Will Pentax cropped DSLR's be dropped?

New rumour: New 24MP Full Frame DSLR and APS-C ILDC are Coming?

link

I do agree with the comment that the K5 may be dropped soon. So that leaves us needing a new flagship.

It will be an interesting new year.

Best regards

This news actually took out my sleepiness. Dammit. LOL

The link you posted is to toxic little ricehigh.
As usual he is just retreading others.
ie http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1036&message=40033351

Pete

That in itself does not negate the rumour though does it.

Best regards

Apparently this is in the Japanese language DC magazine,in an interview with Mr Kitazawa, Head of Pentax R&D. Apparently, the focus is on the 645 though. Now where is my Japanese dictionary......

No.

But the interesting thing about mirrorless is that it potentially greatly reduces the mechanical complexity of cameras and as a consequence some of the engineering obstacles fall away.

As a consequence unit cost should decline quite a bit - even ignoring R&D - offering the potential for better margins/pricing, obviously assuming that the viewfinders are ‘competitive’.

Having said that I would still be surprised if Pentax bring out a FF camera regardless of the presence or absence of a mirror.

To drop cropped format - it wouldn't make any sense now, when Pentax is finally getting some attention after they introduced K-x and K-5. Probably they would build upon this to strenghten their position in APS-C format. With the selection of compact APS-C limiteds, small but advanced bodies I think Pentax have chance to become highly specialized APS-C producer if they build on strenghts of Kx and K5 and improve them in the next models. I doubt they will venture into FF region now...

It did cross my mind something was amiss. K-m, K-x, K-r all released in September of succeeding years and nothing this year.

However the way forward may be to go mirror-less and electronic viewfinder keeping the same sensor size. It is a big change and this might be causing the delays in releasing new cameras, after all they have to get it right.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I think there'll be a few more crop dslrs yet. FF and mirrorless will probably be introduced alongside them in due course if that's where Pentax decides to go. I think a lot is being read into some very 'high level' ideas coming out of Pentax.

The delay in announcing the kr replacement could be partly due to a natural hiatus as Ricoh seize the reigns, and perhaps because of sensor supply issues.