Bruce wrote: > It should be remembered that at the time that the ME was introduced > there was no such thing as a P&S camera (as we think of one today). The > ME, particularly with the pancake lens, competed with fixed lens > rangefinder cameras: only a bit bigger than a Canon QL-17. It was a very > big success and started the era of the dumbed down, little SLR. With > "magic needle" loading it was as easy to work as the rangefinders. > Pentax really got wacked when AF, built in flash, auto everything P&S > cameras came along and devoured that segment of the SLR market.
I would like to comment of the assumption, if not directly formulated at least indicated, that Pentax have somehow been cheaper than other brands and offered more for the money. Although Pentax are good value they have never been cheap and if they have a cheap image it is more due to the fact that they have virtually been absent in the higher price levels. Eg. the ME costed the same as the Canon AE-1 in spite of the fact that Canon shared the feature level with Pentax K2 that costed practically twice as much. There was nothing cheap with the ME either. It was metal with a butter smoot film transport as contrast to Canons plastic and rip apart film wind. The Spotmatic was never a cheapie but priced at the level such camera were at at the time. The MX costed OM-1 money. The LX costed the same as the F3 and F1. The SFX costed EOS 650 money. The Z-1 costed the same as the Nikon F90 at introduction. The MZ-5n is probably expensive for its feature level wheras the other MZ bodies is right in the price levl of the competitors. The MZ-S has never been accused of being cheap and the current Pentax lenses are about 30% more expensive than comparable Canon EF glas, at least around here. Pentax have never been first in typical cost cutting moves: they were among the latest using plastic; the last using plastic lens and camera mounts; the last in removing aperture rings from their lenses. In fact Pentax have never been particularly cheap. P�l
