Insight into Future Pentax Products

http://www.pentaxforums.com/news/insight-into-future-pentax-products.html

john

Thanks John. Encouraging. Regards, Jeeess

It's certainly a use of the word 'insight' that I hadn't come across before

Interesting. In terms of new products in the short term, it gives us nothing! But if this Mr Kitazawa is representative of the product developers at Pentax, the future should turn out to be very interesting now they have Ricoh's backing.

A pity he never mentioned lenses though!

I'd be all in favour of a smaller, lighter DSLR - *ist Ds size would be wonderful - unlikely though with all the goodies we now get in camera .

I'm hoping there will be some news in early January to tie in with PMA.
If so it is time they got the rumour mill working though.

I'm glad I kept my FA primes if the future is FF DSLr, not sure about the miirorless option though and the price, only time will tell.

John

I'm sure most electronic components will get smaller and smaller. And he talked about mechanical things (like the SR mechanism, and shutter) being replaced by electronics, which would reduce size even more. He was clearly blue-skies-thinking-aloud, but how encouraging that Pentax is really thinking about future technology (and Ricoh have a record of innovating too).

Although on the other hand, part of me just wants them to remake the MX and slap a 35mm sensor in it!

I know what you mean .

Interesting... personally I wouldn't buy an EVF camera until the VF is indistinguishable from optical _and_ enables accurate manual focusing, and would only go to FF if it was K20 sized or smaller.

I'm of two minds about small SLRs - on the one hand I like the feel of my ME Super, but on the other the K20 has a nicely balanced feel with a long lens or larger zoom.

I saw a translated bit from those interviews and I must say it sounds like pentax is considering an evil cam with 4k video... which is something I'd really like to see... everybody seems stuck on the concept that the 645 evil would use the same sensor... I'm not so sure , it could use the next evolution of the same sensor, or an entierly new sensor... same with a ff evil cam...
just for argument sake... what if...
the used the same sensor for both? Anybody off the top of thier heads know the sensor dimensions for the 645 d? it isn't a whole lot bigger than a ff 24x36mm is it?
So if pentax puts the same sensor into a ff and MF body and uses the extra sensor space on the FF body to replace the SR system being used in the aps-c bodies.. instead of shaking the sensor physically, the camera digitally applies SR to the image cropped from a larger sensor...

then Pentax can lay claim to having the smallest and largest EVIL cams in the market, and a ff cam for enthusiests, and a k5 upgrade for D-slr shooters..

Would not the fact Pentax are looking to reduce the sizes of there digital slr cameras in future meen that any one wanting to upgrade. Would also encounter the need to purchase lenses to suit the camera thus leading to more expense. I have the k100 D and the Kr and are happy with the size and feel of both and would not upgrade if the cameras were reduced in size as I have built up a nice little kit and do not wish to have to start again.
Ian

The full interview is here: http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-news-rumors/168982-translation-kitazaw...#post1749610

Now, to me, it seems the interviewer is chasing Mr Kitazawa all over the place trying to pin down some sort of hint about new products, but fails to get anything firm. The firmest promise that Mr Kitazawa makes is this one:

Pentax at one time maintained several mounts and systems... 6x7, 645, 35, auto 110, and ccd....
no one pondered if Pentax having 6x7 would mean no 35 mm glass..

let us just guess here for a moment...
IF PEntax keeps ONE or TWO aps-c cams (a replacement for the k-5, and a ricoh grx module with k mount to replace the kr)...
and IF Pentax releases a ff evil in k-mount... and a 645 evil with standard 465 mount...

The GRX kmount with pancake lens is still plenty small compared to the competetion.. a smaller k-5 with slight improvements would be great.

That's a pretty impressive line up..
those that want small have the Q,
This range of mounts has been done by Pentax before.

Smaller bodies do not have to mean a new lens system, although if they went mirrorless, they would probably have to introduce new lenses specifically designed for that, and provide an adapter for use of older lenses. Basically an SDM compatible teleconverter but with no glass elements - purely to provide the correct registration distance.

It seems inconceivable to me that they would leave existing Pentax lens owners high and dry, but I'm sure they wouldn't be against providing an incentive to invest in new lenses as well!

Thanks for that feed back, however I much prefer the feel of the cameras I have and can not see me purchasing a smaller body. Why do they feel the need to reduce the size any way ?.
Ian
Ian