Pentax K-3

This months Digital SLR Photography Magazine mentions that 'Pentax is rumoured to be preparing to launch the K-3, a flagship model that boasts a 24.7 mega pixel full-frame sensor by Sony' iI have not been on the forum for a while. Has there been much talk of this?

The first I heard of it was an April Fools 'leak'. Unfortunately rumours can often start with such things...

The USA based Pentax Forum faked up such a camera, as stated, for April 1st as part of the campaign to get a 35mm film equivalent sized sensor in a Pentax.

IF it is the mentioned Sony, I understand Pentax have to wait six months after Sony to use it themselves for licencing reasons. Presumably it would be able to have a 16Mp crop setting for the relevant lenses.

1001 Noisy cameras is an amusing source of such stuff along with Rice High. Personally I'm enjoying the 'old' K5 kit I've had for the last couple of months. I doubt I'll ever as an amateur be able to afford such a body or lenses or even justify it. I'd have the 645 if rich. Now that's what I call 'full frame'

There was an April fools day prank, but there was also a rumour out of the Chinese forums, which didn't mention the name 'K3' but talked about Pentax developing the most compact FF DSLR ever made. The two have become mangled somehow.

To my mind a camera called K3 would make more sense as a K5 replacement (a Canon 7d level camera), and that's what the US forum is expecting. It could be wishful thinking, but there is also a consensus view that a FF will also be announced later this year. I wouldn't be surprised.

FF or not, Pentax seem to pull the rabbit out of the hat and produce some very interesting stuff. It will be interesting to see where it goes.

It's always best to expect the unexpected

Somewhere there's a link to the boss of Pentax saying they'd need some new lenses for an FF. I take his point, apart from half a dozen FA & DFA's, there's not much selection (apart from 20+ million existing lenses!).

My feeling is they should make a camera almost specifically for the small FAltds. But it is interesting how the lens roadmap got updated earlier this year. Of course, they wouldn't let it be known whether these new lenses were FF until they had announced the camera. I imagine they would want to play their FF cards very close to their chest so as not to affect their crop camera and lens sales. I think Nikon played it the same way.

OTOH it's also in their interests to let people *think* there's an FF on the cards, if thats what some people want.

Whatever's coming, if the k30 is anything to go by, it'll be good!

Nikon repeatedly said they wouldn't make an FF camera!

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Our first weapon is surprise! Our second weapon is a Pentax FF Camera!!!

They haven't filed any patents for new FF lenses so a FF camera
seems even more unlikely..... Thankfully

What I would like to see is a square format then you can crop anyway you want to. It worked for most of the medium format cameras 6x6 (2.25"x2.25") except Pentax. I did have a 645 but that has long since gone but although I liked my pentax I always thought the 6x6 format was more practical. Portrait and Landscape are good but people still crop to get different dimensions. so many different sizes. 35mm=3x2, 645, 6x6, 6x7, 6x8, 6x9, and 4"x5". Make it a reasonable size square and everyone is catered for.
Just my thoughts. CHEERS Vic.

The square format has been asked for many times since the 1960s onwards, and we did have it in the form of Rollei and Zeiss 126 format SLRs. It made them look very boxy though and didn't catch on. Don't forget you would end up with a square the size of the shortest side of the APS-C format, not the longest.

Looking at it the other way round, if you want a square you can crop your images square. I often do and it fills an ePHOTOzine space very nicely at 1000x1000 pixels.

There was also Agfa Rapid 35mm which used the square format.
Not a success even though cameras were also produced by:
Fujica, Mamyia, Minolta, Yashica Canon etc.