[stevebrot]

Now, whether the article needed to be written, or whether it needed to lead with that (arguably clickbait) headline… I guess some things may be better left unsaid, really.

Fstoppers and the author in question have a recurring theme of documenting the current survivors of industry's race to the bottom and predicting which company will be next to fall by the way.


Steve

[stevebrot]

Raise your hand if you think Ricoh is listening.






I thought not.

Raise your hand if you think that your camera will die and the glass in your lenses shatter the day that Ricoh puts its imaging efforts to rest......



OTOH...put your hands back down. Some things are best left a mystery.


Steve

[c.a.m]

I was going to offer a short little comment, but ended up reviewing the article in detail. (Maybe a senseless use of effort, but I tend to have a lot of spare time these days. )

The fStoppers article is based on an unsubstantiated premise that the future of the Pentax camera brand depends solely on mirrorless cameras, and implies that 'Pentax' will fail because it is not like Canon, or Nikon, or Fujifilm, or Sony. I find that it is mainly a jumble of hyperbole, history, and hypothetical meandering.

Almost 45% of its content presents a history lesson that is not pertinent to the discussion of the future, while notable portions harp on the Pentax Q line, the K-01, and the Hoya era. While a quick reader might nod in agreement with the article's suggestive title, it actually fails to present a case to support the premise.

The piece neglects or omits key aspects. For example, it touches only casually on the recent market conditions, and omits any discussion of the business situation of any of the camera manufacturers or imaging divisions. Although financial information and outlooks are available readily on publicly-traded companies, none is discussed in the article. Instead, it concludes simply "Where is Pentax in the camera market? It notably doesn't have a mirrorless camera, let alone a mirrorless strategy."

Perhaps the article was triggered by a similar recent piece posted at The Phoblographer, which is discussed here: Pentax/Ricoh Wake Up? - PentaxForums.com. Like the other piece, this one fails to present a balanced perspective, because within the implied premise, there is no room for a possible or plausible future for DSLRs. Yet, the Pentax DSLR line of cameras and lenses provides notable strengths and advantages, which have been discussed extensively here at Pentax Forums. Mirrorless systems also have pros and cons, certainly.

Finally, I find that the article has sufficient questionable passages that lead me to question its overall credibility. For example:

• "Yet, it has been largely absent from the camera market in recent years. Has it slipped into a commercial coma, and will life support be switched off shortly?" Not only is the first statement clearly incorrect, the second employs an odd metaphor.
• "While we might think of Pentax as a camera brand, it was primarily an optics company." I don't understand the relevance of the reference to an "optics company;" Pentax and its successor operations have been making fine cameras for many decades. 'Pentax' evolved from its optics roots a long time ago.
• "Arguably, they stole Fuji's strategy of a feature-packed range of APS-C models..." [See edit below] I'm not sure what is meant here; this strong language is not backed by evidence or example.
• "How much innovation has genuinely taken place at Pentax?" This is an instance of a sneaky grammatical technique that appears in several places -- in the context of the article's negativity, the question implies or begs a negative response.
• "Firstly, mirrorless is undoubtedly the future, as it offers a smaller body, a result of the simpler base design." It's not clear what is meant by "simpler base design," but DSLR and mirrorless systems both have their design, engineering, and implementation challenges. One is not inherently simpler or more complex than the other from a total systems perspective. As for having a smaller body, this would depend on specific models, although it's generally the case. However, when one looks at a camera and lens system, there are examples where the mirrorless kit is heavier and bulkier than a comparable DSLR -- for example, compare the Pentax K-3 II + DA* 50-135 lens and the Fuji X-T3 + XF 50-140mm (Fuji is heavier and bulkier).

Edit: The fStopper's author has since responded to one of the article's comments: (Mike Smith) "Thanks for spotting that typo. It should have read: Arguably they stole a march on Fuji's strategy..."

- Craig

[Astro-Baby]

I can so well remember the same things being said about Apple during the G series computers. Know it all types predicting the ultimate, if not imminent, demise of Apple and the clear and obvious path was to throw the Mac under the bus and start making plug compatible PCs.

