[bobmaxja]

For the OP, Pentax say they will go high end, your idea is dead

[sibyrnes]

if only that digital back like the Hasselblad was available, that would set the cards once for all

A digital back for my LX - I'd buy that!

[leekil]

With the K-1 or even K-3 set to AV the only difference between my k-1 and a K-1000 is auto-focus and the automated exposure system.

Well, the image stabilization is a big difference.

If you want to see how a retro-FF-DSLR would work, look no further than the Nikon DF - and while I like the idea of the DF (and so did many others), it turned out that nostalgia didn't translate into sales.

Weirdly, the DF is quite huge, compared to what this simplified DSLR would be. I disagree with your contention that it wouldn't be much cheaper than a K-1. I would expect that they would use an older FF sensor, which would cost less, and the removal of the IBIS and screen could conceivably allow a significant reduction in price.

But in general, it seems like it wouldn't be financially beneficial to Ricoh. Unless it was able to hit a really strong wave of desire for simplification, and that seems unlikely.

[troika]

Interesting to see the Nikon and Leica runs at this. I guess that I hadn't really paid that much attention to what was going on in the market. I'm starting to see interchangeable lenses for iPhones now, so the thought in my mind was, "why do camera bodies have to be so big?"

An MX is basically a precise shutter, good seals, a very simple meter, and whatever glass you snap onto it. The film plays a big role that I understand falls to complex electronics in the digital world. But, if an iPhone can process as good of pictures as it does, given the real estate of a K1000 to work with, could you really not put a limited number of essential components in place to take advantage of your glass?

Problems with this idea that many of you have pointed out are:

-We probably don't all agree on what features are essential.

-Economies of scale. It's expensive to do a little of anything, cost savings usually come with volume, which is tough enough in the camera market as it is.

-You've all made me question my assumptions about which features come with a cost/space premium and which don't. I don't really know, but that could be worked through. e.g. - Does wifi take more or less space than a screen? Because if it's less, maybe you include it and 86 the screen, pre-view your photos on a second device, like your phone or an iPad or don't until you get back to a computer and can upload.

I get that Pentax isn't going to build this, it was just a whimsy thread. I've made great use of my K5ii and I shoot ~a dozen rolls of film each year when I'm inspired to. This was not about nostalgia to me, nor does taping over or epoxying up a full feature camera get at the point I was making, but thanks for taking the time to post such a thoughtful response.

Maybe some day there will be *viable* digital backs for film era cameras. I've seen some half-hearted attempts at that type of innovation, maybe someone will see it through. In the mean time, I'll go on enjoying the cameras that I have, considering when and where to upgrade and working to become a better photographer.

[noblepa]

The problem is that most of the so-called "frills" that people want to eliminate are done in software. Eliminating them does nothing to reduce the cost of manufacturing a camera. It would cost the same to burn the ROM with the stripped-down firmware, as it does to burn the fully-featured firmware.

Eliminating physical components, such as the SR mechanism, would reduce the cost of manufacturing the camera, but not by much. Besides, Pentax tried the K110d (no SR) alongside the K100d (SR). They couldn't GIVE the K110d away. No one wanted it, when, for only a little more, you could get the SR-equipped camera.

The expensive hardware components, such as the rear screen, would offer the biggest savings, but I doubt that there is much of a market for a camera with no rear screen. One of the advantages of today's digital cameras is "chimping". If you have to wait until you get home to see if the image is okay, you might as well use film.

Software development costs wouldn't really be reduced, either. I'm sure that the software in Pentax cameras is very modular and is reused from one model to the next. So, totally new features, such as pixel shift, may take some development, for the first one, but the next camera probably needs very little programming to make it work.

My 1967 Spotmatic cost me $220 brand new, with a 55mm, f/1,8 lens. In today's dollars, that's around $1,200. That's what simplicity would cost. By comparison, today's dslrs are a bargain. You're not going to see a $200 dslr.

[troika]

The problem is that most of the so-called "frills" that people want to eliminate are done in software. Eliminating them does nothing to reduce the cost of manufacturing a camera. It would cost the same to burn the ROM with the stripped-down firmware, as it does to burn the fully-featured firmware.

