Originally posted by Chris Mak To flagship or not to flagship...
K3 was released 4,5 years ago, got only a small intermediate update, and this update is discontinued.
A replacement was planned all along, I hear many saying: "I have said all along...I knew all along....I told you all along..."
4,5 years of time to waste on a healthy update, but now however, it is not ready (although it was planned all along).
In the meantime Pentax apparently had some spare time to waste, a lot of it, so they wasted it on a .... KP, not a flagship, not actually anything more than a sideways experiment, but as said, Pentax had a lot of time to waste....
But wait a minute, shouldn't they have been making a flagship? Ooops, now they are a year late.
Quite a riddle...
Don't get angry, trying to solve riddles is a very healthy thing for the mind now and then... especially when you have some time to waste...
"Waste" is pretty strong and emotive word to use, Chris... especially when you use it repeatedly. With respect, you're not doing yourself any favours
The way I see it:
The K-3 was indeed released 4.5 years ago. It got the kind of refresh we'd expect mid-way through that term, adding GPS (swapped for the internal flash), built-in astro, improved SR and pixel-shift (this last one being arguably the most significant). Not huge updates, but notable, and certainly worthwhile for many.
I think we'd have liked a K-3II replacement around now, but the K-1 and KP came first. Looks like those were the priorities. And the K-1II, in line with the K-3II, is just a mid-term update, so required much less development than an entirely new APS-C flagship.
We'll probably never know Ricoh's strategy and reasons for developing what they develop in the order presented. Those for whom the updated and newly-developed products are relevant have been happy. Those who hoped for something else - yourself, perhaps - aren't. Can't please everyone all of the time, right?
For what it's worth, I've been happy with the camera release cycle since I bought my new K-7 back in 2010. The K-3II replacement is taking longer than it should, in my view - especially as we're now without a current-production flagship APS-C body... but it's coming. None of us is without the ability to take great photographs in the meantime