Pentaxian Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Tokyo | The price of the K-3 III (context/speculation, not inside info)
This is some context and my thoughts on the price of the K-3 III. Various news reports and comments have referred to a USD price of anything up to 2,900 dollars. I’ve even seen some commenters take this figure and assume that the Euro price will be about 3,000 euros. This way of trying to convert a Japanese price to other markets has not been reliable in the past, and frankly it is just alarming people rather than informing them.
The only clear bit of information we have about the price is the video statement from the Ricoh Imaging president Takahashi-san that the price would probably be “in the upper 200,000s”. This means between 250,000-299,000. What he is talking about here is the official price that would be on the Japan Ricoh Imaging Store before any discounts. Even in Japan, few will pay this price because the street price is typically 10% lower even on Day 1, and will go down from that over time.
What seems fair is to make comparisons between the official price of cameras in Japan. It’s an apples-to-apples comparison of the basic price before discounts. You can then see what these existing camera actually cost in your market.
So starting with other Pentax models, here are the official prices. I regret that I don’t have information about the K-3 or K-3 II. The list I have doesn’t go back that far. It seems that what the K-1 II retails for in your country could be a good indication of what the K-3 III will cost. So that would be USD 1,800 as far as I can see from B&H - way below the scare stories about the K-3 III.
- Pentax K-3 Mark III (expected) - 250,000 to 299,000
- Pentax KP - 138,000 yen
- Pentax K-1 Mark II - 254,000 yen
The next question is whether this kind of price is reasonable for a crop sensor camera. Comparing to other high-end crop bodies, you can see there are plenty of competing models around the same official price. In fact you can argue that Pentax has been the outlier by not having a model in this range.
- Pentax K-3 Mark III (expected) - 250,000 to 299,000
- Nikon D7500 - 159,000 yen
- Nikon D500 - 259,000 yen
- Fujifilm X-T4 - 225,000 yen
- Fujifilm X-Pro3 - 236,000 yen
- Fujifilm X-H1 - 259,000 yen
- Panasonic G9 Pro - 227,000 yen
- Panasonic GH-5 - 259,000 yen (GH-5 S - 324,000 yen)
- Canon 90D - 162,000 yen
- Canon 7D Mark II - 225,000 yen
- Olympus E-M5 Mark III - 165,000 yen
- Olympus E-M1 Mark III - 220,000 yen
- Olympus E-M1 X - 365,000 yen
- Sony a6600 - 176,000 yen
Next up is whether it is reasonable for a high-end crop body to cost the same as a full frame body. I’ve heard comments like “That’s crazy! I could get a K-1 II for that price!”, which might be true. We can see that the low end Canon and Nikon DSLRs are around the same price points as the above crop cameras (BTW, I couldn’t find the price of the Nikon D610, but it was well below the D500). So there is a significant number of customers who are prepared to prioritize features and compact size, even when their budget would stretch to a basic full frame body. What confuses the matter is the fact that Ricoh was very aggressive with the K-1 (and II) pricing. It is so reasonable for the features it has, making it look very good value against anything.
- Pentax K-3 Mark III (expected) - 250,000 to 299,000
- Pentax K-1 Mark II - 254,000 yen
- Nikon D780 - 265,000 yen
- Nikon D850 - 400,000 yen
- Canon 6D Mark II - 243,000 yen
- Canon 5D Mark IV - 467,000 yen
Finally, I think it’s worth coming back to Takahashi-san’s statement. There was nothing forcing him to mention the price at all. So what was his intent? To me the only thing that makes sense is expectation management. If you are doing this, you would give a conservative price range you are confident you can hit the lower end of, not the higher end. Otherwise you are just going disappoint people again. So I expect that the price will be 250,000 yen or a bit under, and the price in most markets will work out to be a bit below the K-1 II.
Anyway, I hope that people will not take the pricing rumours too seriously and wait for the official pricing to be announced before making any rash decisions.
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