[chris-p]

Sorry to barge in...

I think Pentax are suffering from a lack of direction. They compete OK in the compact market and the produce some of the best DSLRs around but they've no market strategy - which is thanks to Hoya. I look at it this way...

Canon are the biggest. Everyone knows about Canon. I'm fairly convinced that all those people who wander into Jessops on a Saturday thinking they're the next Cartier-Bresson automatically choose Canon because they know the name, the stands are huge and the sales people push them that way.

Nikon are "techy". If you're into your gadgets, or your technology or you just don't want to go with the "obvious" biggest brand, Nikon are the obvious choice. Old name, everyone knows them blah blah blah.

Olympus are seen as innovators. They may not shift as many units as Cankon or have the pedigree of Leica, but the public opinion is that they're the company pushing boundaries. The general camera buying populace don't know (or care) about Fujis EXR pixel binning technology, Sigmas Foveon sensors, 14 bit A/D conversions, refined signal:noise ratios or anything else. Olympus invented the "EVIL" camera. Thats simple.

Sony are selling because they're putting astronomical amounts of money into their advertising and they've developed (very quickly) an effing huge range of cameras. The public neither know, nor care, about the Minolta heritage but it's important. It means Sony could use their marketing skills and electronics know how (they've made Nikons sensors for bloomin' years) to saturate the market and steal sales from Cankon.

But Pentax haven't done any of that. They've struggled to make an impact as they're not producing a ridiculously large range of cameras and they're not quite keeping up with Cankon when it comes to the pointlessly high ISO/low noise tests which, right or wrong, is something that every single person on these forums seems to worry about and what gets the headlines. They're not pushing the technology, they're not advertising very hard and they're not drawing in new customers.

It's a crying shame as they make some brilliant cameras with some genuinely useful features you just don't see elsewhere (sensitivity priority for example). Pentax are doing well in the medical field which is where Hoya are concentrating their efforts but it would be a real shame to see them disappear from the consumer camera market.

Pentax don’t have a market persona. The consumer public don’t know about them because, while every Tom, **** and Harry knows they exist, there are many more companies than there once were. All the electronics manufacturers are making cameras now and, with their huge budgets and massive adverts, Pentax simply aren’t competing. Thomas, Richard and Harry have forgotten about Pentax.

The K-5 is a great looking camera. It’s well specified, bound to have excellent build quality and really ought to be a competitor for the Cankon D7000/7D range. But it won’t be because Hoya won’t push it hard enough.

Edit: Hehe - seems even Mods get edited when we type the shortened form of Richard...