Originally posted by surfar OK, back 50ish years ago when i first picked up a Pentax...it was THE brand! I wonder where all that loyalty went?
Did all those users die(we know some have).
Pentax is yesterdays hero,the fallen idol....It will still retain the diehards and they will die being a Pentax user.
Its a brand that can disappear with a Ricoh board room decision at anytime. I dont think that will happen but to survive it has to not continually shrink.
That's a painful jab, a bit crude, and not so tactful, but I'd say largely accurate...
I don't think we need hive mindedness here though so "negative" or not, I would hope you don't change your view due to peer pressure... And especially in the Non-Pentax Cameras section where such honest thoughts should be freely allowed.
However, yes, Canon ate their lunch in the 80s and 90s it seems.. they marketed so much better while Pentax seems to have loitered around a bit. Canon are still highly adept at marketing today. I was watching a yt vid for something totally unrelated recently and even there the guy in the clip was thanking Canon for sponsoring or offering gear (I forget which I was pretty shocked he was thanking Canon)..
Pentax is now a word-of-mouth brand. That might appeal to some, but it concerns and frustrates me. But even at time the K-5 was launched, it was ahead of most of the competition and it still is a solid camera today (well minus the AF). Then the brand got bruised and beaten through an exchange of sales at the time the market began to shrink, and is now not the brand they once were.
Hopefully they are turning the corner now and the crop system will get a serious refresh while D-FAs start arriving more plentiful too... because I, and I think a lot of us who say things honestly but are deemed 'negative' by the diehard brand fans, really want the brand to thrive as much as they do. I don't know about you, surfar, but I realistically don't expect Canon or Nikon sized marketshare for Pentax yet even in their own lane think Ricoh can do a lot better job of building and even growing the Pentax brand. Hopefully that is happening, or soon to be happening rather, now.