No idea what Ricoh was/is thinking, but it just seems to me that a lot of the value in buying Pentax comes not only from their people (current employees/engineers) and product line, but also from their historic mount compatibility. It seems to me that between Ricoh and Pentax there are a lot of full frame 35mm lens designs already in their file cabinets. Add to that Pentax's SMC coating technology, and put all of that with the emerging manufacturing coming from places like Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, and China and it just seems like (if they only wanted to) they could expand their FA lens line and have a lot of sales, if they only had a camera with a full frame sensor.
In effect, they have already shown that they can do big sensor, with the 645D (and get good press). The K-5 has garnered an impressive number of sales for a company that (before the K-x) most had relegated to the trash heap. I have the feeling that after the success of the 645D, that same team was tasked with at least working on a prototype full frame design and it is that which may have played a role in Ricoh's decision to purchase. In short, I think that a full frame Pentax is more likely now than ever before. Darren Addy Kearney, Nebraska -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
