[noelpolar]

+1! There's something special on MF pictures that is beyond MP count on the sensor or technical numbers.

Yes there is, mostly due to the person behind the lens!

[rawr]

i hope the new Pentax FF camera is a dslr with room for proper dials and programmable buttons

+1. Like some of the current FF DSLR's from competitors.

And hopefully the dials and buttons of the FF will be similar in location and design to the K-3, to make life a bit easier for shooters using the FF alongside existing APS-C bodies.

[noelpolar]

Yesterday I shot a "perfect" macro shot the kids will gladly delete once I die. I suppose it could be "more perfect" with the latest and greatest sensor, but it doesn't matter

Funny....I've lost 1,000s of photos and it really doesn't matter (I'm a hobbiest photo taker)..... the hobby for me is mostly about pleasure in the now. Maybe have got one image so far that I'll have used at my funeral .... so 5 or so non photographyish people will get to see it.

[normhead]

Will the hype ever end.

[noelpolar]

Will the hype ever end.

Of course....it did for the Romans....eventually!

[neostyles]

Even if pentax is using a similar sensor, there is much more to it than that guys. Pentax will need to do alot to fix it's weak spots. AF has typically been a problem with pentax. Its why i jumped ship. The sonys are amazing for their ability to not just recognize faces but for their ability to distinguish them from other faces and not get confused, tracking them consistently. Pentax is going to have to move mountains if it wants to get competetive with af. There is movies too and i feel like pentax doesnt yet realize that a camera these days needs to have both both the stills and video down. In addition to great stills, to compete with sony, the pentax full frame will have to wow videographers too. Standard low bitrate, mp4 codecs arent really going to win anyone over imo. Pentax should try to get down the weight as low as possible if it wants to compete. Light and small is the way to go. The smaller foot print of mirrorless cameras i think is alot of what is puling people away from dslrs.

A less boxy design wouldnt hurt either. I really liked the illuminator buttons from the ks2 i think it was. Pentax should do more with that. Maybe have the camera sense when the light is too low and bring on the back illumination. Also whats wrong with wrong with gps? We live in a social media age. I mean, if its that a or a mic jack, of course go with the mic jack but letting people geo tag their photos in camera would be great.

As far as iso performance goes, i would like to see more focus on isos that people actually use. Sure if im out in the middle of no where it would be cool to have iso 51,000 but i would much rather have iso 1600 or 3200 be cleaner.

Give us a good live view, not just one that is "there" like on the k20. Focus in live view should be equally as robust as the af through the viewfidner. I would love a touch screen too.

[KX5]

I doubt Ricoh will use the last 42 MP sensor on its new FF in october. It's too early and expensive for them.
Specially if Pentax uses its own modified sensor which needs time to develop it.
When K3 has appeared in 2013, the 24 MP from Sony was on the market from 2011.
Im not sure about my own theory but if the new Pentax FF is in the stores for christmas, they have chosen already its sensor for a long time ( it exists right now!).
So 36MP or 42MP?
I hope it will be 36 MP
Why? First, i know Pentax works hard to improve existing sensor from Sony and they did it well in the past.
Second: price! If they choose 36 MP it's possible to sell their FF less than 2500$
But marketing is marketing and im not a business man.
So more reliable informations and facts are required.

[ElrondElensar]

You guys are all nuts. Moore's Law isn't dead,.

Moore's Law is dying. but more importantly Moore's has no relation to camera sensors. Moore's Law is about number of transistors doubling on on a circuit (nothing at all to do with CMOS sensors) and Moore's Law isn't a law. It's an educated prediction, and of course it will die as laws of physics put ultimate limitations to the size (and also speed, as nothing can travel faster than speed of light).

Moore's Law is dying fast, by the way.

[biz-engineer]

Moore's Law is dying. but more importantly Moore's has no relation to camera sensors. Moore's Law is about number of transistors doubling on on a circuit (nothing at all to do with CMOS sensors) and Moore's Law isn't a law. It's an educated prediction, and of course it will die as laws of physics put ultimate limitations to the size (and also speed, as nothing can travel faster than speed of light). Moore's Law is dying fast, by the way.

That's true, there's not much relationship between moore's law and imagers. The point of quant2325 was that even small imagers have now reach a "good enough" performance for the average individual for most of the use cases (taking photos with smartphone to post them on facebook). However, what is different now from about 5 years ago is the size of the silicon wafers: from 8 inches (200mm) to 12 inches (300mm), which basically allow to make a full frame sensor of now at the cost of an APSC sensor 5 years ago. That's probably one of the reason why Pentax (Ricoh) waited a while to decide to design a full frame camera (although they messed up a bit, because the right time to initiate a full frame design was two years ago at the time of the K-3 design). When some members where pointing out that Ricoh should do only one version of an expensive full frame camera because of the constraints of financials margins, they were not considering that the price of cmos imagers considerably went down in the last five years. Diffusion of imagers on 300mm wafers instead of 200mm is the key thing that is now making the full frame camera the new standard of affordable camera for photographers (not considering the average folk taking photos for 600x800 facebook images).

[patarok]

af on sony better than on pentax? Yes... but that was not always true... Even the K-7 was said to be better in terms of AF then the A55 the K-7 had 9 cross-type af points while the A550 only had one...
But that doesn't matter... when it comes to AF people have wrong expectations....
they confuse AF with AF Auto.... And no AF Auto can read your mind... no. won't happen in the near future....

And one will always avoid to admit that he jumped ship and had to exchange his whole lens park for actually nothing. But i am pretty sure that happens very often... The K-3 has excellent AF capabilites even in low light and is for sure en par with the cream of the crop nikon models(APS-C)... (though i wish there would be an option to modify how the AF-Assist light works.)

But i would not have one problem if Pentax improves AF and especially Video-AF(which is admittedly not very good at the moment)

My main objectives are:

Fast Still Frame Rate: 10-12 pic./S
24.5MP Sensor and therefore very good ISO capabilities like on the K-5II(or better)
WR Body
and an according lens equivalent to Tamron 28-300mm F3.5-6.3 XR Di LD IF Macro with Weather-Sealing....

[monochrome]

Of course....it did for the Romans....eventually!

It ended worse for the Greeks.

[kAAs]

I've been following this for a while now, two observations;
1. The sony cam's are there, for sale, now, have been.....
2. Sony A7R (now for 1500 EUR) and A7 ii selling as we write @1400 EUR
As Pentax was late with their LX, they are again with full frame and IF they want to make impact?
Pricing HAS to be 1500-1800 and it has to be a MIRACLE Camera, for more than the honeymoon....

[Kunzite]

Hmm... perhaps they didn't sell and Sony had to drop the prices? Are those cameras failures? Do we wish for Pentax to fail, as well?

[Pål Jensen]

As Pentax was late with their LX,.

Pentax wasn't late with the LX. It was released one month after the Nikon F3.

[Mattox]

If Pentax decide to release a k1000 again in the FF age of digital ( which I think they will), then yes, it will out do any other FF in its class. 2 important notes, they need to excel in viewfinder area and accurate AF to do so.