Actually I think you hit the nail pretty much on the head.
Fred wrote:
I just hope that this trend will not mirror the "Super Program/A to
Program Plus/A to P bodies" trend of the 1980's.
(scratching head and smiling politely) sorry, me no speakum Pentax.....
No problem, John, but I suspect that some of the Pentax aficionados might
know what I'm referring to:
Much of the Pentax history of the late 1970's and early 1980's consisted of
a series of improvements, one right after another, as the camera line got
stronger and stronger. (This is oversimplified, of course, because there
were a few "branches" in the Pentax evolutionary tree at that time.)
However, after the release of the Super Program (North American name) or
Super A (rest of world name) in 1983, the next body released (1984) was the
Program Plus (N.A. name) or Program A (r.o.w. name), which was good, but
which was basically a somewhat stripped/simplified version of the Super
Program/A.
Next came the A3000 (N.A. name) or A3 (r.o.w. name) which was a very basic
perhaps overly automatic body in comparison to either the Super Program/A
and the Program Plus/A.
Following the A3000/A3, came the several P bodies, most of which were
fairly simple bodies, and all still more basic than the Super Program/A.
(This is not intended to be taking a "cheap shot" at the P bodies, some of
which are quite serviceable if basic manual focus bodies.)
During this time, autofocus had arrived on the scene, but Pentax seemed to
be in a sad rut, turning out more-and-more-basic, more-and-more-automatic
manual focus SLR's. The pioneering autofocus ME-F of 1981 was not a
commercial success, and Pentax produced no more autofocus bodies until
1987, when it finally came out with the SF1 (N.A. name) or SFX (r.o.w. name).
Of course, there were other Pentax events going on - the LX went on and on,
etc. - but, as you maybe can see, there seemed (to me) to be a period of
deepening malaise in the Pentaxian world back in the mid-1980's. So, I was
merely commenting that I hoped that the trend in Pentax's DSLR's was not
going to mirror the trend in its SLR's of the mid-1980's.
[Disclaimer: All of the above, I should point out, is my own personal take
on a certain time period in Pentax history, and some might disagree with
some or all of my generalizations.]
Fred
--
When you're worried or in doubt,
Run in circles, (scream and shout).
