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Ricoh may close shutter on personal camera business

stub
Posted 12/04/2017 - 16:38 Link
All camera manufacturers are are feeling the pinch in the market caused by the mobile phone demand. But is the answer to treat the dslr market as a cash cow...? In the last 6 months Ricoh / Pentax Have raised the sale price of their flagship unit. The K1 25% in the uk, Nikon a similar 20% on the D810. It would be interesting to see if this market ploy has led to a drop off in demand...
K-1Gripped K-1 ungripped K-5ii K7 Various lenses

Stuart..
Mike-P
Posted 12/04/2017 - 16:46 Link
jules wrote:

Agreed! As someone who has just re-invested 3000x the companies $1 worth in them, I hope they keep going!

Have I read that correctly Jules, you are back with Pentax yet again?
pschlute
Posted 12/04/2017 - 16:52 Link
stub wrote:
All camera manufacturers are are feeling the pinch in the market caused by the mobile phone demand. But is the answer to treat the dslr market as a cash cow...? In the last 6 months Ricoh / Pentax Have raised the sale price of their flagship unit. The K1 25% in the uk, Nikon a similar 20% on the D810. It would be interesting to see if this market ploy has led to a drop off in demand...

All Japanese exporters have been struggling with the fall in the value of the pound. Down 25% in two years versus the Yen. that will dent anyones income from UK sales.
Edited by pschlute: 12/04/2017 - 16:52
smudge
Posted 12/04/2017 - 17:40 Link
I found a couple of old receipts from 2010 and 2011 and prices were just as high then. I paid £449 for my DA15mm (as a grey import!) over £1k for my K5 with 18-55 kit lens and over £1k for FA31mm. These things seem to go in cycles.
Regards, Philip
stu62
Posted 12/04/2017 - 17:54 Link
Yeah but I bet you don't get the service at Wexford like you do at srs ( or the abuse which is done in the best possible taste as the great late kenny Everett would say ) joking aside they are a great bunch down at srs
Gwyn
Posted 12/04/2017 - 18:22 Link
Don't get me wrong, I would rather buy from SRS any day of the week, but If those price differences are true I would be a fool not to take it into consideration.

All academic for me anyway as I said.

smudge wrote:
I found a couple of old receipts from 2010 and 2011 and prices were just as high then. I paid £449 for my DA15mm (as a grey import!) over £1k for my K5 with 18-55 kit lens and over £1k for FA31mm. These things seem to go in cycles.

I don't have the receipts handy, but I paid similar amounts.

The new Nikon is around 1300GBP I see Just changed the dollar for a pound sign again.
jules
Posted 12/04/2017 - 19:53 Link
Mike-P wrote:
jules wrote:

Agreed! As someone who has just re-invested 3000x the companies $1 worth in them, I hope they keep going!

Have I read that correctly Jules, you are back with Pentax yet again?

Back? Well yeah, 50/50 split with my Fuji Mike, one of each, had two Fuji bodies but I just can't make myself stump up nearly £1500 for APSC to replace my DSLR style X-T1, so I traded it and some of my glass but I opted for a KP 10-17mm Fishey, 16-50mmF2.8 SDM and a 50-135mm F2.8 SDM (Got the two F2.8's brand new for £950 all up!) to run alongside my X-Pro2 and lenses. in hindsight it's a bit of a bugger because I nearly went for a K1 and would have saved myself £400 on the new price but the bloody boat anchor with it's F2.8 zooms would have never left the house, I have some contractual arrangments at present which means I'lll still be shooting Fuji for most of this year for my Landscape work but for pleasure initially I thought it might be nice to have a Pentax around the house. Not been out in the wild with it as yet but there is no rush, found it hard to put down around the house though, trying to re-learn all I have totally forgotten about DSLR's, it's a totally different world to CSC shooting, If I'm going to be honest here, I could care less about any restructuring, cost benefit analysis or whatever Mr Yamashita puts Ricoh Jpn thru, if they continue to make products as beautifully screwed together as the KP is, I'm in, if they fold I may yet just buy a K1 to go with it and live happy ever after...
As an aside I tried a D7500 that a Nikon Rep I know was hiding under his jacket the other day, yep it's all whizz bang and all of that but it's like a black plastic bar of soap compared to a KP.
Consumerist B@$t7rd children of sheep born in a petri dish, consumed by sheep who in turn meet their fate like sheep.... Meh
Cheers Jules...

