[boriscleto]

You Tube

You Tube

[Riddler]

Those aren't Ricoh products. They're split from the Pentax we talk about here that is part of Ricoh.

The first post is the kind of reason why I think there needs to be some good YouTube adds for Pentax products. They should be filmed with Pentax cameras. They should be fun to watch and brief.

Ok thanks

[normhead]

IN my years on the forum, I've been given a hundred insights into why Pentax was going to die soon if they didn't do this or they didn't do that.

To date, none of them are worth the paper they were written on.

The fact is, at this point I'm willing to jump straight to the conclusion, if you think you know what Pentax has to do, you probably don't know anything.

[WorksAsIntended]

Actually I consider every camera manufacturer at risk of significant shrinking or going out of business at this time.
It is rather unclear where the marriage between system cameras and smartphone tech is heading to.
Will there be a market for dslrs in the future? Who knows. It may be a very niche in the future, without much development going on, same as phono in the hifi world. Loved by some but hard to get good quality products these days as they are not sold enough to become affordable.
Maybe the algebraic solution to the lens equation that was found a year ago will change the business in a way we do not need those big chunky lenses anymore. Maybe the mirrorless cameras will die soon because the hybrid solution market opened by canon is getting cheap enough because of increasing processing power and the dslr will get number one again. Who knows.
Maybe we simply use digital filters in a few years because they became better than real bokeh.
Looking at a period of 10-20 years it seems impossible to foresee the future of cameras. The development has not been this unclear since the late 90s, imho. Just decide what you want now and forget about the rest.
Maybe we will all meet in a Samsung vs Apple vs Huawei camera discussion in a couple of years.

[stevebrot]

Yeah. But Ricoh needs profit.

I don't think you got the joke...


Steve

[stevebrot]

I just checked my Pentax gear and all bits are still working.


Steve

[stevebrot]

The fact is, at this point I'm willing to jump straight to the conclusion, if you think you know what Pentax has to do, you probably don't know anything.

In other words, the notion merely states why they are not buying. It has been my observation that the loudest voices on the negative threads are those who either are no longer shooting Pentax or who bought used.


Steve

[VSTAR]

From what l had gathered on DPReview and photography Youtube channels, it seemed like the K mount was on it's last leg. Since discovering this site about a week ago and reading, l'm convinced that Pentax and the K mount is alive and well.

Unlike what the other sites print or laugh about on video.....Pentax never died and it was not resurrected. It was, it is, and it will be. Enjoy the site and the cameras,lenses.

[biz-engineer]

Not dead yet. Interview with Ricoh in Germany:

You Tube

You Tube

[WorksAsIntended]

Not dead yet. Interview with Ricoh in Germany: Interview auf der Fotohaven mit Ricoh zur neuen APS-C von Pentax im Jahr 2020 - YouTube

Short summery for non Germans (very sketchy, feel free to correct):

- Why they are not at photokina: They are concentrating to do smaller and therefore more presentations on other events.

- Why they do not have a lot of products: He does not actually answer the why question but referes to the positive parts of less confusion for customers, no doubling in portfolio and environmental sustainability.
- Talking about GR3: He called it their current top seller and talks about its usage and specs.

- About the k1 II: He calls it a "still highly demanded camera". Talks about it being robust and that other competitors are "not better" and that if they are better you need "to spent a multiple amount of money".
- About the k_new: He says that there will be a new camera this year. When exactly it is comming and what specs it got he cannot tell because he does not know himself. He also tells that "we all hope it at least has a moveable screen", he hopes for the hybrid viewfinder and he suspects it's more of a succesor to the k3 M2 than the kp. He hopes for kind of a fusion between kp and k1.



Basically no new information.

[lesmore49]

Eventually DSLR's, mirrorless type cameras, as we know now, including those made by Pentax...also Nikon... Canon etc...will probably be gone...somewhere in the future. I don't know how long it will take, except that I'm sure it will happen.

In 25, 50 years or so or more, but I'm fairly confident by that time...zooms, super telephotos lens, etc. will be miniaturized and be part of a cell phone or a camera / plus lens or a multi lens system that will be very small...possibly the size of a cell phone. .

Nope, I don't know how...I don't know when....all I do know, is that I won't be around if all this technology is delivered into consumer hands 50 years from now...but I do have faith that it will be here.

Technology marches on in this world and if back in 1968, someone told me we'd be where we are now...camera wise, technology wise, memory cards, little film use (comparatively speaking)...I probably would of said...ahh...c'mon...already. When I look at my Pentax S1a, bought new in '68 and compare it to my K1...there are lots of changes.

Will Pentax be around in 50, 100 years...I dunno...could be.

In the end who knows what lies in the future. But right now I'm very pleased with my Pentax and Ricoh (GR ll) equipment...and I have confidence in the brand(s)...as I keep on buying new stuff from them.

[johnha]

Pentax is alive because they look after their long term users. Every step has included backward compatibility, from M42 to K to KA to AF to digital.

Can you imagine the accountant in the meeting "Yes we'll put SR in the body so any lenses (not necessarily ours) will benefit, any era, any mount... We know it's expensive and we'll lose lens sales, but our users will thank us".

Ricoh are doing a good job juggling their resources and our expectations. Long may it continue.

[yucatanPentax]

Basically no new information.

Thank you for the English summary of the video. Actually, I did think it was new information in a way, because it gave some insight into the thinking going on. I didn't know the GR3 was the biggest seller. I would have guessed K-70 (?) or KP (?) just from price point.

Also interesting that things are under such tight wraps that he doesn't know much (isn't saying much?) about the new camera.
Anyway, thank you, I found it very interesting.

[clickclick]

The gear is as dead as ever, being inanimate bits of material. The users are alive and quite well and actively ordering more bits of inanimate material that arrive in neat boxes labeled Ricoh/Pentax.

[Ray Pulley]

I think that is not what a corporation does. If imaging seems to be a drain on the corporation, which means it lowers the dividend for the shareholders, than there is every reason to cut it out. First they will make shure whether it is imaging under Ricoh or Pentax brand or both. If they established that and they are sure that it is not possible making the brand or division working more efficient then they will cut out the brand that leads to losses or the whole division. Ricoh is not a philantropic institute, it is there to make profits and raise the shareholders value. That is how it works in business.

For the most part, it is true that everything companies do is aimed at profit and most things in the corporate world are judged on that basis.

However, that is not always the case. For example, companies will often have "Halo" products that may or may not add much, if any, direct profit to the overall picture, but exist to create or enhance the image the company wants to convey.

Mazda MX-5's are this sort of product as are Corvettes. Both probably do make some money, but are by no means mainstream and if they were to be judged solely upon revenue/profit contribution to he total, they would likely be axed.

Companies also sometimes have to be in certain markets to show customers that they offer a complete solution.

Where I work, we spent quite a bit of time and expense developing the products, expertise and experience to add a related service to our offerings. This area was very complementary to our core businesses, but as it turned out, took a whole lot more effort and returned much less profit than the other services we offer.

We took a hard look at cutting it altogether, but since our competition offered this service and our customers wanted a complete solution, we made the choice to scale the service back to the minimum we could offer and still keep the customers happy. The other aspect was that this work often led to other, related work that our competitor would get if we did not offer it.

The bottom line (pun again intended ) is that business is often not solely focused upon profit of a given product or division.