Originally posted by Clavius Why were most of the people that have been loyal to Pentax for so long, able to buy Pentax gear when they were teens and early twenties?
A couple of reasons:
1-camera phones did not exist. If you wanted to take pictures, you needed a DSLR, mostly
2-there were some compacts, granted, but not that many, and people passionate about photography did not buy these, just as they do today
3-cameras were expensive then, but a film camera costs a lot less, in proportion, than a DSLR does, especially when it lacked AF and sometimes auto metering
There are probably many more reasons but these stand out to me.