On 5/17/2018 12:26 PM, Gonz wrote:
I see your point Bill, and you arguments make a certain amount of
sense as far as Ricoh's direction. But where I diverge in my opinion
is the survival part. Granted there will always be that cadre of
Pentax die hards, but as you can see from the average age of pdml
posters, its only going up, not down.
The PDML is one of the best kept secrets on the internet. I hardly think
we can use this mailing list as an example.
I just entered "Pentax camera forums" into Google and what came back was
forums neurotica, pentaxuser.com and DPReview.
We aren't exactly on anyone's radar here.
Spend some time on the neurotic forum and you will find plenty of thin
skinned millennials just looking to take offense at even the smallest
slight.
I.e. there is very little new
Pentax "blood" coming in. So someone who is just coming into the high
end/pro side of photography will in all likelihood migrate to one of
the big three i.e. Canon, Nikon, Sony. Well at least as 35mm is
concerned. I think medium format is a completely different beast and
I wont even venture an opinion on that. Then there is Leica, but they
are also on a different league altogether when it comes to high end.
So where does that leave Pentax?
It leaves them with somewhat of an uphill battle to be sure, but I do
think that if Ricoh was planning on shuttering the brand any time soon
we wouldn't be seeing long term plans and short term new products coming
out of their factories.
With a reputation of a lower
cost/amateur manufacturer, they will have a real hard time competing
in the space with those big boys and all their resources. The market
is definitely shrinking, and it makes perfect sense to go after the
only remaining market not eviscerated by phone cameras (though I've
seen pros starting to move there too and even making full movies with
them), but whether they will survive or not is a crap shoot.
Whether anyone survives is a crap shoot. Nikon is, from what I've read,
somewhat on the ropes, Canon is taking hits all over the place because
of very outdated sensor technology (the peril of making your own and
then not throwing R&D dollars at the division that invents them), Sony
makes no bones about throwing money at the wall and seeing what sticks.
As soon as cameras stop sticking, they are out of the game, the same way
they got out of consumer video recorders with Beta and became just
another also ran VHS maker.
I was, as it happens, one of the consumers they left high and dry with a
cabinet full of tapes and no machine available to play them on.
Friends don't let friends buy Sony.
Canon is something of a crap shoot. As the market shrinks, they will
look more and more at mirrorless, and I wouldn't be surprised if they
jump in with both feet and change their mount (again). If they do that,
expect the EF mount to go the way of the FD mount, with the same lame
excuse given for killing it.
They got away with it once, they might well try to get away with it again.
At least Ricoh bought the Pentax brand because they wanted it and
thought they could build something with it. Canon and Nikon are just
doing what they have always done, and really, so is Sony (toying with a
market until it dries up and then walking away).
Fuji really is, to my mind, the safe bet regarding the camera industry,
but let's not pretend that they can't fail either.
bill
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