[RJM]

HOYA sheds Pentax camera biz. Ricoh has lower market share than Pentax so no upside to this news for Pentax fans.

[fugl]

Originally Posted by RJM

HOYA sheds Pentax camera biz. Ricoh has lower market share than Pentax so no upside to this news for Pentax fans.

True, but Ricoh is a bigger company than Hoya with more money to invest in its new acquisition if that’s what it intends to do.

[pe'rigin]

Ricoh have ambitions in the 4/3rd market, could be good news?

Anything will be better than the Q launch this week!

[etudiant]

It is surprising that the Q has met with such a venomous reception.
The size of the camera lens system is driven by the size of the sensor, so that the Q should allow a much smaller camera system than any of the competing designs. The quality of the sensor can still be substantially improved, with the more efficient transistor designs such as Intel's upcoming FinFet based 22nm chips combined with better quality material. Presumably this is the logic for Pentax's choice. Other than possible diffraction effects, which seem implausible to me at these still fairly macroscopic sensor dimensions, it seems a logical next step.
So why the negative response? Is it simply because most current small sensor models deliver inadequate IQ?

[impotentspider]

Lets wait and see what the IQ is like before tearing it to pieces

[RJM]

Originally Posted by etudiant

So why the negative response? Is it simply because most current small sensor models deliver inadequate IQ?

I like the Q concept, BUT it is too frigging expensive. One really has to be enamored with its "Q"uite-ness to buy it. Ricoh essentially has a similar concept at a lower cost so I expect the Q will be a still-birth now.

[RJM]

Originally Posted by fugl

True, but Ricoh is a bigger company than Hoya with more money to invest in its new acquisition if that’s what it intends to do.

The battle for consumer eyeballs on the USA national camera store shelf is fierce. When is the last time you saw a Pentax dSLR much less Ricoh on display at Best Buy? Neither of these OEMs has enough clout in the marketplace to get their goods in front of consumers. At least Ricoh wants the Pentax camera biz while Hoya treated it like an unwanted step-child. I suspect Pentax sports optics will be history though.

[njlarsen]

Originally Posted by RJM

I suspect Pentax sports optics will be history though.

Not being very familiar with Pentax products, are you talking telescopes or what?

Niels

[njlarsen]

Originally Posted by RJM

I suspect Pentax sports optics will be history though.

Not being very familiar with Pentax products, are you talking telescopes or what?

Niels

[RJM]

Sports Optics is binoculars and fieldscopes including eyepieces. Hoya dumped the Pentax astro telescope business soon after their aquisition 3 years ago.

[Musoman]

Makes me wonder why the hell Hoya bothered aquiring Pentax in the first place. I mean..what did they think they were going to be able to do with Pentax in a mere 3 years ?

perhaps it was all a front for money laundering ?

[RJM]

Hoya never wanted the camera and sports optics divisions. They only bought Pentax to get their medical endoscopy business which they are keeping.

[Musoman]

Slimy mofos !

[impotentspider]

what did they think they were going to be able to do with Pentax in a mere 3 years

Err, they managed to produce the K5 which has kicked some ass and shown the other big two that they are not the underdog everyone assumes them to be

They also managed to finish the development of the 645 and finally get it onto the shelves, all this despite the fact they could have dropped the camera division like a hot stone after the takeover, and just kept the medical division that they wanted, Pentax do make cameras that venture where our DSLRs never will

[Musoman]

So what ? Pentax could have done that themselves - who can say whether they would have or not ? 3 years is nothing. They should have gone in for the long if they were that good - turned the company around and made it a big player along side the Canikons

[pe'rigin]

We do need a strong Pentax back and able to compete at all levels in the marketplace. Least of all it gives me a chance to use all my old Pentax lenses.

This merger/acquisition could be good news for both companies.

‘Q’ will sell well in Asian, but struggle here in Western Europe. The product is not right for that price. Deliver a small camera that is a pleasure to use, and produces a quality image better than any compact, and you have a winner.

The 4/3rd market is a minefield of uncertainty; Olympus should by all rights be over hill and out of sight of the competition. But they’re not; they’re outputting product after product in a continuous stream, if the Company doesn’t have a clear unconfused plans what hope is there for the consumer.

Panasonic have embraced this format and have some excellent products, but again they’re expensive. For a bit more money you can purchase the Nikon D7000 and get better images.

4/3rd is a growing market, the idea of a smaller camera, which can match the image quality of a DSLR is fantastic. Whatever company manages that will have a clear head start. Price then becomes less of an issue, and the discerning consumer has a better format choice.

There is no reason why Pentax can’t be that company.

[njlarsen]

In the DP-review forum for m4/3, price of camera and lenses get discussed frequently. It is probably true that the camera with kit lens is a little more than say a nikon D5100 or a similar canon, but sometimes you pay for something to be smaller (the laptop that can less but costs more than the desktop is an oft used example). However, if you want to think about bird photography, the pana 100-300 is actually cheap. The disadvantage is more about lack of further upgrade options and that tracking AF still is not quite as good as in the better mirror cameras.

Several reviews say that the pana GH2 is up to par with many dSLRs at iso values up to 3200. However, I would be the first to welcome another producer of products for m4/3 (both camera and lenses), and would definitely welcome it if Ricoh/Pentax goes that way.

Niels

[speckled wood]

I have not read too deep into the new system but remember that 30 years ago Pentax did produce a miniture system SLR that could deliver reasonable results ... The Pentax 110

[iveljay]

Brilliant concept the 110 Pentax - but if ever a camera needed image stabilisation - that did with the tele lens on it, especially as you had no real indication of shutter speed.
I think that they did better with the ME Super which was about as small as you could get a full frame system slr. Either way Pentax had brilliant designers.

[impotentspider]

Either way Pentax had brilliant designers.

had? dont you mean have

[iveljay]

Sorry, only owned 3 Pentax, the 110, MZ-5n and an ME Super and always fancied an MX which was excellent.
It wasn't intended as a comment on modern Pentaxes just that as I don't own any it rules me out from commenting on them.

As a design concept the 110 and all its accesories were very interesting to use, especially the electronic flash as most contempories still used cubes, however, the best results that I obtained were at the wider end of the lenses which meant for me the Rollie A110 was of more use (same quality(both better than the 110 film they used) - faster and more compact). The MZ series filled the gap left by Olympus not producing a small useable af system slr.

I didn't like the Pentax *ist digital slrs and reverted back to Oly for digital system use and Canon for fun use.

[impotentspider]

The MZ series filled the gap left by Olympus not producing a small useable af system slr.

Funny you should mention that because thats exactly how I got into Pentax, I was looking for a system that would give me Auto Focus and Olympus wasn't offering anything at the time that I could use my Om lenses on, so I did a bit of research and discovered Pentax had retained backward compatability and bought an MZ7, though quickly discovered I couldn't live without the DoF preview so invested in a used MZ5n, I cant understand you not liking the *ist digitals though, I still have my *istD and apart from the tiny screen on the back I cant fault it, I can get decent A3 prints without problems, of course it lacks to sophisication of later models but still packs two command dials and hyper program mode.