Originally posted by Another dyemention Why is Ricoh even bothering with a FF? I'm relatively new to photography so maybe it's just my lack of experience and knowledge talking, but I really don't understand why ricoh is wasting any time and money at all on a FF. pentax FF isn't going to be groundbreaking to where canikons will switch. I'm just speculating here but how many aps-c users will upgrade to the FF? Maybe half? And I think that's a very optimistic guess. Pentax has some of the best apsc cameras available, an the best MF camera available so why not focus on what they're good at? Maybe work on an affordable MF camera priced the same as canikons FF cameras. A camera like that can be pentaxs offer to the professional photographers instead of another option for a FF. its almost 2016. people like spending money on new technology. why not work on something like a stellar mirrorless camera that wirelessly tethers with a tab? something where you can edit your pictures on the spot. Offer a pro package where you can control your whole system, flashes, camera, editing- all on the tab- on location. Maybe it's just me but I don't see a point in playing follow the leader when you can be the leader. Why play catch up with companies like canikon? And who cares about a pentax ff anyhow? The people on here. Maybe a few thousand people? Seems like a big waste to me.
Ah ah! You message perfectly makes sense. In fact, interchangeable lens camera basic marketing strategy is to get new to photography prospect into selecting an high value entry level Pentax camera (cheap for the features it has: K200D, K30, K50, K-S2) and high value affordable lenses (18-50, DAL35 2.4 and DAL50 1.8 etc). Once the "new to photgraphy" person is not new anymore, chances are that he/she realizes that he/she can improve his result by buying additional equipment, but then, he/she is not likely to buy something front another lens mount because products are not compatible....and so on.. until the point where the customer has significantly enough invested in K mount so that the cost to switch to another brand of interchangeable system is a barrier.
Why Ricoh develops a FF camera now? Because as long as it was possible to offer a camera upgrade path (istD, K10D, K20D, K7, K-5, K-5II, K5IIs, K-3) to k mount customer base, there was not strong justification to increase the size of the sensor to FF.
But then the APSC sensors improved to a point (K-3, K-3II) where image quality can't be easily and significantly improved anymore by cramming more smaller pixels into an APSC sized sensor that is outresolving most lenses (no big risk of moire with most lenses when removing the OAA). So, the FF camera is an upgrade option for the users of K-5, K-5II, K5IIs, K-3 and K-3II cameras.