[kooks]

I have been wondering how good are this mayor discounts with the Pentax products.. on one hand this means that many new costumers will have the chance to get new equipment at great prices.. spread the brand and perhaps grow their market.. but on the other hand ( that is where many of us are ), feels like buying a new Pentax equipment is the worst deal ever because prices drop way to fast.. for example when i got my K3 i got it at around $1200 including the grip and the flu card.. that was actually with an Adorama deal that had a discount.. now we can see the K3 at just $674 and the K50 at just $277.. so, in my case for exaple just a year later the camera droped 50% the original value, this also means that when we will sell this cameras the reselling price will be nothing compared with the original, and perhaps we can understand this with really old models. but i think that we cant consider a K3 ( for example ) an old camera at all.

So this is something that Ricoh have to check it out.. is it a company (Ricoh) thing..or is it a retailer thing?? I think that having a fair resell price is really important for a brand to have happy costumers, and with this mayor droping prices is not helping this cause.

What should happen when the FF comes out.. lets say that it comes at $2500.. will this mean that a year and a half or something like this the camera will cost $1200 +/- (new) ?? .. and 2nd hand.. around $800 ??..

I think that this strategy work for getting new clients (perhaps Ricoh is aiming for that), and for people that have old models to update their bodys but it doenst help at all at the people that goes for the latest camera when they come out.

[MadMathMind]

So this is something that Ricoh have to check it out.. is it a company (Ricoh) thing..or is it a retailer thing?? I think that having a fair resell price is really important for a brand to have happy costumers, and with this mayor droping prices is not helping this cause.

Last year's merchandise is old news. They're getting rid of it to sell the new models. When the stock is gone, it's gone. There will be no more $600 cameras until next year's discount.

[Adam]

So this is something that Ricoh have to check it out.. is it a company (Ricoh) thing..or is it a retailer thing?? I think that having a fair resell price is really important for a brand to have happy costumers, and with this mayor droping prices is not helping this cause.

Both. I think the current Adorama deals might be bending the rules a bit, but you never know. They might also have been authorized for the special event that was going on yesterday.

Depreciation is inevitable, but I agree that it happens a bit too quickly for consumer-level bodies. The depreciation of full frame cameras seems to be a bit slower. I sold my D800 after 2 years for about 65% of what I paid for it, whereas if I were selling my K-3 from November 2013, I'd probably only get around 40%. I guess it's also tied to the technology that's out there and the competition's pricing.

[monochrome]

I've had my K-3 to use and enjoy for 19 months.

In that time I have had a decline compared to a new street price K-3 of about $625. That is the equivalent of paying $32 a month rent for the camera during the time I had it while everyone else waited for the price to drop to $675.

During that same period I 'lost' over $6,000 on my car.

[fwbigd]

A lot of the price drop has to do with the currency exchange rate. When the dollar goes up in value the camera companies offer rebates/lower prices, and when the dollar falls they raise the prices on their products.

[sherrvonne]

I've had my K-3 to use and enjoy for 19 months.

That is how I feel about it, I figure I had about a year and a half of learning and still more to learn. By the time I get the K3 II hopefully I will have learned even more and be able use it to the full.

[kooks]

I wonder how the 2nd hand K3s will be selling at this time... $674 for a new one. perhaps $450/$500 for a 2nd hand??

[6BQ5]

I don't think the lower prices are abnormal. Look at what is going on in the u4/3 world. Prices on gear drops like a boulder falling out of an airplane. Pentax was a niche player until recently and could do whatever they wanted. They were always going to get their market entitlement. Now they want to grow their marketshare. They will definitely be manipulating price, up and down, and they will probably start cycling through products faster with <18 month release cycles. That's my guess,

[calsan]

You can't take photos with money.
My car is twenty years old and worth 2% of it's original price. On the other hand, everything still works fine and i've had twenty years of being able get where I want.
Same with everything. You could avoid this somewhat just by buying second hand...

[ramseybuckeye]

If you notice I think every new camera is initially priced lower than the model it replaced was initially priced, and they drop faster. I definitely think it's a strategy, lens prices don't fall like that. It doesn't bother me a bit, if I want to be an early adopter I'll pay for it. I paid $1200 for a K-30 and feel it was worth it, even though that price dropped in half in less than a year. I agree with Boris, it's a way to increase market share. Get these great cameras into the hands of new users and some of them will buy more lenses. Canon and Nikon have been dumping cheap bodies and lenses in discount stores for a long time, it works for them. Pentax is doing it a little differently, but with the same goal.

[Odinz]

If you think about it, $675 isn't that much lower than the camera was last September.
The first week of September last year, for just around $1000 (at least here in the US) you could pick up the K3 with a D-BG5 Grip and Flu card. Throw in another $70 or $75 (can't remember which) and you could also get a AF540FGZ flash unit. If you take the price of the extras off of the total, I would think that the effective price for the K3 worked out pretty close to the current cost.

[LaurenOE]

The K-50 was a re-skinned K-30.
It never made sense for it to be as expensive as it was.
Pentax/Ricoh made their money on the folks that didn't buy the K-30 for it's looks.

As for the K3, depreciation is what it is.
I've shot thousands of images, and put food on the table.
I've made more money with the K3 than I have lost in "value".
As for that "value"? I shudder to think if I had waited until I bought a K3 when the lower limit of the camera was reached.

So I see nothing wrong with the pricing of either the K-50 fire sale or the K-3 in lieu of the K3II and FF coming.

[rawr]

Look at Sony's prices too, even for their full-frames. They've dropped a lot, and continue to drop. There was even a period a few months ago where Sony went a bit crazy with discount deals and value-added bundles for the whole A7 series well before the newer A7's came out.

In the camera market, thankfully [from a sellers point of view, I guess] lens pricing is more stable, but bodies not.

What's happening in cameras is also happening to mobile phones and PC's, of course.

[NZ_Ross]

Look at Sony's prices too, even for their full-frames. They've dropped a lot, and continue to drop. There was even a period a few months ago where Sony went a bit crazy with discount deals and value-added bundles for the whole A7 series well before the newer A7's came out.

I agree with that - if you think Pentax camera bodies drop in price fast, then look at Sony camera bodies. Sony are iterating so fast at the moment, that it is one of the concerns that buyers of Sony gear have - will what I buy for a premium today be worth half that value in 6 months due to a new model coming out.

What you are seeing is an economic expression of Moores Law in action. It is what it is.

[JimC1101]

Yeah I think this major depreciation is the norm now for all cameras. I got my K-X in 2010 and resold for 2012 and got $450 in return for the purchase of my new K-30. Obviously now, you will find less than 50% of what you paid for. No complaint, I love my camera and never thought that I would make money or break even on it if I upgraded.