John, the main problem here is that many people (I think it is many, but I may be wrong) may be willing to go that extra-buck and stretch themselves as far as to buy 5DMkII or D700 or A900. This is what I would definitely do now if I had Canon, Nikon or Sony/Minolta equivalent of lenses that I have in Pentax mount. I can easily admit that I should very much like to have a full frame camera or alternatively to buy into the system that delivers the promise of small and light gear with excellent image quality (read - Olympus bodies with potentially Leica lenses).
So I would go as far as to predict that all these full frame cameras are going to be selling really well. The multitude of recent announcements and the lowering of prices seems to be in line with my understanding. Naturally, it is driven by marketing departments of respective players. Some time ago, it has been written in the news that Pentax managed to grab the third spot in the list of top selling manufacturers (don't ask me what market exactly it was, I just don't remember). The question that invites to be asked is whether Pentax will manage to hold on to that spot. To tell you the truth, the recent news about manufacturing facilities being completely moved out of Japan does make me feel somewhat nervous. Yes, indeed, my gear is fine and it is shooting straight and going strong, but quite recent accident with that FA 43 lens that I had last year clearly indicates that no matter how good, my gear is not going to last forever, you know. Boris John Francis wrote: > On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 03:28:37PM +0300, Boris Liberman wrote: >> Adam, IMO there is no immediate need for the camera between K-m and >> K20D. What is desperately needed, is camera (way) above K20D. For now, >> Pentax is lagging behind Sony, Nikon, and Canon in this respect. > > I'm really not convinced. I've worked for a company (Apollo computer) > that poured a significant sum of R&D money into developing a flagship; > money that was never recovered from sales of the high-end model. > Meanwhile the competition (Sun) cleaned up selling mod-range systems. > > I personally would like to see something a little above the K20D, but > from a bottom-line perspective I'm not sure that anybody except Nikon > and Canon can afford to develop really high-end systems (even if you > accept the questionable proposition that having the top-of-the-line > model really does increase sales of the entry-level bodies; I don't > think the person who buys a D50, say, cares about the D3, as long as > there is a D300 to aspire to). > > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
