i'm so tired of the "pentax customers are so cheap" argument. pentax used to be on the top, the first brand on the market, canon and nikon where infants. used to be. the cheapskates and penny pinchers are the market they have carved out for themselves in this digital age. i love pentax for various reasons, but i'm a keen photogrpher, and photography is about lenses, not about camera bodies. i can go buy a plastic fantastic canon rebel (or whatever they call them these days) and some excellent glass, and take great pictures with it (and btw, they are no longer as bad as they are famed to be, the plastic is better these days :) ), i wouldn't enjoy it as much as my k20d, but photography is not that much about gear for me.
let me (for the second time on this forum, i think) show you something:
pentax
(note: currency is irrelevant, we're talking numbers here; they are current, trust me)
12-24/4 2129
16-50/2.8 2249
50-135/2.8 2449
excellent zoom lineup, one would have to agree, yeah, i know they are not perfect lenses, they are pretty damn good though. except for the 12-24 about which i have some doubts (more to do with my personal style), i basically "allways wanted them".
and now let's see, if i want these lenses so bad, what the alternative would be:
for canon/nikon (same tokina lenses)
12-24 1529 (note: 11-16/2.8 is only ever so slightly more expensive, i'd probably get that)
16-50/2.8 1253
50-135/28 1500
ouch.
(2129+2249+2449)/(1529+1253+1500)
1.59
(2129+2249+2449)-(1529+1253+1500)
2544
even worse, if i decide i'll use a prime for wide stuff :)
(2249+2449)/(1253+1500)
1.70
so that's 1.6 times the price, and the difference is considerably beyond the current price on the shelf for the k-5 (or equivalent nikon or canon)
and please spare me the "it hasn't got sdm" (good!), "it's not smc" (get over it, smc is good, but multicoating is no longer rocket science), weather sealing is a valid concern, but it barely makes up for sdm (if that): lenses are a long term investment, so if i buy these lenses form pentax now, i am buying manual focus zooms as far as i'm concerned, in the intent and expecting to use them without af (i'm sorry, but it's faulty, and for all i know has never been fixed). even without the faulty sdm, and with canon-level ring motor whatever, you'd think twice, and very hard, because it's 1k euro difference for the lineup, and "glass is more important".
(note: these are european prices, and they are the "old new prices", practically same from the last time when they doubled them or so; these are now considerably bellow us prices, and they do include the 20% VAT)
it's just one example. even going through this makes me again ponder selling my k-5 (my heart breaks to think of it), getting something like a canon 40d or such (or maybe a 400 bucks plastic fantastic canon 1100d or whatever, if i decide sensor is more important than build/handling, which is unlikely), and this lineup or similar (or a subset to begin with). i've definitely always wanted the 16-50, i never bought it, and it seems like i never will (see bellow), the cash was there, last time it went on the k-5 when it came out. that's bad for pentax, me using my 70's glass and drooling at 3rd party lenses is really bad, it's the difference between selling k5's like hot cakes and the nice glass to go with them, and.. just selling k-5's (less money, disposable - so not a strong stable user base being aquired, but just "people happening to use some dslr which is good value" (could be some other next year)). how many think/do like me? i don't know, but i have a hunch a bit too many for comfort.
16-50/2.8, old prime a 5th of the price? old prime: immortal, excellent glass, no eating cornflakes for a month, immortal, weather sealed, immortal.
16-50/2.8, 17-50/2.8 (...). the tamron costs half, is as good or arguably better glass, and no "suicidal mechanics/electornics" built in.
this is bad, it's bad as in bad business. i want my primes (i love old cheap small and great glass), _and_ my modern techie nerdy (excellent optics and build etc) glass, but i can't in all honesty buy the pentax ones, and that's what i'd really like to do, so i'm not buying any.
now what of this re-pricing? mistake? i think that's unlikely by now.
- imbecile at the controls? perhaps (i've seen worse)
- or there could be a plan behind this. these two sdm-lenses in particular (16-50 and 50-135) are pretty much dead. it must be clear by now, i think, to pentax, that they cannot sell at anywhere near the price they had in us (and still have in eu), so, at least the "western" market cannot or will not consume this product. it might be that either they want to kill these altogether, and start from scratch, or basically not bother to sell them outside japan anymore (or maybe a bit of both). you can look at it this way: pentax makes no cash on these raised prices, but it seems that hardly matters, because they where making as good as no cash on these lenses anyhow, so why do such a thing (dismissing for now stupidity), except to stir things up and follow up with some "big news" (replacements for these lenses?). don't tell me it's backwards to do that instead of lowering the price "while stocks last", you'd be preaching to the choir, but maybe they want to let it sink in, so that the prices of the new lenses won't be such a shock, and will be easier to accept, and accept the inevitable loss on the current lenses as a required price for this psychological game (not to mention, you don't want the people with "loose cash" to have it all spent and be stocked up on glass just as you're releasing your new shinny lineup)
- there is, of course, always another possibility: prelude to liquidation. hopefully not.
in any case, imho the "unrest" which is caused by such a move is not worth it, i agree with the explanation above about investments and investors being unhappy to see instability: i'm not a gambler, i'm tired of "i wonder what a pentax lens might cost this month" or "damn, i wish i had bought it 3 months ago when it was half the price" ("i wish i had bought it 3 months ago, when it was 75bucks/10% cheaper, well, i'm going to buy it anyway" is a slightly different matter, if you catch my drift); if i was a gambler, i'd be playing the stock market, or las vegas, not lens prices.
anybody still awake? :)