My viewfinder is 576,000,000 pixels.
My other viewfinder is 5.76,000,000.

www.exaggeratedperspectives.com
Edited by jules: 12/04/2017 - 19:54
stu62
Posted 12/04/2017 - 21:19 Link
was it called dolly jules
jules
Posted 12/04/2017 - 22:10 Link
stu62 wrote:
was it called dolly jules

Aye Dolly the D7500, just like Dolly the D7200 and Dolly the D7100 and Dolly the D7000...........
Cheers Jules...

My viewfinder is 576,000,000 pixels.
My other viewfinder is 5.76,000,000.

www.exaggeratedperspectives.com
Edited by jules: 12/04/2017 - 22:11
RobL
Posted 12/04/2017 - 23:14 Link
The seed of this rumour is found in Ricoh's quarterly financial report which shows a reduction in forecast operating profit from 40 to 30 thousand million yen (!); the net sales forecast remains the same at 2 million million yen (!!). This is attributed to the digital camera business and is described in accountancy-speak as a 10 thousand million yen loss against the earlier forecast. To summarise, sales have been as predicted but this has yielded less profit than expected. There are a number of factors which can cause this but it is reassuring that sale numbers are on track. If the profit margin on cameras (and lenses) is less than expected then that could partly explain the recent price hikes.

I suspect there are those who mischievously start rumours with alterior
motives which are fanned by the 'no smoke without fire' philosophy; rival manufacturers perhaps? A financier hoping for a quick payback on the share price? (It went up 4 yen by the way).
Edited by RobL: 12/04/2017 - 23:17
jules
Posted 13/04/2017 - 04:44 Link
Decided to take time out to read the financials myself Rob and was sorely disappointed to read my recent 3K (Value) investment did not make me CEO!
Isn't there something in there about the move to automotive camera tech for one factory, so they've had to shuffle production around the rest to leave one facility for this purpose alone? Then there was some kind of write down maneuver which pretty much accounted for the ten billion yen loss in profit?
I admit I could have dreamt that!
Cheers Jules...

My viewfinder is 576,000,000 pixels.
My other viewfinder is 5.76,000,000.

www.exaggeratedperspectives.com
RobL
Posted 13/04/2017 - 08:21 Link
Sorry Jules, at my annual review with the accountant my eyes glaze over after five minutes so not much help on the details. The medium format range has been a bit quiet recently, Pentax pioneered this format for DSLR type bodies and it has been very successful for them, but others are moving into the same field. I wonder if this is where the next big release will be, given the comments issued by Ricoh?
jules
Posted 13/04/2017 - 11:01 Link
Gwyn wrote:
Interesting sit Bill. SRS are seriously more expensive for a K3II than WEX I see. WEX don't deliver abroad though. Not that I have the money any more - son needed emergency repairs to his motorbike, so there went my new camera funds.

Try this lot Gwyn, they may ship over to you but I don't know that for certain...

https://www.cliftoncameras.co.uk/pentax-k-3-ii-digital-slr-camera-body---black
Cheers Jules...

My viewfinder is 576,000,000 pixels.
My other viewfinder is 5.76,000,000.

www.exaggeratedperspectives.com
JAK
Posted 13/04/2017 - 11:32 Link
RobL wrote:
Sorry Jules, at my annual review with the accountant my eyes glaze over after five minutes so not much help on the details. The medium format range has been a bit quiet recently, Pentax pioneered this format for DSLR type bodies and it has been very successful for them, but others are moving into the same field. I wonder if this is where the next big release will be, given the comments issued by Ricoh?

This time last year there was talk of a 100mp 645 to compete with Phase One's similar offering. Given the development time perhaps its getting close now.
Imagine a 100mp sensor with pixel shift resolution!
John K
Edited by JAK: 13/04/2017 - 11:34
Posted 13/04/2017 - 12:14 Link
JAK wrote:
RobL wrote:
Sorry Jules, at my annual review with the accountant my eyes glaze over after five minutes so not much help on the details. The medium format range has been a bit quiet recently, Pentax pioneered this format for DSLR type bodies and it has been very successful for them, but others are moving into the same field. I wonder if this is where the next big release will be, given the comments issued by Ricoh?

This time last year there was talk of a 100mp 645 to compete with Phase One's similar offering. Given the development time perhaps its getting close now.
Imagine a 100mp sensor with pixel shift resolution!

And imagine the computer needed to do any processing!

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