Originally posted by freehighlander
so is there any insider reason why the prolification on Canikonitus
Pentax squandered any advantage they had in the industry about the same time the industry changed to various bayonet mounts and they didn't.
I was selling cameras retail in the mid 1980s to the very early 1990s. This coincided with the shift from manual focus to auto focus.
This is where Pentax really started to fall behind the game.
Pentax did quite well until Minolta came out with the Maxxum 70000, and Canon came out with the EOS 650.
Nikon was behind the game as well at that time, they tagged AF onto their fairly decent N2000, called in the N2020 and prayed.
It was, at best, a Hail Mary, and the receiver missed the catch.
In most respects, Pentax hasn't ever really tried to play catch up since then.
Their AF has always been several steps behind the leader, and while their lenses have always been very good (note that most of the users here are lens junkies), what sells is sizzle, and camera bodies are what provide that.
So, they tried to do it by being the cheap and cheerful alternative in the SLR game, and they actually did pretty well in the film compact game.
Zoom compacts film cameras died an ignoble death, and that was that for Pentax.
Unfortunately, cheap and cheerful only carried them so far, and it carried them into a situation where they either needed a White Knight to save them from doom, or else they were done.
Enter Hoya, who came to their rescue, started making some really good products, fired the QC department to make sure the really good products weren't much good, and started to charge like as if they were making good stuff.
And the bitching and moaning started, since Pentax was the cheap alternative, and the people who had bought in because of it could no longer buy decent equipment for 50 cents on the dollar.
Everyone else was doing really cool stuff, and Pentax was doing what the other guys had done last year (but with better glass).
Pentax is still playing catch up in key consumer areas.
In addition, companies like Nikon were running traveling "schools" and Canon was busy buying various athletes and stage performers to advertise their products.
An unfortunate fact of life is that advertising puts your name in front of the consumer, and if you don't advertise, then people start to wonder if you are still alive.
And there you go.