Where next for K5 pricing?

The K5 price changes tomorrow as the VAT increase takes effect and the "closing date" for cashback purchases is 15th January.

For a K5 body costing £979 today (£899 after cashback), this will become £1000 after 15th January.

What do you think the next price move will be from Pentax and when?

How did the K7 change last year after the cashback finished?


I did think a bit about a K5 for £979(£899) but I am not doing much photography at the moment (weather/time of year) and didn't know what I would do with my K10D if I took the plunge.

I have handled a K5 a couple of times and it feels a bit like my Fuji S5500 compact with hands getting in the way of each other unlike with the clunky K10D body + 16-45.

Regards

The price will go down. It always does for this sort of technology.

I would rather not have paid £899 for one (I bought both my K20D and K10D 2nd hand for, at the time, about £500 and £200 respectively ), but I couldn't wait and sold some stuff on Ebay to fund it.

Use it as a 2nd body? On shoots I used to miss too many shots while changing lenses, so now I carry two bodies, usually with a long telephoto on one and either a wide or normal on the other.

Definitely heading downwards - hope so as I'm looking to get one in a month or two.

I always look at cashback deals as a hint that it's overpriced in the first place !!

Simon

But how fast? The price is only lower in teh UK than everywhere else due to the cashback - other than that it's consistent pretty much across the planet....

Bret

Here's a graph showing the K-7 price curve (Holland). It might foreshadow what you might expect with the K-5.




Am I channelling Stefan....

I agree with you all, that the price will inevitably go downwards.

I think Simon is spot-on with his comment about the cashback showing over pricing. A high starting price is probably a crude way of managing demand until the product hits the shops in full supply.

In an e-mail from Warehouse Express today, the similar Nikon D7000 (post VAT increase) is listed at £999.

With factors like that in mind and that everyone is tightening their belts after Christmas, I was really wondering how long before a price cut to a settled level?

the average dropped by around €200 on that score over a complete year, so 20%. That's also clean of exchange rate issues.

Drop? It went back up after the end of cashback and didn't reach the same levels as cashback for another three months, dipping below only six months later. Prepared to wait?

Bret

I paid full price for mine as a very early adopter. OK it went back due to the sensor problem but I happily paid the price for it to have it now rather than wait for some price drop which may or may not happen.

If you wait long enough the next model will be announced and you can wait for the price to drop on that one instead.

As my Avatar WTD says - My other camera is in the catalogue.

I think the K-7 has dropped a lot quicker than it should have done and that is down to the fact it wasn't that great an upgrade for the majority of users, especially those with the K20D.

The K-5 is something different altogether and I honestly think Pentax are going to be hard pressed to improve it that much .. I still think it is lacking in the AF department but everything else is just about spot on. Bearing this in mind I think it could be as long as 2 years before we see a new crop body .. infact I think we may well see a FF next.

Fot these reasons I don't see the K-5 slipping as fast as the K-7 .. not while they can sell all that they are currently making.

I thought the K-7's price decline was interminably slow! Or at least that's how it felt at them time... The K20d dropped relatively quickly before settling out. link

I agree it's hard to see what improvements could erode interest in the K-5 from the point of view of existing Pentax users. There will come a point when Pentax need to re-price the K-5 against other interesting models from Canikon though.... and for all it's benefits, the Pentax system does struggle against the big two in certain aspects. On paper, at least...

I have been watching the 7D price since it was released 15 months ago.

It went from £1700 in September 09 to £1200 in November 09. 13 months later it is still sitting at that amount.

The K-7 came out about 2 months before the 7D and is now half it's original price.

Soooo .. either Canon cameras hold their price very well or the K-7 dropped quicker than it should have.

I can see the K-5 keeping pace with the D7000.

Well as someone who shoots in the dark and wide, the "old" D3S still beats the K5... and there's a new model widely-expected to come-out later this year which has been trailed as being even better... add-in all the issues there's been already with the K5 - and problems with AF under tungsten would be a nightmare for me (if there's an issue there, I'd would absolutely hit it...)... so I'm still sat on the fence, and happy to wait to see if the price drops whilst I muse further! I suspect the short-supply issue is not going to last much longer in Europe anyway.

You are comparing a £3500 FX camera with a £1000 crop, age makes no difference in this scenario,

The widely expected new model is going to be how much?

If you can afford the Nikon then for the life of me I can't see why you are even considering a K-5 as it will never compete when shooting in the dark

But it is a lot smaller and lighter which is an important isssue for many of us.

I quite agree but its pretty useless having a smaller lighter camera if it doesn't do what you need.

The K-5 is good but it's not 3.5k worth of shoot in the dark FF camera good. That's why a few people on here run both Pentax and Nikon.