[RioRico]

Umm, last time I looked Hoya had a market-capitalisation [766.5B Yen] greater than Nikon's [687.5B Yen]... Hoya isn't exactly a tiny entity.

Last time I looked (about 90 seconds ago) Nikon was part of the Mitsubishi Group. IOW, a subsidiary, a small slice of a large pie.

[rawr]

Last time I looked (about 90 seconds ago) Nikon was part of the Mitsubishi Group.

Last time I looked (about 90 seconds ago) Hoya was part of the Sanwa kieretsu. Which includes Hitachi, Sharp Corporation, Kyocera, Diahatsu, Suntory etc. IOW, a small slice of a large pie.

Japanese corporate structures and governance seem rather complicated. Technically, Nikon is a free-standing corporate entity. If you look at it's major shareholders in it's annual report for 2010, for example, you will only see about 5% of the stock has any direct Mitsubishi fingerprints on it. But history, and business (especially banking) relationships, no doubt go deeper than that. The same applies to Hoya I suspect.

[Rondec]

True, but that covers a lot of us who stuck with them because of all those lenses.

And of course, those lenses still work on APS-C, its just that a 43mm is no longer a normal lens, 31mm is no longer a wide angle on it, but they still have pretty special rendering.

[yusuf]

Just trying understand why it would be a big investment for Pentax to produce FF body? Is technology any different for FF except for a big sensor? rest everything remains the same which Pentax mastered in years and Pentax do have some lineup of FF lenses too.

Just wondering.

Yusuf

[RioRico]

Last time I looked (about 90 seconds ago) Hoya was part of the Sanwa kieretsu. Which includes Hitachi, Sharp Corporation, Kyocera, Diahatsu, Suntory etc. IOW, a small slice of a large pie.

Ah, I hadn't known about Sanwa. Thanks.

Just trying understand why it would be a big investment for Pentax to produce FF body? Is technology any different for FF except for a big sensor? rest everything remains the same which Pentax mastered in years and Pentax do have some lineup of FF lenses too.

This is indeed curious. Physically, what is the difficulty of sliding-in a larger (and much more expensive) sensor? Of keeping the FA lenses production lines going? I suspect the problems are more financial than physical. Yes, a larger sensor would require faster electronics to handle the increased RAW data; but Moore's Law applies, so such should be ever-more affordable.

So why haven't we seen a K5FF prototype? I suspect it all boils down to money that Hoya doesn't want to spend, having seen Sony's experience with FF. Still, the idea is so enticing: Why not do a liimited production run, to test the waters?

[rparmar]

Rather than look at kieretsu or entire companies (Hoya does a lot more than make consumer cameras) why not compare actual market share? Then it is obvious why Pentax does not stretch to a FF camera and compete for a minuscule market already sewn up by Canikon.

Instead they have the best APS-C system on the market. Seems like a wise and fruitful decision was made some time ago!

[rawr]

FF is also a really slow market. Not a single FF camera was released in 2010 by anyone and there may not be another new one released in 2011 by anyone either.

While FF may still be a high margin segment for manufacturers even if volumes are low, in the main it seems like the market action (and tech investment) may be elsewhere nowadays.

[rparmar]

Also not to forget that Pentax just leap-frogged FF with a low-priced (relatively speaking) MF option. That very much demonstrates out-of-box thinking.

[Rondec]

Ah, I hadn't known about Sanwa. Thanks.



This is indeed curious. Physically, what is the difficulty of sliding-in a larger (and much more expensive) sensor? Of keeping the FA lenses production lines going? I suspect the problems are more financial than physical. Yes, a larger sensor would require faster electronics to handle the increased RAW data; but Moore's Law applies, so such should be ever-more affordable.

So why haven't we seen a K5FF prototype? I suspect it all boils down to money that Hoya doesn't want to spend, having seen Sony's experience with FF. Still, the idea is so enticing: Why not do a liimited production run, to test the waters?

I just think that Pentax feels like they don't match up well with Canon/Nikon when it comes to full frame. Faster auto focus, longer lenses (that left the line up long ago) are not their strong points. Take away SR (not sure that it would work on full frame) and charge ten percent more than equivalent Nikon/Canon options and who would buy it, other than Pentax enthusiasts who have hoarded full frame lenses since the 1980s?