[mee]

"Apple is DOOOOMED!' has been chanted for more than 30 years and yet even IBM dumped IBM-PC manufacturing and switched to Macs.

It came close to happening though.. and very well could have.

First people said Kodak was too big to fail. Then people said Kodak was doooomed. And they were -- It happened. It can happen.

Chicken little approach isn't helpful, but it shouldn't catch anyone off guard when a company does actually roll over and sink. No company is immune to failure.

Yet the day Pentax goes mirrorless (completely forgoing FF DSLRs) is the day I stop buying Pentax-made lenses. At that point I can just buy fantastic Canon L lenses and other EF designs not present in the Pentax K mount range and an adapter. The adapters today seem to be very very functional. And getting better with each design iteration. It would shoot Pentax in the foot to go fully mirrorless. Especially right now.. unless they ease into it with a mirrorless body in addition to the DSLRs.

A unique aspect to Pentax's current "success" is that Pentax represents a lot of the lens sales directly (that is, not 3rd party lenses). Once you remove that factor, they largely become a Camera maker alone and that can't be good for business as a whole for them.

[micromacro]

I basically got my Sony A7 so I could use "vintage" Pentax lenses, much better than using them on any Pentax DSLR.

Do you like vintage lenses with Sony more than with K-1?

[grahame]

I basically got my Sony A7 so I could use "vintage" Pentax lenses, much better than using them on any Pentax DSLR.
Do you like vintage lenses with Sony more than with K-1?

That is exactly my feeling. Focusing is MUCH MUCH easier and more accurate than any cameras I used before, film or Digital with split, prism or Matt screens installed. And metering is accurate on A7, while many focusing screen I installed impact metering.
I haven't tried to mass up the focusing screen in K1 yet. with the installed screen, I don't like manual focus at all.
The problem is, I can not get the color right on Sony's camera, JPEG or Raw.

[Tony Belding]

Do you like vintage lenses with Sony more than with K-1?

Well, I don't have a K-1, haven't even handled one. . .

Two things happened that made the K-1 much less interesting to me. First, KatzEye Optics closed up shop shortly before the K-1 was introduced. Then we found out that the K-1 focusing screen can't be swapped out anyhow. Manual focus without a split-prism and micro-prism focusing screen is just too problematic. I loved the huge, bright viewfinder and split-prism focusing in my old Ricoh XR7 35mm SLR, but there's no Pentax DSLR that can replicate that.

Meanwhile, I've found that manual focusing on the Sony A7, with focus peaking and magnification in the EVF, is even better than the XR7. And as an added bonus, I can adapt lenses far and wide beyond Pentax-K and M42.

[RonHendriks1966]

Well maybe the question is, how much market is there for dslr above 5.300 euro (the A9 is 5.299 euro)? I think we will see dslr in the market for the coming 5 years (can't see further in the future with my basic tool marble), even as milc will come close and maybe even get a better sales in units. It seems that milc are cheaper to produce, but for now consumers don't see that advantage in their purchase. Cheap dslr are still very popular.

[Tatouzou]

For most of us, hobbyist, it is a good move by Ricoh imaging to have designed the K1 when the 24x36 sensors got cheaper. That equate to following inflation by making camera that priced according to what people can afford. The K1 is more expensive than previous apsc bodies, but not so much more expensive if you consider that the cost of life and incomes evolved as well during the last decade. While Sony A9 surely does a big splash in the market, and it's good to make Sony camera even more visible to the hobbyists, the price of the A9 series is above what most hobbyist would consider reasonable. The K1 is priced at the higher end of what hobbyists can affort, I think Ricoh did a good job on K1 pricing. Moreover, for most of us, fast AF tracking and high burst rate are just a cherry on the cake, but definitely not used very often. Case in point the A9 is show cased with sports essentially, but for people not shooting sports, what's the point. And for people shooting sports occasionally, even a Pentax camera can do it.