Eliminating physical components, such as the SR mechanism, would reduce the cost of manufacturing the camera, but not by much. Besides, Pentax tried the K110d (no SR) alongside the K100d (SR). They couldn't GIVE the K110d away. No one wanted it, when, for only a little more, you could get the SR-equipped camera.

The expensive hardware components, such as the rear screen, would offer the biggest savings, but I doubt that there is much of a market for a camera with no rear screen. One of the advantages of today's digital cameras is "chimping". If you have to wait until you get home to see if the image is okay, you might as well use film.

Software development costs wouldn't really be reduced, either. I'm sure that the software in Pentax cameras is very modular and is reused from one model to the next. So, totally new features, such as pixel shift, may take some development, for the first one, but the next camera probably needs very little programming to make it work.

My 1967 Spotmatic cost me $220 brand new, with a 55mm, f/1,8 lens. In today's dollars, that's around $1,200. That's what simplicity would cost. By comparison, today's dslrs are a bargain. You're not going to see a $200 dslr.

I think you're spot on, Paul. This all makes perfect sense.

It wasn't really "cheap" that I was going for so much as form factor and function. I love shooting film now and again because I've got the exposure triangle and focus and my own eye and that's it. I don't just snap away and there is something very zen about it. There are things that I would not want to try to do without burst rate and AF or Catch in Focus, which I use a lot. The feedback on the screen helps me, there's no more "let me take one more, just in case". I know if I got it or not.

What it may be that I want is a K1 and a K-01ii companion. (I know there is no such thing), but smaller form factor, minimal function for hiking and travel when I don't want to carry the bigger body. I love my K5ii and will likely replace it with either a K1 or the flagship crop at some point.

I suppose I have film cameras to cover what I am saying I want to cover.

[GodsPetMonkey]

Weirdly, the DF is quite huge, compared to what this simplified DSLR would be.

Which happens to be about the size you squeeze a FF DSLR into. The compact/low-end FF DSLRs from Canon and Nikon also happen to be about the same size (and all are about the size of the K-1) - DSLRs are not the same as film SLRs, there is a lot more that needs to be packed into them, and a lot more engineering involved to overcome the problems associated with digital technology. You simply cannot squeeze a DSLR into a film SLR body. If you want something that size, you need to go mirrorless, but even then you discover the same problems - the big size/weight savings of mirrorless comes from chopping out the mirror and prism. Take the A7II; E-mount has a flange distance of 18mm, K-mount 45.46, a difference of 27.46mm. The depth of the A7II is 59.7mm, the K-1 85.5mm, a difference of 25.8mm... already less than the difference in flange depth. If you shave back the K-1s prism protrusion to the same length as the hand grip you would save about another 4mm. The A7II is much shorter than the K-1, but completely uncoincidentally, the difference in height is pretty much the size of the prism (not just the housing extending from above the top plate, the full prism).

FF digital mirrorless cameras have the same problem as their DSLR siblings, they still need to cram all the electronics in to support the sensor, along with a powersource and suitable heat dissipation, and to keep size down, mirrorless manufacturers tend to sacrifice some on the powersource side of things. By not being tied to a mirrorbox, prism and legacy mount mirrorless cameras are able to make some pretty impressive size savings before they hit the same wall as for DSLRs, but the limits are there too (check out the distance between the sensor plane and the rear of the camera on the A7II... even further than on the K-1!).

Pentax has put a lot of effort into producing compact DSLRs, the latest and greatest effort being the K-P, which uses a smaller sensor (APS-C) and battery to try to get it there. Given that Pentax produces cameras like the K-P, and the K-S1 and the K-r before it, if they could squeeze a DSLR, even APS-C, into the body of a ME/MX/LX/Spotmatic/etc they would have.

I disagree with your contention that it wouldn't be much cheaper than a K-1. I would expect that they would use an older FF sensor, which would cost less, and the removal of the IBIS and screen could conceivably allow a significant reduction in price.

