Originally posted by Alex645 I would be willing to go for a minimalist camera, like the FF Leica M-D without a rear screen or menus, no video, and only shoots DNGs, if the price reflected the reduced features ($600, not $6000+). Like the Leica Monochrom that only shoots monochrome, there is something to the less is more, but not if it costs more to get less.
I can agree that the Leica MD is priced far higher than it should be, but that is true of all Leica cameras.
However, it doesn't necessarily follow that even a Pentax version, which I would definitely buy, would be a low priced camera on the Pentax scale of things. The problem is that any digital camera with this minimal type of feature set will be a very specialty camera with a low turnover. This is why the Leica MD is higher priced as well. You are paying a premium for the fact that the camera is quite a bit outside the normally expected model. However, in the Leica world, this type of minimal feature set has a true following so the camera does sell. Leica is also a very small camera company catering to a clientele that typically is willing to spend more money for their cameras and their lenses. They still do a lot of hand assembly even today so the MD is more possible.
Pentax is not small and they do not use hand assembly at all that I am aware of. Even though the Pentax K1000 has a very loyal following I am not sure that even Pentax fans would be willing to pay $2,000 or more for a true K1000 feature set, even if it were full frame, which I think it has to be. Looking back through history, Pentax really has never been a producer of boutique style cameras, which this would certainly be.
I would be more than happy to add my name to a pre-order list, even fronting some money, if Ricoh did agree to produce this type of camera. But I have no delusions that this would ever really happen. Instead, the best you would end up with is another Nikon DF, which was just a wannabe. Pentax already has great backwards compatibility and already make most important adjustments available without going to menus.