On Mar 1, 2006, at 5:26 PM, Rob Studdert wrote:
Thanks for the additional info Ken. So in essence where Pentax screwed up was in securing a solid pricing and procurement deal? Having being in design I find it hard to understand why anyone would sink that much R&D into a product when the pricing of one of the most fundamental of the components wasn't pre- negotiated. Surely the CCD pricing would have been a factor for the project being given the nod in the first place, surly it would have had to have theoretically been proven a viable product before any prototypes were produced?
My understanding from people at Pentax and Kyocera is that price and delivery WERE negotiated and contracted in advance with Philips, but Philips went back on the deal. Basically they said they were running into cost overruns and had to increase the price and push back delivery date. Even when they did deliver to Kyocera, it was never in the promised quantities. Kyocera had a lot of camera bodies sitting there awaiting chips. I wonder what they did with them.
The basic problem apparently was that the rejection rate on finished sensor chips was much higher than had been projected. When faced with much higher prices and delivery a year late, Pentax chose to drop the project. Kyocera, for whatever reasons, chose to slog on alone.
I've shot with the N Digital. It handles beautifully, has great autofocus and overall performance, good ergonomics, and is one damned fine camera -- if you like soft images. The firmware and image processing software were just never "ready for prime time". Hell, I'd have bought one and be shooting with it today if I could have gotten images that were up to my standards.
I think Pentax made the right choice. It would probably have harmed them in the long term if they had come out with a very expensive DSLR that produced mediocre images.
Bob
