Hmm no more Pentax on Flickr

When you click on the k-3 link in fickr on ah image page, it now takes you to the Ricoh list of cameras...

http://www.flickr.com/cameras/ricoh/?nomodel=1

Sad...

The Pentax list is still there but yeah, it's been happening for a while across all the 'Social Media' sites. Facebook and Youtube show Ricoh banner pictures now. It's heading towards Pentax being a label for Ricoh's DSLR range, rather than a brand anymore. Putting the Ricoh name on the K3 rear screen was rather indicative of their intentions I believe.

On the flipside, Ricoh make some pretty cool cameras these days. Their Pentax line is pretty good

It seems a sensible strategy. Pentax has always been best-regarded for its DSLRs. Its compact cameras have rarely seemed to measure up to the best equivalents available elsewhere.

To date a better experience than say a Minolta fan living with Sony as their mount owner.

I note that this weeks year end Tennis has Ricoh on the umpires chair and the speed gun screen. Is that the photocopier being promoted or the K mount camera brand (which they seem to be moving towards) I wonder?

I may be wrong and someone correct me if I am. BUT. Wasn't Pentax always a label for ASAHI SLRs along with the lenses Takumar. The parent company being ASAHI. So what's the difference? ASAHI? RICOH? Pentax is still Pentax I'll still like them no matter what the parent company name is as long as they keep producing excellent cameras.
CHEERS Vic.

The list I still there but no more Pentax cameras will be added to it...

Vic has a point. The Asahi Optical Co was the company that first brought us Pentax SLRs. "Pentax" has always been used to describe the model range, just like "Espio" or "Optio" have described compacts.

It's only for one, quite long admittedly, period that the company became Pentax Corporation in some areas. For some of that time at least the Japanese parent was still called Asahi Optical Co. Ltd.

The label was actually Asahi Pentax and it was marked on
just about everything that they made. Pentax as a label came much
later in the K mount era. I always referred to it as Asahi Pentax
and was sorry to see the Asahi part dropped.

See the label on this Spotmatic.....
http://www.thecamerasite.net/01_SLR_Cameras/Pages/asahi.htm

And the name on this focusing rack which I'll
shortly be putting in Classifieds.




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On my way on holiday we flew over the Ricoh arena with RICOH on the roof clearly visible from hundreds/thousands of feet up. Pleased that Pentax is now owned by a parent company with some real clout and presence

'Pentax' has a very specific photographic derivation though - recognition of the company's pioneering work in SLR technology - the name is constructed from 'Pentaprism & Relex', (with one letter wrong admittedly ... perhaps it was the Japanese translator).

Pentex just don't sound as good ;P

Nor 'Relex'

I understood the Pentax trademark name was bought by Asahi from VEB Zeiss Ikon where it was derived from PENTaprism and contAX. This was around 1954 and some time after Asahi produced the Asahiflex SLR.

Honeywell had the franchise to sell Asahi Pentax cameras in the USA at one time. The Spotmatic which I bought in Utah in the mid-1960s is engraved "Honeywell Pentax" on the body and lens cap, with an "H" logo on the prism lump. My wife and I later bought a second-hand Asahi Pentax Spotmatic in England, sometime in the 1970s; by coincidence the serial numbers on these cameras are within a couple of hundred of each other. We still have both cameras and used both with film until fairly recently. Both still seem to work, though I notice that the diaphragm on the Super-Takumar f/1.4 is getting a bit sluggish.

Martin

Also sold as Heiland Pentax Spotmatic in the US.

Pentacon in the GDR also sold at least one product with the
Pentax name ...... An 8mm Cine Editor..... Ebay-Link

Note stamped Made in Germany not GDR.

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