Full frame sensors are now cheap, it's time to make a range of Pentax full frame cameras with different attributes and prices. Actually, while I agree that apsc is good enough for many, this should not be an argument not to generalize full frame camera because these days, full frame cmos sensors are cheaper than apsc sensors a decade ago. The only thing to take into account is to design lenses no larger than apsc lenses, and this is possible, real life example is the DFA28-105, it is smaller than the DA17_70 I owned.

So, what could Ricoh imaging do for the hobbyists? Well, they could do with the K1 vintage style body, by stripping off the rear and top display, removing the mirror box and fitting a EVF in place of the Pentaxprism. The same 36Mp sensor or 42Mp Sony sensor would be fine. That's with regard to the product.

Personally, I don't like the A7 series, I just don't like the ergonomics and battery life, although I'm sure that Sony software is rather advanced. I'd see a camera larger than Sony Alpha bodies, better battery life, yet stylish well finished camera body.

The Pentax mirrorless would be similar to a Leica SL concept, styled like a Pentax, with 36Mp or 42Mp sensor and some of the Pentax ergonomics, priced like a Pentax. Leica is way to expensive, and I'm not impressed by the sensor of the Leica SL.

I agree.
I have already stated in several post that I might buy a mirrorless FF K1-M, provided it would have the same or better AF performance than the latest Sony A7, and be similarly priced.
In FF mirrorles, there is no competition to Sony, whereas in APS-C mirrorless and M43 the market is crowded and already well established.
The first mirrorless Pentax K might be a pure Pentax K body, thus thicker than Sony A7 but yet thinner and lighter than DSLR K1. Small size is not as important in FF as in APS-C.

This first step would mean less investment, and concentrating all R&D to on sensor AF performance.
It would need of course to have the screwdrive AF and aperture lever like in K1, in order to benefit of all K-mount echosystem.

If the release proves successfull, the next step might then be, like Panasonic and Olympus did, to design a mirrorless with shorter flange distance and a top quality OEM adapter conveying all features, like the Pentax 1,4 converter does. This would keep the full Pentax K echosystem compatibility, but allow for modern no compromise new lenses at the slow pace Ricoh-Pentax needs to cope with limited resources (Pentax is not Sony).

If Ricoh Imaging has the money, a bolder move might be to skip the first step above, but with the caveat that it might then cannibalize the K1 and DFA lenses sales, as customers would not want to invest in K mount anymore.

[mecrox]

There is always the possibility that the camera market will split in two. High end means FF or greater means made in Japan means very high tech and $$$. Lower end and smaller formats means cheap 'n' cheerful from the new Chinese tech outfits, like Yi. They are derided today but give then a few years. Could suit everyone. Simpler cameras remain affordable. The Japanese can concentrate on the high tech of the A9 kind and broadcast video, etc. and keep totally away from the smartphone end of the market. The moment stuff becomes commoditised it gravitates to the cheaper production areas, like China. Situation at the moment doesn't really work for anyone. Japanese are weighed down by huge plant/factory issues left over from the heyday of cheap cameras. The answer may be to flog them off to the lads from Shanghai and concentrate on their lead in R&D (Sony, e.g.) at the high end. Smaller outfits are at the mercy of the waves of much larger economic and social changes and their fate is out of their hands.

[Rondec]

Basically with mirrorless and SLRs, you get what you pay for. A 6D or D610 is not going to outperform a 5D or 1D series of camera, nor is an A7 going to outperform an A9. If you need top end auto focus ability, you need the camera body and the lenses to do it. Skimp on either one and you may have sub optimal results.

Somehow people end up comparing 1500 dollar mirrorless to 3000 dollar SLRs and think that mirrorless are cheaper, but they really end up being priced pretty similarly once you consider sensor resolution, specifications, and build.

For most people, as biz-engineer says, top end auto focus isn't needed. A K-1 or a D610 is more than enough to track folks at a wedding or your kid's soccer game and as time goes by, auto focus will improve in lower end cameras as well.

[Kiwipixter]

In FF mirrorles, there is no competition to Sony, whereas in APS-C mirrorless and M43 the market is crowded and already well established.
The first mirrorless Pentax K might be a pure Pentax K body, thus thicker than Sony A7 but yet thinner and lighter than DSLR K1. Small size is not as important in FF as in APS-C.

