----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Studdert"
Subject: Re: Re: Some more new camera speculation
I recall that Pentax was pretty blunt about the FF camera not being
marketable due to sensor issues.
So you are telling me that they didn't know this or it wasn't an issue
when it
was shown to the market?
Wild guess, I suspect that it was an issue when they showed the camera, but
they hoped it was one that they could resolve. When they couldn't resolve
it, they benched the camera.
They were rolling out film cameras that
didn't support aperture couplings for some time prior to the istD, and
there
isn't a whole lot of reason to keep the FA lenses in the line when film
cameras are going the way of the Dodo.
And how many people didn't buy the knobbled cameras for this very reason?
Most
of the FA lenses would work well on a FF digital body especially the long
lenses and particularly if the sensor density was kept reasonable as in
the 5D.
I suspect that about 3 people didn't buy an istF because of it. It wasn't
exactly marketed to the advanced photographer.
It was a perhaps too subtle signal about their intent.
The A style lens only bodies were completely ignored by this group.
DSLRs are an expensive gamble for any company to take on, it helps when you
have in house fabs and a corporate mindset that is willing to wholesale buy
an entire market.
Every one of the manufacturers but Canon is struggling to keep the market
someplace where they can see it, and Canon has the mainstream consumer and
high end pro type markets pretty well covered.
I do find it amusing that we still wail that Pentax isn't "as good" as the
competition.
They haven't been "as good" as the competition for about the last 4 decades,
yet we all bought into their cameras.
Are we really that slow to catch on?
William Robb
