Does Pentax need a CHEAP DSLR......??

They think they don't pay, but there's no such thing as a free lunch

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Mobile phone contracts include an element to cover the cost of the phone. There is a point in a contract where the phone is paid for and I understand that the price can be negotiated down after that point. Doesn't happen unless we ask.

As for cheap cameras, no, Pentax would be ill-advised to make a cheap camera, and I mean this in the broader sense. We have a very good level of manufacturing quality, excellent switches, dials, etc. that operate flawlessly, glass prisms instead of mirror systems and very high image quality. Better to sell fewer higher quality items at a profit than gain lots of casual users who may never buy anything except the loss leader.

Pentax have made good solid progress in the product range and expanded the lens lineup. In the heyday of the M series they made 40 lenses. How many now? I'm just going to count them up on the SRS website.

I counted at least 54 lenses.

Is that all or just K-mount - they only list 43 K-mount on the Ricoh site.

SRS list 54 Nikon and ONLY 22 Canon so moans about the shortage of Pentax lenses is a moan about nothing. We just have to accept that people like a good old moan

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To answer the original question I think you have to start from the point that today most people most of the time capture images using their phone. So the market we are looking at are those wishing to make the transition from snapper to photographer. This is not a large market but Ricoh tried to satisfy this niche with K-S1but I would guess it was not a commercial success. This niche is probably getting smaller so even less incentive to offer an entry product.
This not to say that Ricoh/Pentax are good at marketing or indeed has the right feature mix to succeed in the market they are going for (at the risk of being trolled I will mention video) but I do think an entry model would only harm sales of their other products and reduce their overall revenue.

I counted just K mount lenses on the SRS website.

To that we could add any 645 and Q mount, so all in all a phenomenal number of lenses.

Lenses are strange creatures though - these days they appear and disappear and it's not so long ago that SRS were even offering new FA J 75-300mm lenses at just over £100. I snatched up one of those and it's very useful on the K-1. Conversely, many exotic Nikon and Canon optics could be special order only, with long waits.

why would you pay that when you get it on contract

You're paying for the 'phone either way.

Reading the CP+ interview on the US forum I see Ricoh have no plans for a camera below the K70. Not a surprise given the price of the KP.The next premium aps - c will be dearer.

When I went digital SLR I had a KX and KR before moving to the K5 and K3 models. Pentaprisms over mirrors and keeping dust out attracted me then to the amazingly good value premium models. I've handled cheap Canons, they are horrid plasticity things with poor functionality. I do own a G7X compact though with its excellent one inch sensor. Great for people photography, Ricoh should copy that.

I don't own a smart phone but my wife does and pays £6 a month for the SIM only service for her £200 smart phone. What are people wasting money on?

My phone cost me about £30 about 3 or 4 years ago. I only bought it because my original phone...a Philips model was the original 1G and myself and about 32000 other users in the country had our transmitters turned off as everyone else had moved to 2G or 3G! Phone was useless and we didn't get any compensation. I spend the princely sum of about £10 per year on a top up.

One of my sons on the other hand (19 yrs) is about 2/3rds of the way through a £1000 contract on an Apple phone. He also spends money on cameras though...got a K-S2 with 18-135 and bought a used Sigma 150-500 last year. He's looking to upgrade his camera possibly to a K3II and also would like a Da* 300 . He's on a well paid apprenticeship though and can afford it...he's got more disposable income than me.

My other son (approaching 21) is a skint student in his final year. He's never really shown much interest in cameras but recently (since I got my Pentax 100 macro at Christmas) has expressed an interest and is talking about wanting a camera suitable for a beginner. I'm not ready to part with my K-50 yet but that would be ideal...weather resistant as well as we do like to get outdoors as much as possible. Have been looking at getting one of the SRS reconds for him.Once these are gone though people like him are basically going to end up buying an entry level Canon. Every Pentax sold is a walking advert for the brand via the neckstrap.

K-50 feels nice in the hands as well...nice and curvy unlike the K-S2 which I dislike due to its angular feel...even my son who owns the K-S2 prefers the feel of my K-50.
The 16MP sensor is great, loads of features on there to play around with...half of which i've never used. Would be nice to have a proper HDMI out and a flippy/twisty
screen but other than that it would be fantastic for any beginner/early intermediate. Most of the tech in it must be out of patent now i'm guessing...how expensive would it be to resurrect it as the K50 II and sell for £399 - £429 ?

My 'gut feeling' is that as a society there is a yearning for a return to nature and the 'outdoors'. Modern technology has turned us into an unhealthy indoor dwelling beast surrounded by harmful Electro Magnetic Fields leading a largely sedentary lifestyle. Photography (in the widest interpretation ..film/digital) offers us a healthy creative pastime...mainly outdoors based and can be combined with walking, travel and almost any other physical sport or activity...so it needn't be either/ or. Pentax is still best placed in my opinion to capitalise on its WR/robustness with nice ergonomics as a means to grow its markett share and capture new customers at the 'beginner' stage.

It would be nice to have third party support with lenses sigma should remember who helped them out in the film days when all there cameras were ok fit

Ricoh have been in a similar position before. When film sales had dropped off around 1996 they realized that cheap cameras had no future and brought out a high price.... high quality camera the GR1 which sold profitably to the pros and keen enthusiasts. It won the TIPA award that year.

https://petapixel.com/2013/05/19/return-of-the-legend-hands-on-with-the-ricoh-gr...

Even today they go for high prices like this mint GR1v in Japan for £1,140.


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When I finally decided to embrace digital cameras, thinking for a few years they'll never catch on, I went into my local Jessops store in Stafford.

The three entry level dslr's were: Canon 350D, Nikon D50 & Pentax *ist DL2. If I remember all were a similar price.

I gave all of them a good examining and handling then went for the Pentax, because simply it not only felt the best but most importantly it had by far the best viewfinder.

Going back to that day, if the Pentax had been £100-200 dearer, even if it were the better camera, I'd probably now be a Canon or Nikon user.

Beginners in any hobby or interest, don't really know what's best, but they do know what's the cheapest.

Agree with the OP , beginners have to start somewhere and usually it is the least expensive options.
When The k500 was launched , it had a pentaprism , a high cost feature in a budget camera so not much profit to be made
However this camera was slated by forum members and any person curious about the Pentax brand who found theier way to this forum at the. Time would have been put of

What do Pentaxians think of a budget non weathersealed camera with a small pentamirror as canikon.