People can’t afford to buy two separate systems.
One for photos and one for video. Too costly.
Consumer demand is for devices that... like smartphones can do both. Equally well.
Companies like canon are hurting because they offer to much diversity in their product lines and every new model winds up cutting into other products sales .
Companies like Fuji Oly and Panasonic are fairing better because they can throw as many features into their products without have to compete or gut sales from another one of their own models or divisions.
Future for d-slrs is going to be a very small number of companies with very limited products and consumers will likely look for “everything but the kitchen sink” feature list...
Because “more megapickles “ to a person who doesn’t want to have to buy a more powerful computer to edit on, isn’t gonna sway the sale as much as “oh it does great video and live streams too?”
link

Pentax missed three very important opportunities with video...
Q, 645d, and k01....
the Q would be a direct competitor to the action cam sector with a few accessories and better video specs go pro competitor with interchangeable lenses.

645d would right up there with Arri, RED and the likes with a 70mmm film equivalent sensor... (arri Alexa 65)

k01 would be a direct competitor with Black Magic Designs but a larger sensor...

in all cases the fact that there competitors out there shooting pro video in each class means Pentax had a chance to gather market share with three models with serious video... they chose to be blind to the market.

agree and would add the following commentary...
there is no doubt the Sony hybrid AF system performs equal (being very generous here becuase I'm pretty sure it's no contest win for Sony) or better than Pentax's af....
the cpu power and memory buffers that make recording 4k video possible would also equal or improve upon Pentax's current file handling speeds and burst shooting modes. you can't argue that 24, 30 and with some models 60 frames per second at 6 k resolution (sony ff mirrorless record at 6k and downsample to 4k) at high bit rates is less taxing than 10 fps stills burst mode.... so any upgrades to video specs won't take away stills capabilities but would would only provide the hardware to improve the current stills capabilities...
kinda win win for everybody to say "make it better"

I'm a filmmaker also.
for low budget and personal work, creative experiments etc I use my own gear.
for bigger productions I use my gear plus I rent anything over and above what I own.
I was a high school yearbook photographer using a Pentax k1000.
I've worked on films and been published in many magazines around the world.
last year I did shots for a film project using a $80,000.00 Red camera rig.
I have used every type of camera in-between.
I recently spent approx $20,000.00 switching from Pentax to Sony Mirrorless.
here's why:
I own three Pentax d-slrs all of them have practically no resale value here in Manitoba Canada
For stills photography there is really NOTHING I can do with the Pentax system that the Sony a7III can't do equally or better (except maybe scientific photos for astrophotography the noise reduction sometimes makes faint or small stars disappear).
but..
I also own some go-pro cameras... almost anything (again there's a physical size difference in the cameras) I shoot with a go-pro the a7III can shoot albeit with some accessories like underwater housing, or a camera rig cage.
I own a drone...
again.. if I rent a bigger drone I can mount an a7III to it.
I have a professional video camera... again... with a cage, external monitor, and a few accessories... anything my pro 4k camcorder can do, the a7III can also do.
I use an iPhone for some shots also again the a7III can do pretty much anything the iPhone can do..
all of the above except the dedicated pro camcorder, goes equally for stills and video.. the Pentax only stills becuase the video specs are unusable really.

in every instance where I can use the sony mirrorless instead of a dedicated camera for the type of shot I'm doing there's usually one or two reasons I might go to the trouble of setting up the a7III over the dedicated camera... and it usually pertains to the need to use specialty lenses or accessories to get a better shot....
my drone doesn't have a power zoom lens for example... the GoPro video quality is limited by the sensor and adding a wider or tele lens adapter might make the video too low quality in low light so for a car action scene at night... the a7III might be the smarter choice to mount to the outside of a car...

now understanding everything I just said... if you could afford only ONE camera system.
and you knew today you might be working on a film set, and tomorrow you might be covering an event and next weekend you might have a wedding... and clients might be asking for video, or stills or both...
what system would you buy?

lastly... if you, like me, had a huge investment in one system, but then found yourself forced to buy into a whole new system becuase one feature, that all the other companies offer pro level specs for, flat out refuses to acknowledge that this feature belongs on a D-slr...

