Hi
I do believe I need to clarify something first. I born without thumbs
and this does influence how I look at and use things. I bought my first
SLR - a ME Super because it was the smallest SLR at the time and worked
best for me. The 2 button interface which many don't like I actually
prefer. Reading this post and thinking back at some other posts I have
seen I do feel I have to comment.
Last year I was looking at getting a new camera to upgrade from the K10
I had been using for 9-10 years. All the posts on the list about how
much better low light performance is on the newer camera's finally
penetrated. Here in South Africa we can't walk into a shop and look at
Pentax camera's so I got hold of the distributor and got the KS-2 and K3
sent to a shop for me to look at. I did not even look at the K3 as the
KS-2 fitted in my hands so well. I just feel I have to ask if we are not
tending to knock camera design changes without actually trying them.
Patrick
On 2017/01/26 08:53 PM, P. J. Alling wrote:
I don't think that the style of the Df influenced the style of the KP
as much as the questions of how do we make the camera appear smaller,
(ah shave of a couple of mm from the right top plate, and the grip.
Hum, well now where do we put that pesky front wheel? Ah vertically
on the front panel the new replaceable grips will protect it.
Now we have to have some kind of unifying element. This is a break
with the past, we're going to use the new three wheel metaphor from
the K-1 so make the prism/flash look like that.
Maybe later someone said hey that looks like a Nikon. But I doubt
they started out to do that. They just wanted it to look small.
That's what marketing wanted, that's what marketing got.
Having used the K-5 I think that it was an engineering/photographer
centered design. It was as small as it could be while being as big as
it had to be. The same seems to be true of the K-3.
After that the marketers took over design and the K-S1 was the result.
The new current result is the KP. Not as garish as the K-S1 but I see
the same heavy handed design team somewhat chastened, but still there.
Pentax said they learned their lesson with the endless *ist-D
variations that didn't improve anything just made cheaper cameras
using older technology. DS, DL, DS2, DL2, all cut out with the same
cookie cutter.
For a time the engineers took over and the results were an amazing
advancement in technology for Pentax. Right up to the K-7. Then Hoya
took over and the K-5 which was probably the last real Pentax design,
was cheapened and sold for the highest profits possible. Under Ricoh
the K-5II/s fulfilled the promise of the K-5.
But really still good solid usable cameras. What a photographer
want's. Substance over style mostly.
The K-3 was a fantastic camera it impressed even Nikon fanboys, and
you don't get much more rabid than that, it brought back the fn Key to
explicitly change the behavior of the multi function pad, but it also
made a few design decisions that were pretty meaningless such as the
switch that used to control metering pattern become a switch to
control the center locking button on the mode dial.
Ricoh cares about quality but they also care more about marketing and
in the current era their marketers are just as clueless as Pentax's
were. The K-S1 was obviously marketer driven, and it was a failure.
Only a few of it's features, the less harmful and ridiculous ones,
were carried over to the K-S2 and the merger of the K-S line into the
more or less mainstream Pentax cameras line, we're going to see those
influences continue and not for the better, I'm afraid.
I think the K-1 is the last Pentax engineering design. Designed and
built mostly by engineers who are also photographers.
Tue less said about Pentax's previous forays into Mirrorless the
better it seems, even Ricoh want's to shove them down the memory hole.
On 1/26/2017 12:59 PM, John wrote:
I don't think Ricoh mistakes the Df for a sales leader either.
But, if you compare the "style" of the KP in relation to the rest of the
Pentax line of DSLRs and then compare the "style" of the Df in relation
to the rest of Nikon's line-up, I think there are some similarities.
On 1/26/2017 12:32 PM, P. J. Alling wrote:
I don't think so, the only thing retro about the KP is the shape of the
"pentaprism" housing, and that's not particularly retro based on
physics. I doubt even Ricoh, (ex Pentax), marketing could mistake the
Nikon Df as a top sales leader.
On 1/26/2017 11:38 AM, John wrote:
On 1/25/2017 8:18 PM, P. J. Alling wrote:
There is no meaningful size difference between a KP and K-5.
http://camerasize.com/compare/#706,187
Ditto the KP and K-3 just in case anyone cared...
http://camerasize.com/compare/#706,485
I think this may be the more meaningful comparison:
http://camerasize.com/compare/#706,495
The KP seems to have that same retro look.
Comment on DPReview, "Looks like a mini-Pentax 67 (LOL)"
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