Bruce wrote: > Aside from Minolta users, no one cared, because it was a Minolta. The same thing >would be true for a "flagship" Pentax.
But Minolta had huge sucess with their 7000 in spite of being a Minolta. >Pentax will never recover the R&D costs, let alone make a profit, on a hot snot film >SLR. But do anyone recover R&D cost on such cameras? The Nikon F100 oves it's existence from Nikon's wish to recover the F5's R&D cost. Flagships mission aren't to be profitable but to boost the companies image. >The whole film SLR market is shrinking due to digital. It will go from single digit >to double digit negative growth as the >DSLRs get better and cheaper. The window of >opportunity for new world class (as opposed to boutique class) SLRs >closed 4 years >ago. Anyone trying to make a case for Pentax coming out with a new high end body and >line of lenses is a >strong candidate for psychotropic drugs. This is exactly where a case can be made. Digital cameras will be cheaper whereas film based cameras will be more expensive. It's conceivable that few in the future will be willing to pay premium (whatever premium will be in the future) for a digital camera due to their built in obsolence. Whereas film cameras will cater more to enthusiasts. Neither the camera industry nor the film industry believe in a total digital conversion. Anyway, if Pentax wants to be a player in the digital slr field, they need modern features as well. The only suitable launchpad for new technology is still film based cameras; the digitals only receive repackaged (and paid for) technology from film slr's. If Pentax plan to market IS and USM anytime soon, they have no choice but to launch it along with film slr(s). In other words, a flagship and new lenses may be a strategic move made for a digital future. Another argument is that there are limits on how long you saturate the market with the same selection of lenses. My guess would be that much Pentax lens line is slower selling now than ever due to the fact that the majority of customers have the lenses they want. Pentax, in particular, has been busy lately catering to existing customers, not new ones without lenses. Although I'm slightly sceptical to major launches at Photokina, it would be funny if your last sentence above turn into one of those famous last words... P�l
