It would be satisfying to have an explanation from Pentax UK that is as informative as the one the US has had.

Different methods are being used in line with different country's laws, but the overall effect is that Pentax are seeking to ensure their lenses are sold at a higher price....BUT....

I get the impression that there are still a lot of lenses still for sale in the UK at lower prices from online retailers, and that the variations in price are almost absurd.

(Perhaps the recent Petrol Panic has given someone ideas???:lol

"PANIC BUY YOUR PENTAX LENSES HERE....."

THIS IS NOT PRICE FIXING, so is not illegal in the UK.

It would only be "price fixing" if Pentax Canon Nikon etc. GOT TOGETHER and CONSPIRED TO FIX PRICES on comparable goods in their ranges.

This unilateral action by Pentax is quite legal in the UK as in other countries.

I love a Forum!
I think you're "struggling" John X, but I'll let it go...

It's more that "photography" as a whole is being challenged, what is it... how is it done....

Those of us who came it through two dimensional "prints" or projectible "slides" are outdated now that most photography (in the better off world)is digital and viewed on electronic screens.

Photographs are probably imagined or conceived in the same way, but taken differently, processed differently and viewed differently.

Our DSLRs are still 'film camera' shaped as that is what us old fogies are familiar with, they are descended from film SLRs that in turn were born from 35mm film rangefinders with a mirror box and prism stuck on, and the film rangefinder was only Oskar Barnack's most basic way of putting cine film in a box with a lens on....there is no intrinsic superiority in the type!

People on this and other forums yearn for a "Full Frame" Pentax where the sensor is 35mm film size and shape....while technology makes that a less and less relevant concept, Pentax already make the 645D a vastly superior quality image taker to any "Full Frame" concept camera, but still the hankering back to 'film' standards and concepts........

OK...I use a DSLR, and mostly use the viewfinder (though Live View is very useful at times) ... but I can see it being relegated to the shelf with my Leica M3, Pentax MX, dial up modem, my fountain pen and writing pad........

I suspect that smaller sensor, mirrorless, prismless, large touchscreen 'smart' cameras might be the future.

...And they might be yellow..........!

A DSLR is almost a universal camera, giving photographers who want it a huge degree of control over how an image is recorded and processed. You can switch to live view and see it on a screen, you can vary the extra information ON that screen, you can use the optical or electronic eye level viewfinder, you might even be able to swap viewfinder screens for specific purposes, you can better choose different lenses for specific image creation or acquisition, and get all sorts of results you cant really get with a mobile phone......

BUT how many users or DSLRs are there who leave it on 'auto everything' or 'program' and use it pretty much like a mobile phone camera or compact??

I think anything that records an image that is rewarding to look at is "A Good Thing"... (I have seen some lovely images from Holga/Lomo fans from outdated film and plastic lenses......)

SO why isn't there a PENTAX camera phone??

Ah! You have fallen into my trap, Ha Ha!!! Well before the miniature cameras (35mm) became universally popular in the last century, professional and keen amateurs used view cameras which were, to all intents and purposes view SCREENS, not optical viewfinders. This even continued with the earliest 35mm SLRs which came with waist level SCREENS, as did the Rolleiflex and similar TLRs. Much of the most admired photography of the 20th century was made on a screen, not through a viewfinder. Think Ansel Adams and onwards from there....

Most of the pre-photographic images...Paintings....were made directly onto canvas...a large "screen" not squinted at through an optical viewfinder.....

It was the small size of the negative area which led to optical magnifiers, and then eyelevel prism corrected or Galilean viewfinders.

Have you SEEN the huge bright, clear, high resolution screens on the modern phones? It is a classic high quality image viewing screen that makes framing an image a practical and uncomplicated matter. (I expect some bright spark has created a "phone APP" to show the Rule of Thirds and the Golden mean!)

Old grumpies like us who are just "hooked on the habit" of eyelevel optical viewfinders may well be headed for the junkpile of history!

Oh, and being able to make a good picture will always be "cool"...

I think that most of the photographs taken in the developed world now are composed by viewing on a screen rather than a viewfinder, on mobile phones and compact digital cameras... major manufacturers have dropped viewfinders from their compacts, and there is a definite movement in favour of mirrorless cameras.

I have had young people look through the viewfinder of my K-5 and assume it is some weird old fashioned camera!

For the next generation of photographers, real viewfinders might be some unwanted leftover from the past, mirrors and prisms some weird old tech from the 1950s!

When I was young, old chaps often told me "..the camera is just a light tight box for the film (sensor now) and is far less important than the lens, eye and mind of the photographer"

It strikes me that many (most) people on this forum are 'of an age' to have grown up with film SLRs, (same as their parents might have grown up with rangefinder/viewfinder cameras) so we MIGHT be old fashioned, old fogeys.. (I'm 57 and still keep a MX, Spotmatic and an ES that I sometimes run a film through).. I understand where people are coming from wanting a "digital MX" etc. BUT I strongly suspect that the K-01 IS the "Digital MX" but right for today's generation.

We'll have to wait and see how it does.

HMMMM will be good for the used market and the already competitive Sigma, Tamron etc...

..and older Pentax/Takumar glass on a certain Internet Auction site.....

We live in interesting times!

I noticed a similar debate going on in the US, their prices got put up a bit sooner than ours did, with howls or protest over there as well.

This would seem to be a world wide issue, and a simple explanation from Ricoh Pentax would be nice....

It's an Industry Award, not a specific camera/photographic award....I think there are quite a lot of them going around!

Much more important is whether it has caught the attention of the camera buying public?

Anyone know how well (or not!) it's selling??

If you were "starting out now" you would probably have a £60 digital compact! (and no film or developing costs these days)