New DSLR Rumour Mill

I don't think there's any need to rush to buy the remaining stock. The used market is going to stay around for ages, and it's been getting easier to pick up great cameras and lenses at bargain prices.

I've been buying lenses from the used market to go with the used K1 I've recently acquired (thanks HarisF1 ). Not a single penny from these purchases will find its way to Ricoh/Pentax. Am I the reason why Ricoh/Pentax has been having problems? Should I feel guilty?

Steve

I've felt the same way too... but ultimately it's down to companies to ensure their revenue streams in the current market and Ricoh haven't really been up to it when it comes to the Pentax name.

If you want a mindblowing portrait lens today (or 4 years ago), you have limited choices when purchasing new:

- HD FA 77/1.8
- D-FA* 85

Some will look at the HD FA 77 and decide the greater flare resistance and the 'limited' JPEG profile make it worth buying. That's cool, I guess...

But Ricoh haven't really leaned into that stream the way we all wanted them to. Could it have been possible to produce an updated body for that lens, perhaps with WR and a DC motor? I'm sure more of us would have found reason to buy it over the old legendary SMC version.

You could say the same for their other Ltds, and their FA wide angle lenses. Even the telephoto prime options for the K-1 were originally APS-C designs that weren't leveraged fully.

In fact one lens that comes to mind as a smart release was the HD release of the 10-17 fisheye. That lens actually featured a modified front to allow for a detachable hood - making it suitable for use on the K-1.

So it's mixed emotions for me...

In my view Pentax really missed a trick when they updated the DA and FA Limited lines to HD coatings and rounded aperture blades. They should have also re-designed them to include in-lens focus motors and bring them fully into the 21st century. Even in 2013 screw-drive AF was very old-fashioned and not what one would expect from a premium lens.

From Ricoh's perspective those upgrades were relatively cheap to achieve (compared to AF improvements) and brought in good profits. I think it was actually a shrewd business move, particularly when they then introduced some of the best Star series lenses with much improved AF just a couple of years later. That was a time when there was a fairly good choice of lenses across APS-C and Full-Frame building up.

The biggest trick they missed (IMO) was not introducing a high quality converter (1.4x or 2x, or both) for Full-Frame - the APS-C version is the best converter around for Pentax, but the fact that there is no really good converter that will work fully with the FF system is a bit of a miss