As things turned out the people at Apple were just a bit smarter than the people writing these articles.

Doubtless all companies screw up from time to time, read the history of the tremendous cock ups in the race to develop AF.

People made predictions on the ultimate, inevitable (and maybe imminent) demise of Canon at one time ( before the EOS ) It was easy to make that mistake unless the CEO was your best mate and told you what the plan was. Journos in tech are almost never in the loop....lets face it no one outside a corporation at high level ever really knows whats going down.

Everyone wrote Minolta off and counted them out of the AF race......Turned out they were sneakily developing a complete AF system in secret. No press briefings, no product rushes to select journos, zilch until the expo when they suddenly stunned everyone with the 7000 the sneaky devils.

So it goes......we cant know whats going on in any corp unless they tell us and most of them arent going to waste their time briefing bloggers who are the new age hippies of the internet and very often some angry fat mush with an interest in axe grinding sat in his jim jams in his mums spare room in a delusional state about his relevance to the world at large.

---

Last edited by Astro-Baby; 04-25-2020 at 02:32 AM.

[Rondec]

Nikon is the brand I would actually worry about the most. They launched a (very expensive) mirrorless camera line right at the beginning of a brutal economic down turn. They are not terribly diversified and likely are looking at 18 months of negative revenue before things start to turn around. Olympus is another brand where the camera division has produced negative returns for the last ten years. Obviously the company as a whole is doing fine because of the medical division, but there are now foreign hedge fund managers on the board and they could pressure Olympus to cut losses in some areas.

I don't want to see any of these companies fold or cease camera operations, but I don't think Pentax is worse off than any of them.

In addition, I really do chafe at the idea that the only way forward is through mirrorless tech. I happen to like optical viewfinders and something about my brain/eyes/inner ear doesn't do well for more than a few minutes with EVFs. I have heard from others on the Forum that I am not alone in this and so I remain to be convinced that SLRs are going to completely vanish and that there is no money to be made in them any more. Saying that more identifies biases on the part of the speaker than anything else.

In point of fact, the quickest way for Pentax to kill themselves right now would be to release a new mount and invest a bunch of money in trying to get that off the ground. Being the 7th or 8th brand to bring out a mirrorless mount is a disaster bordering on the Poseidon Adventure in magnitude.

[Wasp]

The author might have dipped his pen a little too deep into the poison, but the article raises a few inconvenient points. Shooting at the messenger because the message is not a good one? That will not help much. Why not address the points made instead?

Pentax/Ricoh is ignoring the mirrorless market, content to be a niche player in the DSLR market. Some say that market is shrinking and will never return to its former glory, but Pentax management thinks that mirrorless is a fad and that users will come back to mirrors. With that said, the Pentax cupboard is a liitle bare - even for a niche player. Two crop frames, one full frame and one medium format - all now years old when the competition releases something new every month. The much talked about top of the line crop frame has only been seen in prototype form. There are empty spots on the lens shelf as well. The much anticipated 85mm f/1.4 will be available anytime now, real soon - no change there then. The centenary year came and went and nothing very exciting was introduced.

As for me, it is looking less likely that I will ever buy something in a shiny Pentax box. In days gone by, I bought into the Pentax brand because of the value proposition. A Pentax LX with a matching set of glass could be had for quite a bit less than a Nikon F3 or Canon F1 kit. That has changed. These days a crop frame KP is the same money as a full frame EOS RP (in my neck of the woods at least). And the KP is a special order item, to boot. Just saying.

[Kevin B123]

Pentax/Ricoh is ignoring the mirrorless market, content to be a niche player in the DSLR market.

I think the point is exactly this and those who criticise Pentax/Ricoh miss it completely.

The DSLR market is 50% of ICL cameras and Sony / Pano / Fuji / Oly aren't even competitors there. Why try and move into the other 50% of the market when it is flooded with established competition?

About the new release schedule, Ricoh have been very smart with their inventory. While not predicting the current situation, they will be least affected and the competition will be hurting with the huge ranges and stock levels. This alone makes the article invalid IMO.

