Originally posted by johnmflores [Others may have mentioned this before, but I'm bored. And it's Friday.]
Dear Pentax, please make every single one of your cameras and lenses and accessories weatherproof. Own this space like Subaru owns All Wheel Drive. Other companies make all-wheel-drive vehicles, of course, but Subaru dove whole-heartedly into this space and made all their cars All Wheel Drive. They lived it and breathed it. And marketed the hell out of it. So now, whenever anyone is considering a rural and/or snowy weather car, Subaru is always mentioned.
Do this with All-Weather.
I've been thinking along the same lines. I actually wrote a long-winded, rambling post about that in the thread about Hoya statements and the future of Pentax but not nearly as distinctly as you did in this post.
The thing is, a brand needs to stand for something in consumers' minds, and right now, Pentax (as most camera brands!) doesn't stand for anything special. All-weather is a brilliant, simple and quite compelling position to own. The good thing is that "rugged" means a lot of things besides just where you can bring the camera, it says a lot about reliability, durability and quality. Values now intrinsic to Subaru's brand thanks to their clear positioning.
But yes, just like Subaru, they need to commit 100% to it. Should be fairly easy to update some lenses (10-17, 17-70, 55-300) with weather sealing. The DA Ltds you probably wouldn't have to (they're a different proposition). The 12-24 should really be a DA* (they need a "pro grade" UWA zoom, either that or a version of the Tok 11-16).
However, they need to do the same with their compacts... And they need to bring out accessories that support the claim (look for example at how Olympus has a broad range of underwater housings and accessories that help give an idea of a brand for people who want to bring the camera anywhere).
Thomas