Christian wrote: > But that's my point. They are not playing their cards right. I liked > Pentax the odd-ball, mystical company. The LX, the SMC lenses of mythical > stature, the wacky focal length Limiteds, etc. > > To keep the oddball customers coming back, they had better come out with > something to keep the fans of the LX, PZ-1, MZ-S type cameras around. Going > for the bottom of the market is no longer being odd-ball it's being stupid > and generic and setting them up for a failure in the marketplace... IMO.
I'm not saying it is nice that Pentax doesn't at present offer a high-end K-mount body. But the fact is that the company have stated in public that they intend to make DSLR at all levels (you may choose to not believe them), after they have secured a user base. I don't think this qualifies for not playing the cards right. I don't believe Pentax can sell an EOS-1DS clone; precious few high-end Pentax users would buy one (and there aren't that many of them anyway) and not a single Canon user or potential Canon buyer would be interested unless it significantly outperformed what Canon can offer, something thats not very realistic. Pentax high-end market is strictly in medium format. This market is in addition virtually unexploited and no Canon equivalent competition is in sight in this segment. The 645D proves that Pentax is serious about high-end digital and theres nothing indication that Pentax will forever only make entry level *istD clones. Pål
