Pentax at Birdfair

Had Saturday at the Bird Fair in Rutland. Pleased to say that the Pentax folk had a great selection on display. Very helpful and full of information. For example I didn`t realise that Hoya retained Pentax Medical when it was broken up and the camera section was sold off to Ricoh. The medical division was the valuable part, apparently. Be great if one of the Pentax folk gave the full story, it`s part of the history and it`s their story to tell.

By the way, I`m not buying a replacement for the K5 for a while.

Is that based on an insider tip

That's the reason why Hoya bought Pentax, to asset strip. They weren't bothered about developing the camera division. That's why Pentax fell behind the competition and why the Ricoh acquisition was a saving grace for the excellent Pentax engineers. That's why new products recently have been just stop gaps, because Hoya weren't interested in developing the brand so there was much catching up to do.

Aha! the plot thickens. Two of the guys did hint on new bodies but didn`t commit to a time frame. One interesting comment was it wasn`t necessarily advantageous to trade up to the K5IIS from the K5. I think they were hinting at much better units to come.