On Oct 31, 2012, at 7:20 AM, Collin Brendemuehl wrote: > It's difficult for me to conclude anything except that Pentax > just does not have the capacity to produce anything more advanced. > All the buyer gets is a few tweaks. > Baby steps are not adequate in today's technology world.
Colin, have you ever developed a new technology product from the initial "customer requirements" to shipping? How much time have you spent designing, writing and testing embedded firmware? As far as I can tell, Hoya cut back development to the absolute bare minimum to keep the company afloat and maximize short term profits, so it would seem that Ricoh has to pretty much start with a clean slate. Lets look at the K-5. When it comes to low light work, it is absofuckinglutely amazing. In some ways it is close to on par with a D700. The D800 increases the resolution over the D700, but for low light it's not a lot better. The Canon 5d3 is pretty amazing in low light, but either of those cameras cost two, nearly three times what a K-5 does. What was the K-5s one weakness in low light? Focus. And they seem to have addressed that issue. I'd love more, smaller, focus points, but that's a much bigger, time consuming, and expensive redesign. Yes, autofocus could be a bit quicker, there are improvements that could be made in auto exposure. So, if you are the sort of photographer than just wants to aim the camera and let it make all the decisions and do everything that requires any actual skill, then maybe Pentax isn't the brand for you. Maybe you'd be happier with a Canon point and shoot. > > They needs a new partner -- someone larger than Ricoh -- who is > interested in making the company into something great. > Perhaps Apple or Google will buy the company and run with it right. Oh sodomize me with a moldy corn dog, the last thing I want is a camera designed by Apple. Apple's forte is in designing pretty, fairly reliable consumer electronics that absolves the user of needing to put any thought whatsoever into using it. Apple products are extremely easy to use, if what you want to do is what Saint Steven of Cupertino thought somebody should want to do. This is great if you want your hand held throughout the process, but try to do something different, and you'll find it difficult when they won't let go of your hand. And, realistically, we, or at least most of us, aren't shooting film any more. We don't need to be able to instantly move any lens from the body loaded with pan-F to the body loaded with Kodachrome 64. And, realistically most people who own several lenses, after a few years also have a couple of camera bodies. You can own multiple systems and tune each, body and lenses, to what they do best at. For hand held low light dance photography, it's damn tough to beat a K-5 with a fast 30ish mm prime. Sure you could get a D800 with a 50/1.4, but you won't have image stabilization, and it'll cost you a damn sight more. If you're shooting video, or you need an insane birding or sports lens, then it seems Canon is the way to go. Why do people seem to forget that cameras are tools, not a religion? They aren't even spouse, you are allowed more than one at a time. Use the tool that does that particular job right, rather than trying to find something that does everything perfectly well. -- Larry Colen [email protected] sent from i4est -- 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.