[house]

Pentax is getting a lot of publicity lately! We are about to find out if "all publicity is good publicity" is true or not.

I've always argued that mirrorless is primarily for the manufacturers. They can, for a while, sell things that are simpler to manufacture for high prices forcing consumers to buy new lenses and accessories in the process. If I don't misremember those units/total value graphs suggests this is indeed the case. There is also a bit of space to lower prices if necessary.

This means that Pentax may well permanently lose it's value proposition as high quality dslr's will be more expensive to manufacture than mirrorless bodies. As evidenced by the recent releases they are already moving towards something else. Dropping entry models and releasing fancy glass. I don't think anyone at Pentax has been expecting sales to go back to what they were 10 years ago. Bloggers etc talking as if cameras will ever go back to mass items are imho mistaken. With this in view Pentax actions make sense. Whether they can fully grab hold of this niche as a someone who makes cameras not gadgets is to early to tell but I don't think all this talk about the strange and different Pentax is a negative for this strategy. Pentax mystique seems to be growing, there are *a lot* of videos with young "cool" people shooting medium format film on Pentax gear which is good for the brand on the whole. Slightly leftfield reviewers drop positive remarks about Pentax etc.

There's not yet a body that fully caters to this audience. Pentax seems trapped between the older "nature shooting zoom people" and younger "prime shooting hipsters". My opinion is that Pentax should ignore the entry/pro thinking and produce two camera models that radically caters to each of the above groups of people. Make the GR users start looking at Pentax for their larger camera.

[CarlJF]

The problem isn’t that Pentax ignore mirrorless. It’s they don’t do much on the DSLR side either... Nobody would talk about Pentax disappearance if they showed a solid commitment to their DSLR lines.

[Serkevan]

The author might have dipped his pen a little too deep into the poison, but the article raises a few inconvenient points. Shooting at the messenger because the message is not a good one? That will not help much. Why not address the points made instead?

Pentax/Ricoh is ignoring the mirrorless market, content to be a niche player in the DSLR market. Some say that market is shrinking and will never return to its former glory, but Pentax management thinks that mirrorless is a fad and that users will come back to mirrors. With that said, the Pentax cupboard is a liitle bare - even for a niche player. Two crop frames, one full frame and one medium format - all now years old when the competition releases something new every month. The much talked about top of the line crop frame has only been seen in prototype form. There are empty spots on the lens shelf as well. The much anticipated 85mm f/1.4 will be available anytime now, real soon - no change there then. The centenary year came and went and nothing very exciting was introduced.

As for me, it is looking less likely that I will ever buy something in a shiny Pentax box. In days gone by, I bought into the Pentax brand because of the value proposition. A Pentax LX with a matching set of glass could be had for quite a bit less than a Nikon F3 or Canon F1 kit. That has changed. These days a crop frame KP is the same money as a full frame EOS RP (in my neck of the woods at least). And the KP is a special order item, to boot. Just saying.

I honestly think that Pentax is, so far, playing the slow burning game. Ricoh has been going through a restructuring plan in general, so Imaging couldn't get a lot of money for development; the GRiii and Theta are bringing most of the money and (if I remember correctly) are quite literally the lifeblood of Imaging.
Holding on to their cards and more or less "maintaining" the system with some additions here and there might be the safe option for them, since everyone is bleeding money right now... Nikon dipped into the red, Canon had to put a lot of weight behind the R system and their profits also suffered a lot. Olympus continues somehow surviving despite heavy losses. Sony will drop the camera division like a hot potato the minute the profits don't match their expectations. Leica is Leica .
Investing heavily for no immediate return can lead to a slump in sales once the market stabilizes, as the lineup will be "old" by then (said by someone who loves his 40-year-old M-series glass...), rending the expense more or less moot. The pandemic threw a wrench in the plans of everyone, too.


Of course, that's me hoping that (once the situation with the MILC/DSLR divide stabilizes and the camera market finds its new "normal" - I don't think it will completely crash but we will certainly see a push towards luxury items) Ricoh is just waiting for a better situation where it makes sense to pump development to what we want it to be*.

