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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
10-23-2017, 07:57 AM
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I can well imagine that Ricoh is not good at communicating with reviewers and accessory makers overseas, and it causes them problems. It's clear that they don't have enough marketing people around the world.
However, I don't think it makes much sense to say that 3rd party lens makers have abandoned K-mount because of Ricoh hasn't given them the technical assistance they need. Sigma, Tamron, Tokina and Cosina/Zeiss have all make K-mount products before, and there is nothing to stop them doing so again. Also, consider that foreign brands like Samyang, Irix, and Laowa have started to make K-mount more recently.
Actually, I think Sigma would say that they do support K-mount. A number of their current generation lenses are available in K-mount. If they renew one of their lenses that has a good record of selling in K-mount, like the 16-50 f2.8, there is a good chance it would come out in K-mount. The problem is that the more niche lenses they made in K-mount don't seem to be very popular with Pentaxians (18-35 f1.8 and 35mm f1.4).
In the case of Tamron, they probably feel their deal to make selected lenses for Pentax takes the risk out of it. The others have just decided that there aren't enough sales in it. At any rate, I think Ricoh's compliance with their requests for information has little to do with their business decisions. They just need more active K-mount users to sell to.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-26-2017, 07:41 AM
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It doesn't look like many people share my perspective on this. But not to worry - it's just an opinion.
My point was mainly that price is one of the most powerful tools a marketer has, and Ricoh has been quite aggressive in that regard. I think a lot of people criticize their marketing and lose sight of that fact.
For online video content, if it's not done well, there's no point in doing it. I'm not sure how cheap it is to make video content that's really worthy of the brand. There's the production cost, and does Ricoh even have people to organize it? If they had to hire people to run it, it could be quite an expensive venture.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-26-2017, 03:27 AM
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Clearly Ricoh is not doing much promotional activity in the US, but that's not the same thing as having no marketing plan. From what I can see (admittedly, from afar), Ricoh has a clear strategy of focusing on product and price, at the expense of place and promotion.
The price difference between what Ricoh is asking for the K-1 in America and Japan is huge, even accounting for the normal price differentials. The K-1 was launched at 279,800 yen in Japan vs 1,799 dollars in the US.
My guess is that Ricoh felt that getting visibility through advertising and trying to push their products into brick-and-mortar stores in America is prohibitively expensive for what it would achieve. At the same time, Americans seem to value a low price above all else. I don't think this is a lack of strategy; I think it's considered and smart.
I'm not sure how much it costs to market online, but at the very least it requires manpower, as Monochrome's son's case indicates. Have you noticed how these bloggers and website contributors seem to be testing new cameras in exotic locations lately? Sometimes they're all in the same place. Hmm . . . It's not like the early days of the internet, is it? Clearly Ricoh doesn't have the margins to do that or run expensive showrooms in the US - not while they have low volume and sell their cameras so cheap.
Would you rather pay $500 dollars more for a K-1, but have more Pentax advertising on the web? I thought not.
Actually, I do think they should have a better web presence, especially in English. But I think it's wrong to say they don't market at all, when price is such a big part of marketing.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-25-2017, 07:51 AM
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I'm not not sure I believe this bit of speculation, but it's interesting. As far as I know, the lenses that had some Tokina involvement were the DA 35mm Limited Macro, the DA 10-17 Fisheye, the DA 12-24 , the DA*16-50 and the DA* 50-135. Those are all highly regarded lenses, and the only real criticism you can aim at them is the SDM motor, which is hardly due to the shared optical formulas. This was not the same as rebranding existing Tamrons.
I would also point out that the period when these lenses were coming out was the most prolific in Pentax's recent history, with 8 lenses coming out in 2008. If that's the deal Ricoh has to deliver a range of lenses quickly, I would not object. Anyway, all the companies are doing this in various forms. Nothing is "pure" in that sense, because these companies have dependencies on each other. The only difference is the exact nature of the collaboration and the fact that sometimes you hear about it and sometimes you don't.
Ricoh currently has a section of their Japanese web store for Kenko-Tokina products, so whatever the circumstances were that ended their lens making relationship, it was not so acrimonious that it stopped them doing business together.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-22-2017, 04:04 AM
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This makes it sound like the whole idea of Ricoh being in the camera business at all is futile. It's quite a sad conclusion to come to, but fortunately I don't agree with it.
For a start, I don't think price is driving all that many people to choose the K-1. It's not that much cheaper than Canon or Nikon anyway. It's the combination of features and characteristics that appeal to a certain type of photographer. They might not be headline grabbing, but are thoughtfully implemented. Pentax and Ricoh cameras have always been known for that. That could be applied to a hypothetical Ricoh/Pentax MILC.
While I don't think it is particularly likely to happen any time soon, if Ricoh decided to make a MILC camera, I think they would have plenty to bring to the table by just picking the best combination of existing features from the K-mount cameras, GR and GXR. That would be enough for me, but I imagine they would have some new ideas as well.
Anyway, I think the whole forum's got into a collective funk because not much has come out recently. It's happened several times since I started frequenting this place, and what always happens is a camera comes out, later than expected, and it's fantastic. When I see Ricoh taking their time to release something, I assume it is because what they are working on is really hard to get right, and what comes in the end will be better as a result. There's plenty of precedent for that.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-21-2017, 09:11 PM
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Couldn't you ask exactly the same question about the K-1?
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
08-20-2017, 05:19 PM
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I can understand the observation that Ricoh is slow to release lenses, but I don't understand the idea that they can't design good ones. When was the last time Ricoh released an underperforming lens? I mean, considering who the lens is aimed at. Even the "boring" lenses, the 55-300 PLM turned out to be really good.
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