About $300, and I am probably being generous. When approaching EOL (like the D750 and 6D currently are) the savings will be even bigger... but the same can be said of the K-1, you just need to wait. Components are just a part of the cost of a camera, and likely not the major one - the big expense is all the non-component related stuff, R&D, staffing, marketing, operating costs (rent, electricity, etc), the need to make a profit, the staffing, operating and profit costs of the distributors, the staffing, operating and profit costs of the retailers. It all adds up, very, very quickly, and the problem with the non-component costs is they still need to be covered, even if you make a camera with no screen or IBIS - those engineers that develop IBIS for other cameras still need to be paid, hell, the engineers which explored ideas that ultimately get canned and you never hear about still need to be paid, they still need a workplace to go to, they still need electricity to do their jobs, they still need managers, they still need materials to conduct their research, and so on. Developing technology is expensive.

[troika]

Okay, all correct, I'm sure.

[Frosty66]

The trouble is it's so easy to say I want it all manual, but maybe just this feature, or taht one, I am not thinking how convenient a popup flash is for everyday use.

The only way if to make it rgenuiinely retro, basically an (almost) exact copy of an MX or SP etc. Essential controls can be hidden if really necessary.

[reh321]

....
if an iPhone can process as good of pictures as it does, given the real estate of a K1000 to work with, could you really not put a limited number of essential components in place to take advantage of your glass?
.....

You realize, of course, that the sensor in an iPhone is dimensionally less that 30% of an APS-C sensor. Also, having just one available lens, and its having such a tiny focal length, allows them to "engineer out" much of the space required by a K-mount camera. If they excluded SR, WR, and an LCD, I am fairly sure they could get a FF body nearly down to the size of the Super Program in my signature ... but I'm not sure if any of us would be willing to buy it. Ultimately, the advances Canon made in their EF-mount were largely responsible for my going from that Super Program to Canon {and then staying there for twenty years}, but I have to honestly say that the short and unreliable life of the Super Program's button battery was one of the things that had me started thinking about other brands - and any digital K-mount camera would need a battery that would have to be close to the size of the batteries currently use, and since the button batteries were so tiny, the body would need to increase by that much volume.

added: I'm not certain how controls would fit into this discussion, because conceptually they are much different today from what the Super Program did, and I'm not certain how many people would be willing/interested in using controls like that today.

[leekil]

You realize, of course, that the sensor in an iPhone is dimensionally less that 30% of an APS-C sensor. Also, having just one available lens, and its having such a tiny focal length, allows them to "engineer out" much of the space required by a K-mount camera. If they excluded SR, WR, and an LCD, I am fairly sure they could get a FF body nearly down to the size of the Super Program in my signature ... but I'm not sure if any of us would be willing to buy it. Ultimately, the advances Canon made in their EF-mount were largely responsible for my going from that Super Program to Canon {and then staying there for twenty years}, but I have to honestly say that the short and unreliable life of the Super Program's button battery was one of the things that had me started thinking about other brands - and any digital K-mount camera would need a battery that would have to be close to the size of the batteries currently use, and since the button batteries were so tiny, the body would need to increase by that much volume.

Well, without the film in a Super Program case, there's a good amount of unused space on either side of the camera that could be utilized for battery(s).

added: I'm not certain how controls would fit into this discussion, because conceptually they are much different today from what the Super Program did, and I'm not certain how many people would be willing/interested in using controls like that today.

As much as I like the Super Program, in terms of manual controls (especially for the shutter speed), it seems to me that the wheels like on current DSLRs are pretty much the currently best evolutionary option for viewfinder cameras.

[wildman]

It wasn't really "cheap" that I was going for so much as form factor and function.

And that is what has been so quickly lost sight of here.
The desire for simplicity was never economic in the first place but simplicity for it's own sake.
If I thought that simplicity would give me a better camera for my purposes I would pay for it.

Another thought - if so many of the features of a modern digital camera are in software anyway why not have a simple little program that allows the user via USB or WiFi to configure what features he does or does not want on his computer screen and simply hide the rest. Thus being presented out in the field, under actual use, with a simple custom menu relevant to the task at hand that day? After all what may be a feature to a landscape photographer is a hassle for the street shooter. One could have custom presets that would allow you to radically change the personality of your gear depending on what you are doing that day in a minute or two.

