On 4/25/2021 2:48 AM, Larry Colen wrote:
On Apr 25, 2021, at 12:49 AM, Henk Terhell <[email protected]> wrote:
Photo Universe received information that the new K1 iii will be $3800 and have
60 MP and a fixed screen:)
https://youtu.be/_xKcCkITjJs
spoiler alert:
Yeah it took me a couple minutes to get the joke.
It took me about 15 seconds to figure out that the guy is a head up his
ass fuckwit.
I ended up skipping to the end out of curiosity
TLDW;
Pentax’ strength for a while has been how much you get for your money, now that
this is priced like or above other systems you’re better going someplace else.
That was, in reality, Pentax's Achilles Heel.
Meanwhile everybody else is abandoning DSLRs, elsenet I saw something where
someone was arguing that the latest Canon DSLR would be the last Canon DSLR.
It’s a day with a ‘y’ in the name so we’re due for more news about how Pentax
is doomed.
A significant % of people suffer from ocular discomfort from electronic
viewfinders. Something like 30% of people find them uncomfortable, with
smaller and smaller percentages of them ranging down from discomfort to
they are unusable. I'm closer to the unusable end of the spectrum
myself, so mirrorless cameras are of zero interest to me. There are a
lot of potential customers out there that are in the same position I am in.
Sony has been leading the charge into mirrorless, they essentially
caught and killed the Minolta SLR line when they took it over from
Konica, and have done a spectacular job of presenting the mirrorless
camera as the only path forward.
I have long suspected that part of Sony's strategy has been to plant
paid shills in camera forums such as DPReview to pimp their products and
sow FUD about everything else.
Think Russian election interference, except market dominance in cameras
is the prize rather than putting a psychopath into the White House.
Sony now the other two of the Japanese big three playing catch up.
Canon will, in all likelihood drop the EF mount entirely in favor of the
RF mount, forcing EF users into using their lenses on adapters in much
the same way Pentax forced M42 users into adapters with the K mount, and
probably forcing users to buy new lenses to get full functionality.
Nikon will, I expect, keep an SLR in the lineup for the foreseeable
future, but development will be brought to a standstill, in much the
same way Minolta kept the MD mount in the catalogue, but with no further
development past the X-700.
This presumes Nikon survives at all. My understanding is that they are
on the ropes and more than a little punch drunk.
All three of these companies have massive infrastructures to support, as
the camera bubble has been going on for so long that people have stopped
considering it to be a bubble.
Fuji was barely ever in the DSLR game. All Fuji DSLR cameras were
rebranded Nikons with some modifications, especially different sensors
They introduced their last DSLR, which was a reworked Nikon D200 and got
out of it entirely a few year later, coming back with their mirrorless X
mount in 2012 with the X-Pro1.
Camera sales are in free fall, gone is the lucrative P&S market, the
entry level market that is (now was) the bread and butter of the
industry is being trampled by ever increasingly sophisticated cell phone
cameras and is on life support with no chance of recovery.
Manufacturers of dedicated cameras are being forced into an ever
shrinking market of higher end products, and all of them, but especially
Canon and Nikon, are going to be facing some pretty major financial
hurdles due to what is now bloated infrastructure.
Pentax is in a pretty solid position. They have indicated they will be
the last man standing in the SLR market, which is a much smarter move
than being a non relevant also ran in the mirrorless market, and has a
small enough manufacturing and distribution footprint that they aren't
going to be taking it on the chin supporting factories and supply chains
that are no longer needed.
The Nikon D780 (released last year) is 25MP and sells for Can$3k.
The Nikon D6 (released in 2019) is 21mp and sells for Can$8.5K
The Nikon D850 (released in 2017) is 45mp and sells for Can$4k
Compare that with the Pentax K1II, released in 2018, and sells for Can$2.3K.
Compare APS-C pricing, well, that's hard, as the last Nikon APS-C camera
appears to be the 2016 released D500, with 21mp and an at present new
price of Can$2k.
After 5 years, it is still 80% of the price of a new K3III.
Canon is similar. They've introduced a few Rebels over the past few
years, which as has been their tradition, change where the button are
and call it a new camera, and the EOS1DX MIII, but their SLR market has
been pretty stagnant since 2018.
The price of the K3III is not unreasonable, no matter how much hand
wringing and whinging people want to do. The camera bubble has finally
burst and new cameras are going to be high end and expensive, either get
used to it or take up basket weaving.
Pentax's writing has been on the wall for a while. Look at their recent
releases: A 50/1.4 that is expensive but really good, an 85/1.4 that is
stupidly expensive, but is also one of the best optics on the market,
they are updating the FA Limited lenses, which have never really given
good bang for the buck, but certainly have a cult following, and they
are soon introducing a 21mm LTD which will in all likelihood be pretty
pricey.
About the only thing "budget" they have done in the recent past while is
refreshing the FA35/2 and the DA10-17. The 70-210/4 is a rebadged Tamron
that they had virtually no development costs on.
Their last what could be called budget lenses date from 2016 with the
DFA 28-105 and DFA55-300.
Pentax doesn't have to play the go big or go home game that seems to
rule American led capitalism. All they have to do is stay in their
niche, let the big boys punch each other in their faces and catch their
abandoned customers as they walk away from the hamster wheels they have
been on for the past 35 years.
bill
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