This first step would mean less investment, and concentrating all R&D to on sensor AF performance.
It would need of course to have the screwdrive AF and aperture lever like in K1, in order to benefit of all K-mount echosystem.

I think Pentax can forgo screwdrive AF and aperture lever, and support KAF4 mount only in their FF mirrorless. This will make their mirrorless more distinctive from DSLR whilst it still support K-mount. So unlike Sony Pentax wouldn't need to make separate FF lens for DSLRs and mirrorless.

[biz-engineer]

Somehow people end up comparing 1500 dollar mirrorless to 3000 dollar SLRs and think that mirrorless are cheaper

If marketing people aren't dumb people, you normally get what you pay for. Marketing price their products according to competition and in order to share added value with customers, i.e if more efforts are put into making a camera, they aren't going to sell it cheap at the same price as the camera with less features.

Mirrorless camera a nicer to look at, especially when used with primes in the 20mm to 80mm range. Outside of that range, mirrorless bodies smaller than DSLR are unbalanced with the optics.
I think, Leica got it right with the SL, it's a good size to handle lenses. Sony A series... not so much.

[mecrox]

Basically with mirrorless and SLRs, you get what you pay for. A 6D or D610 is not going to outperform a 5D or 1D series of camera, nor is an A7 going to outperform an A9. If you need top end auto focus ability, you need the camera body and the lenses to do it. Skimp on either one and you may have sub optimal results.

Somehow people end up comparing 1500 dollar mirrorless to 3000 dollar SLRs and think that mirrorless are cheaper, but they really end up being priced pretty similarly once you consider sensor resolution, specifications, and build.

For most people, as biz-engineer says, top end auto focus isn't needed. A K-1 or a D610 is more than enough to track folks at a wedding or your kid's soccer game and as time goes by, auto focus will improve in lower end cameras as well.

I've just run out a 20" x 30" print from a 16 mpx M43. It has come out incredibly well considering. The difference between this and a larger format of sensor isn't what you'd expect. One can tell the two apart not from resolution but from tonality. M43 is blockier in for example skies whereas a larger format would show more subtle and pleasing gradations from one tone to another. I am finding similar on 20" or 24" x 16" prints only the difference is smaller. Modern NR and RAW software means that old bugbears like noise and microcontrast aren't much of an issue anymore, ditto with upsizing for larger 300 dpi prints from smaller sensors.

What people are often taking about here is the extent to which clever marketing can persuade us that total overkill is really what we need. "FF" is great to have but frankly beyond unnecessary in a large number of cases. Ditto uber fast sports cameras when most folks might need that capability three times a year, if ever. What really makes the difference are top-quality lenses, technique and care with PP, in my experience.

The enemy of the camera companies has always been the same: the point at which their customers kick into the Good Enough Zone and stop buying or upgrading. So moral is: doesn't mattter all that much what kind of cam you have. With a bit of care you will still get fab results, easily enough to hang on the wall.

[TaoMaas]

I don't really think mirrorless vs DSLR is that big of a problem. I think mirrorless will eventually overtake DSLRs simply because they reduce the number of moving parts...and I'm fine with that.

[wildman]

The enemy of the camera companies has always been the same: the point at which their customers kick into the Good Enough Zone and stop buying

The final death knell of a commercial consumer economy - "good enough".

[normhead]

The final death knell of a commercial consumer economy - "good enough".

Where as I would say the death knell of many consumer companies would be adding expensive capabilities that don't really add much value to the product, and then trying to foist them on their customers with slick marketing campaigns. If they can't actually sell them, they have to absorb R&D costs, by adding to the cost of their less expensive products, making their whole product line less desirable.

The A9 is a bold move, but whether or not it helps or hurts Sony is yet to be determined. Especially given their flakey reputation.

[Kunzite]

How about... "educating" your customers to demand more features, higher levels of performance - for a lower price? Twice a year, if possible?