However you argue the economics or technology of it, at the end of the day, we still end up with excessively clumsy, bloated, unresponsive gear whatever the reason.

[reh321]

And that is what has been so quickly lost sight of here.
The desire for simplicity was never economic in the first place but simplicity for it's own sake.
If I thought that simplicity would give me a better camera for my purposes I would pay for it.

Another thought - if so many of the features of a modern digital camera are in software anyway why not have a simple little program that allows the user via USB or WiFi to configure what features he does or does not want on his computer screen and simply hide the rest. Thus being presented out in the field, under actual use, with a simple custom menu relevant to the task at hand that day? After all what may be a feature to a landscape photographer is a hassle for the street shooter. One could have custom presets that would allow you to radically change the personality of your gear depending on what you are doing that day in a minute or two.

This sounds so simple. However, during my working career I was member of an R&D project developing the "proof of concept" {i.e., an actual radio} based on a then-new architecture for software-defined digital radios; that is, what kind of radio you had depended on what software you loaded into it. Our test box actually had two "modems", so it could be an AM radio + an FM radio, or it could talk to ambulances + talk to jet fighters or it could serve as a relay, allowing jet fighter to talk to ambulance even though they had vastly different radios {of course, there were many other options, but I'm not going to waste space here trying to enumerate all of them}. The important thing here is that the control logic {the part I was actually responsible for} was extremely complex; they would have to replace the processor currently in a Pentax camera with the processor in an iPhone to run it - my feeling is that they could come up with much better uses for that computing power.

However you argue the economics or technology of it, at the end of the day, we still end up with excessively clumsy, bloated, unresponsive gear whatever the reason.

I don't know which camera you are talking about. My K-30 doesn't feel bloated and/or unresponsive at all to me. I hardly ever descend into the menu system. Now that I have it set up, it is a very simple camera that I can use in Av, Tv, or some other mode, adjusting just a few controls as I take pictures. My Q-7 is equally simple; in fact, I got the K-30 six months after I got the Q-7, and because I was already comfortable with the Q-7, I had virtually no learning curve in using the K-30.

[ChrisPlatt]

I prefer classic 35mm film cameras. I'd buy a digital version of my Pentax KX, KM or CV Bessa R camera.

It will never happen, but here are the features I'd look for to make me take the plunge:
-Give me mechanical control dials, in the right places. I hate LCD panels, menus and buttons.
-I'd prefer no chimping LCD, or one that could be reversed to hide it. A small panel with histogram only might be acceptable.
-Good SOOC JPEGS with good film emulations, like Fuji.

Chris

[Lowell Goudge]

My ideas are mostly stupid and this one may be as well, but I was shooting with one of my MXs this weekend and started thinking...

What if Pentax or someone ... And by "someone" I mean Pentax... made a dSLR that was as simple as a good quality SLR.

A great sensor...Maybe full frame...Wheels for shutter speed, Aperture and ISO, a good meter and maybe a very few semi-auto modes: Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Tav. Maybe stabilization on the sensor...Maybe not depending on cost and size impacts. Either remote trigger or timed delay.

Auto WB,because you can do that in post. Hot shoe, but no flash. No GPS, No HDR. No deep menus.

Cut no corners on image quality or build quality/ergonomics, bit strip it to bare bones. Could be a dSLR or could be a rangefinder, but prioritize image quality and form factor.

How small and how cheap could it be? ... And how soon could I pre-order one?

It seems like a way to distinguish from smart phones as well.

The issue is, most of the bare bones ideas are already on a camera, and most of the fancy bits, except integrated GPS wh H does add cost,mare done in software. Once developed they add noting to the recurring cost for the camera, so don't expect a price reduction for less software features.

Therefore accept that the features exist, and just don't use them.

As for the camera itself, if you really want bare bones functionally, then you need to go back to the mechanical aperture linkage to allow open aperture metering on KMount lenses, along with both TTL and P-TTL flash metering because each has its use.

But it will never happen, this idea has been around the block many, many times since I joined PF 10 years ago. In a declining saturated market, it just makes no sense