Where will Pentax be in Two Years Time?

In the past few months there have been some rather exciting developments. The technology is moving at an incredibly fast pace. Where will we be in two years and what will be the standard resolution for the masses using DSLR's. What will be at the forefront and who will be setting new precedents.

Here is my prediction. The standard base level Pentax will be 12 mega pixels. It will have a range of 100 to 3200 iso and will have built in SR, sensor cleaning and image view as well as other novel features like high speed bluetooth and infra red tether support. The next step up will be the equivalent of the K10D and will have a native resolution of 12.8 mega pixels on a 1.25 ratio sensor. It will have a range of 50-6400 iso and will feature a new highly evolved SR system that will allow for a true 4 stops of shake reduction as well as Pan SR. It will also have an improved sensor cleaning system as well as high speed Bluetooth capability and infra red tether support. It will shoot at 6 fps and be able to shoot a full 2 gig card without needing to re-buffer. It will allow up to 30 Raw images to be shot in rapid fire.

Pentax will not yet have released their FF sensor dslr, but rumors will abound about the eventual release of their 22 megapixel FF DSLR.

The new 645D will have evolved to the 645D Mkll with a 45 megapixel sensor.

That is my take. Now that it is written in concrete let's see how close I am to this prediction in two years..

Ben

It would be nice if someone could convince Pentax to re-introduce the x-sync socket while they are about it. I'm a wholehearted advocate of the sensor cleaner, shake reduction, and all the other useful innovations, but adding a little x-sync socket surely wouldn't give the designers and engineers more than they could cope with. They managed it with the *istD. I'd much prefer that to sticking an adaptor on the hotshoe. Obviously I can stagger on without, but Pentax usually think things through very well - particularly on their high-end models.

That was my very first observation when embarking on my sponsorship. Pentax France agreed with me and said they were also aware of this issue and said it would be addressed in the future. Being hardware based, an X-Sync socket would have to be added in a newer version hardware support.

Where will Pentax be in two years? Same place but probably called "Hoya"!

I emphatically doubt that...

so do I, I can't see them dropping the Pentax brand name. Particularly since Hoya haven't seen fit to dump the brand names of any of the other companies they own.

It is possible that where the labels on the bottom of old Pentax cameras used to say "Asahi Optical company" they will in future say "Hoya Pentax" or something similar, but I will be very surprised if the name on the Pentaprism housing changes.

I would like to see the megapixel race level out for a bit at about 12MP and some real work on eradicating noise. ISO 3200 usable straight from the camera without sacrificing detail would tempt me to upgrade. Other than that I honestly can't imagine an improvement a future K10D replacement could offer me.

I also wondered at the exclusion of the sync socket, but comparing the price and specs of the istD and the K10D and then comparing the initial prices of these two models its easy to see that Pentax have excluded stuff just to keep the cost down. its not just a matter of an extra hole in the body and a few wires, it would also have been one more hole to weatherseal.

I think one thing's for certain: In two years' time, Pentax still won't have released the 645D. And by then, it will probably be a 64MP camera!!!

Thank you Ben. We're very lucky to have someone of your standing to speak to pentax about things like this.

Best wishes.

Would that be on the K1D then ?

I think that the K20D will have the same shape as K10D but will be covered in soft, tactile polyvynyl coating which moulds itself to the users hand. This will be avialable in a range of colours, the pink will be particularly popular.

The camera will have vastly more modes than the simple k10,.....the picture modes will include 'snappy mode', 'sparkle mode' 'golden glow mode', 'moonlight mode', 'bling mode', 'rose tint mode', 'iced highlights mode'.....

Photoshop Elements will be built in and the camera will have unique 'plug-ins' which will include 'sun tan' to modify any human faces to a deep tan,...'eye enhance' to place highlights into any eyes,..the shapes of highlight will be selecatable from a list of 10,.....'smiley' will automatically morph any face which is straight into a full smile,....'rainbow' will add a broad band of colours to any landscapes shot with the camera and there will be the facilty to make all skys a deeper blue and any grass much greener,...cloud files in the on board memory will supply 'fluffy' or 'billowy' additions to any landscape shots and a selection of farm animals will be there to add foreground interest as needed.

'Lifestyle' improvements will be available such as a selection of cartoon characters to add to any family groups,...all of the worlds tourist landmarks will be available in the cameras memory to superimpose a full length portrait onto,....so, you will be able to stand your wifes sister in front of the Eifel Tower without having to go anywhere near paris.

The 'Slimming filter' will be developed to add 'youthful', 'taller' and 'full-bosom' facilities.

There will be full 'print and publish' facilities including a selection of borders including holly leaves, veteran cars, sailing boats, bloodhounds with droopy faces, musical notes, sea shell selection.......

There will be several quick captions available in two dozen fonts to add in corners of shots, with messages such as "Happy Birthday"..."Yo Ho Ho from Santa" and of course, "congrats"....

The camera will have a completely plastic lens mount and a plastic viewfinder prism but shutter speeds will be extended to 1 / 250,000 of a sec. and there will also be provision to hold up to 150 Mp3's....web browsing will be possible using the 5 inch LCD.

viewfinder, if half of that comes to pass I will agree with you that the K20D is needlessly complex and full of gimmicks.

Also, I wont buy one, and I have my doubts that anyone else here will either.

viewfinder,
I sincerely hope that was meant to be tongue-in-cheek and not sarcasm...

If you want to slate Pentax then you'll get a better response from other forums - generally this forum is a great help to those who are interested in learning more, and finding out how to use their Pentax gear more fully.

Can we please keep it that way??

Matt

I rather like the Idea of adding text and borders to images in camera.
even better if pentax allowed me to load a gif, with my logo/copyright stamp into a special folder on the memory card so I can superimpose it for picbridge/direct to printer printing.

After my initial "I don't care, I'm sure my K10D will still be serving me well" I thought a bit more about this.

The K10D allows one user defined combination of shooting and post-processing options. As more in-camera processing becomes possible I can see people creating more complex user-defined settings, skins if you like. Things like facial recognition software and post-processing options will make these much more than just a combination of exposure and processing parameters and more advanced than the scene modes you get on most compacts. Then I expect it to become possible to extract these from a camera and share them on the web, or just download new ones from the camera manufacturers' websites.

Instead of borrowing peoples photoshop techniques and trying our own arty processing, we'll be able to download other people's "skins" and take our own photographs using them.

I'm not saying I want anything like this, I'm just trying to guess what may happen.