Additionally, it would be terribly hypocritical of me to complain about the pace of releases: all of my gear was bought second-hand... I would like to get new stuff, but I paid for my lightly used K-1 about the same as a new KP costs in this area. I got an exceedingly cheap D FA 28-105 to go with it which looks exactly like new, at less than half the price of a new one. I'm not rich, a PhD student salary only goes so far.

*"What we want it to be", "what is sustainable for the companies" and "what our wallets can take" are completely different stories

[boriscleto]

Everyone wrote Minolta off and counted them out of the AF race......Turned out they were sneakily developing a complete AF system in secret. No press briefings, no product rushes to select journos, zilch until the expo when they suddenly stunned everyone with the 7000 the sneaky devils.

Well, they eere busy stealing phase detect from Honeywell anyway. It bought them an extra year while Canon and Nikon had to license the technology. Pentax was two years behind. In the end they still had to pay Honeywell and Konica ended up buying them.

The oversimplified vetsion of what saved Apple...They bought NeXT. Apple had two failed attempts to replace its OS, the Pink project which was spun off into Taligent, and the Copland project, which was finally killed in 1996. Industry pundits were daying the only way Apple could continue was to buy BeOS, it was a fully buzzword compliant OS. It just lacked a networking stack, robust printing, any sort of multi-user capability...but it could run more than one app at a time while a video was playing...But Gil Amelio bought NeXT instead. NeXT had OpenStep and WebObjects, and Steve Jobs. By 1997 Jobs staged a boardroom coup and instituted a streamlined product line. It took 4 years to turn NeXTstep/OpenStep into MacOS X but Apple was back on the right side of the balance sheet. It took the iPod to make Apple the monster it is today.

[normhead]

What's the future vision that he and I are missing?

At least you understand you are blind to the "vision" of most Pentax users.

You are one of the few who bought a Pentax, but really wanted something else.

I remember the 1976 (approx.) Pop Science that predicted what would basically be flyable drone cars , and we'd all be zipping around in them, by 1990.

Not every vision of the future is worth the paper it's written on.

[Rondec]

I think the point is exactly this and those who criticise Pentax/Ricoh miss it completely.

The DSLR market is 50% of ICL cameras and Sony / Pano / Fuji / Oly aren't even competitors there. Why try and move into the other 50% of the market when it is flooded with established competition?

About the new release schedule, Ricoh have been very smart with their inventory. While not predicting the current situation, they will be least affected and the competition will be hurting with the huge ranges and stock levels. This alone makes the article invalid IMO.

I think the whole point is that MILCs is not what Pentax has been good at traditionally. It would take a lot of money to launch such a product and would like become a loss leader. It is like Hyundai deciding that they are going to get into manufacturing heavy machinery because it is a "big market" and there is money to be made there. Yes, if you are established, but not necessarily if you are launching new. Even Nikon is finding the whole process to be tough sledding and they have suddenly dipped into negative revenue for imaging for the first time in forever since they launched the Z mount.

Ricoh has clearly decided that they will do targeted mirrorless cameras with fixed lens cameras like the GR series. It is a small foray but well received.

[zapp]

Keep producing affordable and durable DSLRs that have great image quality and ergonomics, and are natively compatible with lenses 45 years old...

Pentax does not make any money on 45 year old lenses. Without new lenses you should not consider yourself a photo/imaging company. Pentax strategy is not clear at the moment, but the next two or three products will shed light on it. The new APS-C and the DFA* 85 are not here yet - these two new product and a tiny bit of additional information will tell us about the near future.
Obviously a new product line, a new mount, ... is not the first choice less you want to go down or spent tons of development money on it. My bet is on a stunning APS-C offer and active development of FF camera and glass in parallel. MF will be maintained as is - as long as possible. Just an idea as I do not know where Pentax makes profit at the moment.

Gotcha.

You opened the web page, with all its advertising. So the website owner gets a penny for each time every one of those ads is displayed. Maybe more if your mouse tracks across one of the banners or (heaven forbid) you should "click on" anything else on the page.