well that $20,000.00 I spent with sony came out of Pentax's pocket, becuase the sale was theirs to lose.
I'd rather have spent that money on Pentax lenses and upgrades to maintain system compatibility than buying thier competitors versions of things I already owned Pentax versions of...

but at least I know with 100% certainty that my sony lenses I buy for the A7III can be used on pro film cameras like the Sony Venice and with adaptors on things like RED and Black Magic designs cameras.

so again... pentax is not only losing sales... they're actually HELPING their competitors by forcing people to switch.

even the Ricoh Theta is losing sales to the Insta360 and go-pro fission/max cameras over video quality.

and oh... I bought two specialty adaptors that let me use ALL my pentax lenses on the a7III and the only thing my Pentax K3 can do that the sony a7III cannot do is... autofocus Pentax lenses becuase there's not enough interest for any third party to make an AF adaptor from Pentax for the sony. but even so, try manually focussing the k3 in low light vs manually focussing a pentax lens on the a7III with evf and focus peaking... so there's still one thing the a7 will win at...

my switch from aps-c to FF involved:
switching brands to Sony mirrorless.
adapting all my legacy FF manual focus lenses for shooting video on the Sony.
one adapter with aperture ring for my aps-c da lenses... adapting my Pentax wr100 for portrait and macro work on the Sony.
setting my k3 kit aside more less to be kept as a back-up camera or studio stills shooting.

The k3 is as nice as It ever was, even if it doesn't get used as much as it should...
no regrets going FF with Sony. the new sony lenses are great, albeit pricey.... but being able to use the old Pentax glass is nice also.
would not recommend the sony if astrophotography is your primary interest.... despite the great low light performance and sharp glass available there is a known software quirk that treats some smaller, fainter stars as dust or noise and it removes them... you can still get great shots, just not accurate enough for astro related work.

I've been lambasted a few times in various venues lol for my perspective on pro video features being a necessity.... for using an iPhone on "Pro" photography and film sets and more...
in my arsenal I have a half dozen cameras each designed for various uses and they all get used.
it's been nearly a year since my old k3 got dusted off... last time Iused it I had a project to shoot over a thousand portraits to create a mosaic shot for a multi cultural non profit organization...
the reason I used it there was simple... I had to shoot studio styled portrait shots from morning to even for several days and the k3 and my ancient but bombproof elinchrom studio strobes were the best tools in my arsonal for that job's specific workflow.... could have done it with my mirrorless sure or the iPhone.... true..
but...
on a tripod, fixed manual focus, all day shooting with the battery grip and two batteries, a well sorted tried and true workflow from set up to post production... it was good to see it getting used.

most people who scoff at things like drones, go pros, iPhones etc on real sets are doing themselves a disservice. they're locking themselves into a mindset that may not see the future... I see a future where d-slrs will not necessarily die completely , after all we still have people shooting film, using large format cameras and glass plates... but they sure as hell aren't "mainstream" or using modern technology and they're few and far between ....

iphone vs pro d-slr shoot-out

a piece of black velvet fabric taped to foam core works.

Manfrotto had spikes with rubber feet combo that you could spin the rubber foot to expose or hide the spikes.
Sacthler tripods and many others have slip on shoes with rubber retaining tabs...
given how many options there are, I say buy a tripod that has both, use whatever works for the job at hand. Having said that... I’ve seldom needed to use spikes. A couple times in mountains and streams for nature hikes and once to convince a would be mugger to depart without my wallet and valuables while doing some night photography in the city...

expodisc was a diffuser lens meant to cover the lens of your camera to use as an incident meter... so I'd imagine the diffuser for an iPhone would be nothing more than a simple piece of white plastic about the thickness and density of a ping pong ball, just a lot smaller.
again... not much better than simply taking a standard meter reading off your hand and then opening up a stop and a half from the reflected reading.

I tried an app for iPhone years ago and tested it side by side against my Polaris light meter, and camera light meter.
my Polaris was one of the cheapest flash meters on the market, but very accurate and reliable over the years. tested against my friends sekonic and accurate to 1/10th of a stop against a light meter that cost three times as much.

I can't remember the app I tried but I remember deleting it. it was rubbish.
I'm not sure what type of shooting you intend to use this with, but I suspect you'd fare better to get a grey card and learn to read your camera histogram to get accurate exposures for most situations....
or a used light meter perhaps.