On 4/27/2010 2:37 PM, Larry Colen wrote:
On 4/27/2010 11:04 AM, P. J. Alling wrote:
There were rumors about something just after the 645D anouncement, but
they seem to have damped out. I expect that's because unless Pentax goes
to a ~24x36mm sensor, there's not much more except bells and whistles
that can be added to the K-7, (well better high ISO performance or more
Megapixels but that seems to come at a cost in detail resolution if you
do both). I suppose Pentax could join the FPS race and try to match or
exceed the D300 and 7D but that seems unlikely as well.
They could produce the K7 in a variety of colors. :)
Someone once pointed out that Pentax seems to alternate usability and
performance updates (one might argue on the term upgrade with any
particular usability feature).
I doubt that the form factor will change from the K7. It's something
that too many people like.
At the moment, they're selling a lot of K-xen because of the high-ISO
performance. They could see that as sabotaging K7 sales, or they could
assume that while people won't buy a bottom end camera after buying
the high end camera, if they sell as may K-xen as they can, then
people are more likely to get the high end body sooner afterwards. So
they can delay the K7 replacement for a while longer, sell more K-xen
and have more time to spend on development of performance boosts for
the K-x. However, I doubt that they think that strategically.
Another question is whether they'll go for incremental improvements in
areas like autofocus, or if they are ever going to just start over
with a fresh design and look for a huge improvement.
The alternative is that Pentax could be devoting all of their
engineering resources to the 645D series.
Well, there could be a K-7n which wouldn't be a whole new camera but one
just one upgrade, I think the ZX-5n was introduced just about 6 or 7
months after the ZX5, and it's only real improvement was a DOF lever. A
major improvement in my opinion. However the K-7 and 645D seem to share
their user interface in large part so I expect that firmware and
internal system boards are mostly interchangeable. In fact if it were
me, only the imaging subsystems and body shells would be different. It
would save a lot on the manufacturing costs of the 645D if almost
everything, not image and lens mount related, was shared with the K-7.
--
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\viewkind4\uc1\pard\f0\fs20 I've just upgraded to Thunderbird 3.0 and the
interface subtly weird.\par
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