Hoya CEO: "We will not shut down this business.”

Canon's results are interesting. Camera sales are the only light in the dark for them, but if "optical products" includes SLR lenses, then it's not very rosy at all.

So it looks as though all the camera manufacturers have been finding it easy to sell cameras but not so easy to make any money out of it. Nikon also posted losses. I think i'm right in saying that Sony did as well.

I disagree that the K mount backwards compatibility is a negative factor, it's actually a huge selling point with a powerful benefit. The same applies to Nikon.

I believe you drastically underestimate the level of engineering present in a high quality optical lens.

You're talking about between 5 and 20 pieces of optical grade glass, of absolutely uniform properties (take a close look through an average window sometime, the refractive index/thickness is far from constant). Each piece has to be ground to an exact non-trivial shape with tollerances on the order of microns. Once ground, each lens must be coated with several layers (7 for SMC IIRC, presumably more with Ghostless and SP) of exotic elements, then bonded to its peers in the precise arrangement called for by the optical formula.

TBH I never cease to be amazed that modern lenses can be sold at a profit at all.

If you want to break into the camera market then you want to be selling DSLR bodies. You can have a viable product lineup with just 2 or 3 models, entry level, amateur and pro, but you're going to need glass to go with them or they're no use at all.

Comming to market with high volume production capacity for a full lineup of shiney new lenses is a massive risk. You have to put in huge investment with no certainty of success and if your cameras flop you're up a certain creek. However comming to market with 3 fantastic camera bodies and just a couple of kit lenses is guaranteed failure in a box. No one is going to buy a system camera which doesn't have a system.

So what do you do? you buy an existing but recently dead or dying system. Now you've got an installed base of people using kit you can sell lenses for as your new glass designs come on stream. Maybe you've even got some glass designs in the deal on the dead system. Sure there are some second hand lenses kicking about on ebay but in the grand scheme there aren't that many of them and using them is a pain. The ebay situation actually gives you a stopgap until your real lenses are ready, maybe you are only producing 3 or 4 designs brand new but people can still mount FA, DA and DFA lenses.

If you really feel you don't want people to use old glass, just disable it in firmware. Stop the pre-A lenses working or do a Nikon and make it a premium feature so your lost revenue is offset by people buying top end cameras just so they can use bargain lenses.

Bottom line is, no glass, no system. If you start from scratch you have no glass of your own to speak of and no 3rd party support at all. If you buy up the K mount you have 3rd party Sigma and Tamron glass plus second hand and new-old Pentax glass.


I may or may not be right, but Sony agreed with my way of thinking and they have done fantastically well at it after a somewhat shakey start.

on the otherhand .......a lot of the Canikon fan boys will be buying flters from Hoya..thus adding to Hoyas coffers

Howard

Certainly it should be from the point of view of customers, as opposed to for prospective owners of Pentax's operations.

However, at the end of the day all selling points - big and small - and all sundry other factors influencing end-market behaviour are translated into market share. And on this easy to obtain measure I'm afraid Pentax are failing.

Mongoose, I don't believe there is much point in getting into a detailed discussion over this given the unknowables.

However, I think you give several good reasons why it is unlikely anybody should actually want to enter the market in the first place!

As for Sony, for me they are a completely different kettle of fish. That said Samsung are somewhat similar, but the fact that they have so far failed to reach an agreement given their close relationship with Pentax makes me highly sceptical a deal is going to happen.

agreed, an interesting discussion while it lasted though no? I hope you didn't think I was getting at you with my response above, I can get worked up on occasions!

I suspect you are right while Pentax exists. The way I could see it happening is if Pentax itself was wound up and Samsung saw a chance to buy the rights to the lens mount and maybe some of the designs without having to take the whole company.

Sigma is another potential in that situation, they've been trying to launch their SD line for years with no real success. They already have a large array of glass, the top end of which is very good. A widely recognised mount with a large installed base might be the leg up they need.

As you say, too many unknowables really!

Dead mans boots is the way in if you want in, the question is if anyone actually wants in!

No doubt contrary to the belief of many, my assumed role as cataloguer of Pentax corporate woes is not one I particularly relish.

