Originally posted by paulvzo Do I care it doesn't say Nikon on the front? Not a whit.
Well, for taking photos, the brand name is not an issue at all. However, when I consider spending $10000 in lenses, and eventually decide to resell some of it, a small brand like Pentax is really a problem. If I buy a Canon 600 f4 and decide to sell it second hand in the future, chances are that I can find a buyer. On the other hand, if I buy a DA560, chances are that it's going to be hard to resell (it's already very hard to sell for a retailer having a large user base), except with a big price drop and only if Pentax is still alive. After all the posts I read, I know that the community of Pentaxians is small and a number of Pentaxians buy cheap old lenses for $50 off ebay. Even new, Pentax longs lenses are hard to sell, just look at how many own a DFA150-450 or DA560, it's not massive. Of course, there are lots of Pentaxians who own lots of old stuff, for them there's not risk, if Pentax would run out of business, you could still resell the same stuff at collection price. I'm comfortable even buying one more k mount apsc lens for $500, I consider it to be value zero after I use it for 2 or 3 years, but I can't imagine doing the same with $5000 lenses. For guys not interested to spend on heavy lenses, the spending is limited and as long as it's general purpose , you find a lot more potential users... I do not invent anything: there was someone selling a Pentax FA600 for a while... very hard to sell.
In short, there's no way I'd spend the price of a car into into a brand of camera that has a considerable chance of going bust in the next couple of years, I consider it financially too risky.