News Item from AP

There was a small news item in AP, quoting the MD of Ricoh UK. He was saying that the focus of all their efforts in 2014 would be to build up the Pentax DSLR ranges and make Pentax a much bigger part of Ricoh.

He also said that it was their intent to work on pulling buyers away from Nikon/Canon/Sony.

Let's hope so.
They're going to have to invest in marketing a lot more than has been previously.

Good luck to them!

Already two months into 2014 No range to speak of, No outlets, No image in the market place. So good luck with that one Mr Ricoh..... We will be watching.

What is the relevance of January 1st 2014?

Maybe they're selling their photocopier business.

Watch all those going for Nikon and Canon coming back to the fold after realising their 6D/5D3/D610/D800 aren't quite as well sealed as the Pentax FF isn't the be all and end all...

I really don't think Ricoh have any chance of taking buyers from Nikon/Canon/Sony bearing in mind the new Nikon D3300 announced today - Body only for £500. Canon have similar models for an equally competitive price. Unless Ricoh are willing to compete with these models, they will just be left behind & that would be a real shame. Can't they see this?.

Value is not all about price, but Pentax offer features in their cameras that the others don't.

Quality of construction, weather sealing, glass pentaprism viewfinders, 100% view, it goes on and on.

In may respects Pentax are well ahead of the competition.

Affordable and relatively compact FF model is what's needed, that seems to be the current best seller for the two companies mentioned.

Not sure a higher standard of weatherproofing is that much of a draw

I smiled at Nikon discovering Pentax's TAV mode for their new giant expensive pro camera.

Quote... Another small change worth mentioning is the camera's ability to use the Auto ISO feature while in manual exposure mode. This allows you to choose a shutter speed and an aperture setting and let the camera decide on the necessary ISO. And, because the D4s has an Exposure Comp button as well as two control dials, you can apply exposure compensation so that you get your chosen image brightness, when working this way.

This was added to the Canon 1DX a few weeks ago via a firmware update. Not TAv mode but as near as dammit ... in manual mode the camera can now do auto ISO plus EV compensation.

1DX owners were raving over it, apparently it made the camera just about unbeatable.

I don't know, the D3300 looks like its got right in there, ahead of the game yet again.

You would expect a 'K60' or whatever the K50 replacement is, to have to compete with it to please the 'buy by numbers' laymen.

Maybe, but for the laymen those could easily equate to -

Unnecessarily and overly heavy, I'm not going to be out in bad weather, what's a pentaprisim? look at the pixels numbers in these new viewfinders, the adverts for Canikon go on and on.

In many respects I've never heard of Pentax

Don't agree. Bigger range, definitely more outlets (back in John Lewis and more extensive range in Jessops), and quite a lot of adverts in more recent mags over the past few months. There's a way to go, but I think Ricoh is a lot better for Pentax than Hoya was.

"Nobody Knows Anything". link

Have a look down the article under "Others".

Pentax is an enigma. Traded first to Hoya and now to Ricoh, it's hard to understand what their product strategy is, if there even is one. Their Q series mirrorless isn't taken seriously, and their DSLRs, while quite nice machines, don't really blaze any new ground. The company has some excellent lenses though.

Should Ricoh really need to keep pushing the benefits of WR to help market their products or isn't Joe Public that bothered.

Of course, as Pentax User's, we can disagree with Mr Reichmann's point of view.

Best regards

Wasn't that the point of the Q. A quirky fun machine. After all it does have a range of non serious "Toy lenses"


I always saw the Q as a little fun machine. My only gripe with it was it's price. far too expensive for what it was in the first chapter of it's life.