most valuable brand in the planet nowadays. Let's see if the Apple watch will remain true. Pundits says no (just as they did when iPad was just a "big" iphone), while Apple thinks the watch will sell.

(Me? I will not be buying any watch that needs to be charged with other than my own hand movements.)

For Pentax and Ricoh, #2 factor has been a hit and miss. The K-01 and the Q debacles in initial pricing comes to mind easily.

[K David]

I'd like to be on the low-end of the $1,800-$2,399 range. I have money set aside for the FF, but as I've thought about it, it's not as important to me to have a full sensor with as good as the K-3 is. I bought the K-3 as a pre-order. I expect I'll wait until April 2016 to buy my FF and let the price drop a bit from launch.

[monochrome]

I'd like to be on the low-end of the $1,800-$2,399 range. I have money set aside for the FF, but as I've thought about it, it's not as important to me to have a full sensor with as good as the K-3 is.

How much higher will you go if the FF is released as a high-spec, higher-priced camera?

I bought the K-3 as a pre-order. I expect I'll wait until April 2016 to buy my FF and let the price drop a bit from launch.

How much longer will you wait if the camera is manufactured in controlled volume so that demand slightly exceeds supply and the price does not drop?"

[K David]

How much higher will you go if the FF is released as a high-spec, higher-priced camera?

I fully expect this to be a high-spec camera, so I suppose that I would have to see the spec set. As for how high I will go, that depends on how much of my car breaks this year.

How much longer will you wait if the camera is manufactured in controlled volume so that demand slightly exceeds supply and the price does not drop?"

Well, gosh. I dunno. I mean, right now if I want to shoot full frame I grab one of my about 85 35mm cameras and go shoot some film and then digitize it with my K-3. The only disadvantage to having an FF digital is that I could only shoot Pentax lenses on it and no my non-Pentax lenses that I love right now -- FD 100MM 1:1 macro, FD 24 2.8, Olympus 28, Minolta MD 58 1.4, and so on. Right now, I just shoot the film and then I basically have an FF digital image after conversion. So, I guess I'd wait until I die and never buy one and never feel as though I missed out. The FF camera will not make me a better photographer. It will not improve my image quality. It will not make my subjects suddenly more interesting. It will allow me to use my lenses as designed, have potentially better high ISO performance, crop a bit more than 5% without noticeable IQ loss on a computer display and so forth. Last year two of my best photos were taken with a $12 Recesky plastic TLR and expired color film. I put the camera together wrong, too. So if the FF never drops in price and I don't buy it, that's fine. Not owning an FF DSLR will have no material affect on my photography.

[monochrome]

I fully expect this to be a high-spec camera, so I suppose that I would have to see the spec set. As for how high I will go, that depends on how much of my car breaks this year.

FWIW my guess (and they're all guesses) is the MSRP will be between $2,600 and $2,900 US (not adjusting for the strong dollar, which might give us a bit of help on price). If I'm even nearly correct I imagine there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth on Pentax Forums regardless of the feature set / spec set.

Well, gosh. I dunno. I mean, right now if I want to shoot full frame I grab one of my about 85 35mm cameras and go shoot some film and then digitize it with my K-3. The only disadvantage to having an FF digital is that I could only shoot Pentax lenses on it and no my non-Pentax lenses that I love right now -- FD 100MM 1:1 macro, FD 24 2.8, Olympus 28, Minolta MD 58 1.4, and so on. Right now, I just shoot the film and then I basically have an FF digital image after conversion. So, I guess I'd wait until I die and never buy one and never feel as though I missed out. The FF camera will not make me a better photographer. It will not improve my image quality. It will not make my subjects suddenly more interesting. It will allow me to use my lenses as designed, have potentially better high ISO performance, crop a bit more than 5% without noticeable IQ loss on a computer display and so forth. Last year two of my best photos were taken with a $12 Recesky plastic TLR and expired color film. I put the camera together wrong, too. So if the FF never drops in price and I don't buy it, that's fine. Not owning an FF DSLR will have no material affect on my photography.

I shoot film too. I hate post-processing my own files. I consider the requirement to own a powerful computer, expensive software, a specialized printer and to continually pay for paper and toner the BIG LIE of hobbyist/enthusiast digital photography. I never said I wanted to be my own photo lab - I want to pay someone to do that.*

Of course I can shoot jpeg's and screen-display them, which kind of defeats the economic argument for using a high-spec ILC - even a K-3. But with a $200 MZ-S or MX or KX and a bag full of $150 manual lenses (instead of a $3,000 camera and $2,000 zooms) I can buy a whole lot of film and prints - even display-sized prints - before I'm under water financially. That, of course, doesn't take into account time spent sitting in front of a computer struggling with Lightroom.

For Ricoh's sake, from my opinion of the right business decision, I want them to release something equivalent to a D810 and for the price to stay high for a very long time, but I probably won't buy it. Even if they bring a FF K-3 at $1,399 I probably won't buy it.**


*I know that service is available, both locally and electronically.

**Oh heck. Of course I will. I have the money sitting in my PayPal account. I spent a lot of time hunting down all those 70's lens hoods and I want them to work the way they were designed.

[Stavri]

Would two pints of blood and one kidney cover it?

[mohb]

If the first FF camera has high-specification and a matching price, many people will still buy it, (because they want a Pentax FF camera), then hold onto it for a long time because of their investment in it. After all, unless it breaks, it will still continue to take the same high-quality photos.

So why 'upgrade' to full frame? The main reason that seems to be given appears to be based on nothing more than the fact it's full frame with a few tenuous justifications thrown in.

[monochrome]

So why 'upgrade' to full frame? The main reason that seems to be given appears to be based on nothing more than the fact it's full frame with a few tenuous justifications thrown in.

The general opinion seems to be there are certain situations where FF is a better tool and others where APSc is the batter tool, depending on what you shoot. If less noise, more dynamic range, a certain style of bokeh and subject isolation with limited shooting room are your thing - use FF* (or even MF**).

If smaller size (understanding the potential sacrifice of aperture) or reach - for sports, landscape or birding - is your deal - use APSc.




* or keeping up with the Joneses
** or making the Joneses keep up with you.