well one of my collegues wants one, she is a bit crazy though.

I believe you drastically underestimate the level of engineering present in a high quality optical lens.

You're talking about between 5 and 20 pieces of optical grade glass, of absolutely uniform properties (take a close look through an average window sometime, the refractive index/thickness is far from constant). Each piece has to be ground to an exact non-trivial shape with tollerances on the order of microns. Once ground, each lens must be coated with several layers (7 for SMC IIRC, presumably more with Ghostless and SP) of exotic elements, then bonded to its peers in the precise arrangement called for by the optical formula.

TBH I never cease to be amazed that modern lenses can be sold at a profit at all.

If you want to break into the camera market then you want to be selling DSLR bodies. You can have a viable product lineup with just 2 or 3 models, entry level, amateur and pro, but you're going to need glass to go with them or they're no use at all.

Comming to market with high volume production capacity for a full lineup of shiney new lenses is a massive risk. You have to put in huge investment with no certainty of success and if your cameras flop you're up a certain creek. However comming to market with 3 fantastic camera bodies and just a couple of kit lenses is guaranteed failure in a box. No one is going to buy a system camera which doesn't have a system.

So what do you do? you buy an existing but recently dead or dying system. Now you've got an installed base of people using kit you can sell lenses for as your new glass designs come on stream. Maybe you've even got some glass designs in the deal on the dead system. Sure there are some second hand lenses kicking about on ebay but in the grand scheme there aren't that many of them and using them is a pain. The ebay situation actually gives you a stopgap until your real lenses are ready, maybe you are only producing 3 or 4 designs brand new but people can still mount FA, DA and DFA lenses.

If you really feel you don't want people to use old glass, just disable it in firmware. Stop the pre-A lenses working or do a Nikon and make it a premium feature so your lost revenue is offset by people buying top end cameras just so they can use bargain lenses.

Bottom line is, no glass, no system. If you start from scratch you have no glass of your own to speak of and no 3rd party support at all. If you buy up the K mount you have 3rd party Sigma and Tamron glass plus second hand and new-old Pentax glass.


I may or may not be right, but Sony agreed with my way of thinking and they have done fantastically well at it after a somewhat shakey start.

Ben you're a genious, tell us more!

my feeling is that Oggys shot looks like subject movement. I could be wrong, but TBH I'd be disapointed with that level of sharpness from my FA 80-320 so I reckon it must be something other than the lens.

if I had the disposable income I would buy a K7 right now no question.

Particularly in the current economic climate ANY company MAY go under in the next 12 months. If Pentax go under:

1. My camera will still work just fine, even more so if I have just bought a shiney new K7

2. My lenses will still work just fine, and there will still be plenty of lenses available, probably at substantial "going out of buisness" discounts.

3. In all probability someone will buy the remains of the company to get the rights to the K mount. Samsung spring to mind. Even if they aren't interested in Pentax as a going concern, if they have DSLR aspirations then it's much easier to buy a pre-made user base and build it up than to start from scratch. As long as SOMEONE is still making K mount cameras, we still have new cameras to drewl over, new lenses to buy and new people to flog our gear to if we don't like the way the new owners take the system.

I honestly don't think it's worth worrying about.

gotta love the guy with the little umbrella on his hot-shoe. Poor lesser brands with their non-sealed bodies!

I recognise that plane (turbo-beaver?) is that in Vancouver/Victoria?

if they do produce a FF camera, that sensor is a good choice. Keep the resolution at around 14MP and give us big pixels, deeper well depths, more dynamic range and higher sensitivities!

and equivalent to a 400mm on a Pentax crop sensor.

[obi-wan]

Thats no moon!

[/obi-wan]

That front element is nearly 6 inches across!