[bull drinkwater]

it would have been nice it pentax had thought to make at least a new 1.4 tc in auto focus. the iq is so good that it would have been worth the effort.

[jatrax]

I would not be surprised to see that soon, maybe even this year. They have said there are more 645 items in the pipeline and a TC is an obvious item.

[2351HD]

I would go so far as to say that Pentax has no real world idea what their customers want. I doubt that they even visit this forum.

[bull drinkwater]

I would go so far as to say that Pentax has no real world idea what their customers want. I doubt that they even visit this forum.

they did pretty good wit adding new features in the 645z. maybe we should lwet them know about us.

---------- Post added 04-13-15 at 11:33 AM ----------

I wouldn't say that. I know that Ned Bunnel, the last president of Pentax USA, was an active member here for quite a while.

The other consideration is that what a handful of people on a forum want is not necessarily what "their customers" as a whole want. For instance, if their marketing research team in Japan finds that the vast majority of their current and prospective customers are primarily interested in using the 645 series for studio portraiture, then they would logically put most of their resources into developing accessories for that segment, even if there are nature shooters out there who could really use a new TC.

i'll buy all that, the 645d is a great studio camera, I may be one of few who use it out of doors 98% of the time.the `1.4 and 2.0 tc's are put to use a lot in my shooting. I would love to have a 645z IF I could get $2000.00 trade in.

[jatrax]

I would go so far as to say that Pentax has no real world idea what their customers want. I doubt that they even visit this forum.

I wouldn't say that, they seem to have produced quite a number of things their customers like.

And they do monitor this forum according to Adam.

[texandrews]

I would go so far as to say that Pentax has no real world idea what their customers want. I doubt that they even visit this forum.

I think that what we have in relation to the above comment is a collision of several things:

• Damage from Hoya
• Some sort of difficulty still in the melding of Ricoh and Pentax---Ricoh's support of printers is good, but that "culture" hasn't migrated over to cameras yet.
• General corporate culture stuff---lots of corporations are tone deaf this way.
• Japanese insularity, literally and figuratively.

Sony is an interesting case study here---I've spoken directly to one of the top US guys at PhotoExpo in NYC 2 years ago. Sony is "doing better" now listening to its photo customers, but this guy (American) said that his Japanese counterparts and superiors were often very surprised to receive criticisms---it seemed to be a largely cultural thing. But somewhat miraculously they have been listening (a bit).


The Japanese cultivate and cherish teamwork, and we in the US, and some other "western" countries---Australia jumps readily to mind---cultivate and cherish individuality. Criticisms are often seen as rude, threatening, and undesirable in any culture that has teamwork as a top value. It can take a long time for and a lot of angst for change to occur. That's not just a Japanese thing, but also a corporate thing---so here you may have a double whammy. The Olympus financial scandal is also a good case in point (so is 4/3, really...)---it took a Brit to explode it, and he wasn't exactly rewarded for his troubles, even though he was right.

[Kolor-Pikker]

I sure do hope no one forgot how long Leica S owners had to wait until they got a respectable (native) lens lineup out, and the S still doesn't have any native TCs available, not even dumb ones. Not counting CS variants (which came out very late BTW) and the generic SK tilt-shift, 7 years since the introduction of the S system 9 unique lenses have been introduced.

In the 5 years that the P645 system has gone digital, Pentax has released 4 unique lenses, although we don't know what they have ready for 2015 yet. This places them at about one lens per year, which is pretty respectable considering Pentax has glass and accessories to fall back on and don't feel nearly as pressured as Leica were. The Hasselblad H system has been around for 13 years and now has 12 lenses, so this "lens per year" release model is fairly standard in the industry. Maybe this specific collection of lenses isn't what Pentax users expect as an early selection - three primes and three zooms, but that's what we're getting in the near future regardless.

Pentax does seem incredibly adapt at developing zoom lenses, so I'm not particularly displeased, especially since A: they come with SR and B: I got over my super-wide-open BOKEH phase a while ago - f/4.5 is just fine. Not to mention I don't even have the funds to buy these lenses as they come out, as I'm certain are a lot of people neither do as well.

---

Last edited by Kolor-Pikker; 04-14-2015 at 04:20 AM.

[texandrews]

so this "lens per year" release model is fairly standard in the industry. Maybe this specific collection of lenses isn't what Pentax users expect as an early selection - three primes and three zooms, but that's what we're getting in the near future regardless.

Pentax does seem incredibly adapt at developing zoom lenses, so I'm not particularly displeased, especially since A: they come with SR

Very good points

and B: I got over my super-wide-open BOKEH phase a while ago - f/4.5 is just fine.

Indeed---although I have never chased bokeh myself. I'm still making adjustments to shooting what I now shoot with medium format----my previous film work in medium format was always at a bit of a distance, and I shoot tighter in for what I'm doing now. So f16 is where I am...

Not to mention I don't even have the funds to buy these lenses as they come out, as I'm certain are a lot of people neither do as well.

Uuuummm, yeah. There's that. I wouldn't be here at all if not for legacy glass.