Don t hold your breath for a Pentax Mirrorless SLR !!

Hi All
Hope you all had a good Christmas.
Reading this link,
https://petapixel.com/2020/12/28/pentax-cannot-go-mirrorless-ricoh-imaging-ceo/
there wont be a Pentax Mirrorless any time soon.
Have a good New Year everyone
Regards
Graham

I don’t think the analogy with vinyl records is going to do Pentax’s reputation much good, it sounds like the CEO is pinning his hopes on appealing to the retro crowd as a future strategy. It may be growing, like the use of film, but it will always be a tiny minority so I can only conclude that Ricoh is accepting their position of becoming a tiny niche player outside the mainstream. This a slightly different tack to that we heard before of mirrorless users returning to DSLRs. It sounds now as if the CEO sees the smartphone threatening the mirrorless market whereas Pentax will offer an aesthetic alternative which smartphones cannot emulate. And finally he refers to Pentax users as hobbyists so what happened to the medium format strategy of targeting the professional market? Perhaps development in the MF field has ended.

I have to say this has all filled me with dismay, I love the products but I don’t know how long the brand will last if it continues down this path.

I have to say while I agree with you I don't think the brand would survive having to make a couple of decent morrorless cameras and the required lenses either. It's too late for them to get into that market, Sony took their chance and look to be dominating it (although Canon seem to be catching up fast). Nikon has been left to play catchup and nobody is going to swap over to Pentax from any of those now.

Using an adapter for the lenses is a good stopgap but the speed Pentax move at it would be many many years before there was a full mirrorless lineup.

Ricoh are definately playing to the enthusiast/older generation with this new camera, larger viewfinder, ability to input aperture for manual lenses, nothing at all has really been said about autofocus tracking speed which is what it will come down to for me. If it doesn't increase the tracking ability dramatically with the 150-450mm then I won't be bothering.

Mike-P, it would make sense to me for Pentax to develop a couple of mirrorless bodies alongside new DSLRs using the same K-mount so that the existing and legacy lenses could be used without developing a new mount. Canikon have developed new mounts to get the lens closer to reduce body depth and bring in lenses with ever wider apertures, but they did the same when switching from mechanical to electronic connectors and seem willing to accept the risk in making earlier lenses redundant. The Pentax strategy has been different, retaining useability of older lenses and I have seen articles where these are now being used on mirrorless with adapters (including an AP article which said older lenses are enjoying a resurgence thanks to mirrorless technology!) so there is potential there. One of the biggest drawbacks to many mirrorless bodies is their handling but with Pentax's dedication to that aspect I don't see a slightly deeper mirrorless body being a hurdle.

The registry distance of Pentax K lenses is what makes them so suitable to use on mirror less, at around 40mm it allows room for the necessary adapter. I can only talk about a comparison with a mirror less Fuji camera, which has registry distance of less than 15mm. So that would mean a mirror less body for K mount being 25mm thicker than necessary, going against the trend for smaller and lighter amongst us old folk

Personally i've got no intention of getting a mirrorless body so not bothered in the slightest that Pentax is not going down this route.

More concerned that Pentax doesn't seem to offer an entry level DSLR at an affordable price to entice new users who will ultimately be needed to keep the brand afloat.

If you only use a DSLR in live view mode, haven't you got a K-mount mirrorless camera with the added extra of optical viewfinder mode if you feel the urge to go retro? Perhaps all that is needed is for the default mode to be live view (mirror up when camera is switched on, press a button to get optical viewfinder mode). Possibly as simple as a firmware update. No money to be made from that, of course, so there would need to be a few cheap, cosmetic design changes and launch as a new model

Steve

I wish the CEO would say something sensible rather than daft about their decision. The argument could be (should be?) that Pentax believes that mirrorless and dSLRs have a future, and that they have decided to concentrate their resources on producing the best optical viewfinder dSLRs they can, rather than diversifying into a new, highly competitive sector. The bizarre comments he has made so-far have made him (and Pentax) a laughing-stock.

I disagree Kris. He made exactly the comments you wish him to make in the summer.

Not put out if Pentax don't go larger mirrorless. The Q's are still turning out acceptable results.

Best regards

Question:
When you enter live view the mirror is pulled up out of the way. Something holds it there for the entire time it is up. (I'm guessing electromagnets). How much strain does this put on the mechanism generally and does constant use of it cause extra wear and tear? There is also a soft whirring sound with the K1 that only ceases when the mirror is dropped back in place, so something extra is happening in there.

Could be the sensor stabilisation in use creating the sound?

It makes for an interesting discussion. I know of dslr cameras that are predominantly used for video production work. Going by traditional shutter count metrics you’d expect them to be almost brand new, despite years of use.

Biggest difference really if you go mirrorless is the on sensor auto focus points (just like the Pentax K-70 has?) which then feeds a processor with the real world image continuously (instead of only when the mirror is up). This allows for tracking autofocus, both of objects and people and even eyes or pets etc (depending on the power of the computer processor in use). This functionality is extremely powerful and extended across the whole frame too. No real reason why DSLRs couldn’t do this too in love view/mirrorless mode, other than cost.

This is exactly what the K-01 was - being one of the earliest mirrorless cameras.

If we look back at it, it's clear that something similar would be a massive laughing stock if released with updated specs.

Instead, a completely new mount is necessary so I agree with most of the above that there's no point in Pentax trying to do it in such a competitive market.

Yep as far as I know all other mirrorless cameras have come with a new mount and an adapter to use older lenses.

That’s the biggest reason I can see for Pentax not entering the mirrorless market, and having to duplicate the lens lineup in a different mount.

Outside of the mount, mirrorless has more in common with dslrs than different. It’s just no mirror/prism viewfinder but still has a mechanical shutter. The likes of the K-70 show that you can have on sensor AF points on a dslr, they just won’t work when the mirror is down.