However, robust discussion in good faith doesn't trouble me in the slightest -- no problem, Mongoose

My God Dangie!
Dont you have faith in anything?
Let me guess, you have an anmplifier and turntable and a big collection of vinyl because you were worried about investing in compact cassettes, and good job too because CDs soon ousted those, you never bought a VCR because you were waiting to see which one came out top and when betamax fell down and VHS won you were still hanging back in case they were superceeded too, and you still wont get a sky plus box in case it stops working when they change from digital to whatever makes you throw it in the garbage

What I want to know is how did you wire your ZX Spectrum up to the internet to get on here

Nice one Impotentspider. Must admit you made me chuckle. I did in fact have a Sony Betamax video...once bitten...and the Spectrum is still in the loft somewhere.

I've still got all my vinyl records stashed away. I don't need them though as all the ones I really liked I've replaced with CD's (not got into MP3's and Ipod's yet...I don't think they'll catch on..!

However the one thing about music and hifi is that you can mix and match. I've got a Panasconic TV, Virgin V+ box, Sony DVD, Pioneer CD player, Technics Amplifier and Nintendo Wii all playing through Mission loudspeakers. They all work seamlessly well. No compatability problems. So as and when I want to replace any item, I can, knowing whatever I buy will work with my remaining kit. Wouldn't it be great if photography equipment was the same. Imagine a Nikon body, Pentax lens and Canon flash all working together. It will never happen of course.

I've been interested in photography since I had a Russian Zenit B for my 18th birthday. Then I graduated to a Pentax Spotmatic and have been with Pentax ever since. I hope to retire in the next couple of years. Money then will probably be tighter than it is now. Therefore as you can imagine I'm thinking of my photographic future. Do I stay, or replace while I can still afford it. Life's problems.

I'm still waiting for the Samsung NX to appear. I have a feeling that within five years dSLR's as we know them, will be on the way out.

A right Prophet of Doom aren't I....
Best regards Dangie

I think I said that myself in a reply not so very long ago as soon as someone get the optics right of course.

As for investing in Pentax and being left "stranded" with loads of unuseable lenses you could easily face the same problem if you choose Canon gear, Canon have already switched lens mounts in the past and left people with unuseable lenses, if you do intend to make a switch you should really consider another braNd

One thing I will say and that is Pentax is definately not the 8 track of music equipment

These are wise words indeed. I run a business and what you say here is the nub of the matter.

Selling new lenses, rather than allowing the use of legacy lenses, is fine if you are coming from a position of strength. Pentax is not. They need the backward compatibility in order to entice people, who have legacy lenses, to purchase a Pentax digital SLR rather than go to the big two. How many people here would have bothered buying into Pentax if they could no longer use legacy lenses? A hell of a lot less than would have if they couldn't.

It is these stalwarts that rekindled the Pentax brand back in 2003/04 that got Pentax back off the ground otherwise they would have faded away. This has then led to Pentax being able to grow enough so as to get off the ground and then start producing a new lens range which has been very successful (in terms of Pentax sales).

As for your assertion that backward compatability is a liability, I am afraid that I just cannot agree. It has not cannibalised sales, because Pentax would never in a million years have been able to set up a new lens system and manufactured them for a new mount at the time of the *ist D, DS, DL. They were hard pressed even making the lenses they did design for digital let alone a complete new range and they have only just managed to get a reasonable lens inventory and line-up on sale now. So, imagine how left short they would have been if they tried to introduce a new lens line? They would have had little money to fund such a venture and they would have probably cut corners and produced an inferior product and we don't need another inferior product as there are two other's already.

If Pentax did not use backward compatible lenses, then I am afraid that Pentax would have folded years ago.

That was easy, he just upgraded the memory from 16k to 1 meg, replaced the Z80 CPU with an Athlon quad core and found a replacement printad circuit board to take them.

Problem is it needed a new box....


A bit like Pentax have done over the last 50 years with the M42 mount.

First they got the mount sorted, then modified the way the camera body used it. In the 70s they introduced the K mount, which can (still) use old M42 lenses with an adaptor. The body has changed from a Brick (Spotmatic!) to a featherweight (ME super) and now to a digital one.

It's called progress, what keeps Pentax selling cameras is the fact that you can, but don't have to, use older glass.

Any way, I've seen plenty of adaptors to allow Pentax glass to be used on other makes, but non for Canon glass!

Long live Pentax and the K mount!!

The home computer anology is not a bad one ...remember the BBC computer, probably the best one of them all... unfortunately noone wrote software for it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A great DSLR with no lenses would suffer the same fate , I think there is
method behind the Pentax apparent madeness

Howard

In theory you could still use Asahiflex lenses, if you could find the Asahiflex to M42 adapter and then used it with the Pentax Adapter K. That would take you back to lenses made around 1955 or so. Long enough ago for almost anyone I would have thought!