New DSLR - Pentax K5

[amk1977]

That's the almost frustrating thing. Pentax have made one of the best APS-C DSLR cameras to date, that virtually no one has heard of. You can't pick up a camera mag lately without there being an "I Am Nikon" advert on the back of it. Its most likely that ad campaign which is responsible for Nikon knocking Canon off the top spot for market share this year. You just don't see the product awareness for Pentax and its a shame and ultimately will lead to their demise. Its all well and good having a superb product but, if its not being promoted, its not going to sell.

I found the Pentax FA 50mm f/1.4 on warehouse express for 450 quid! That is 150 more than the Nikon AF-S and 250 more than the f/1.4D, which is absolutely insane and again does nothing to attract photographers from rival brands. Both Canon and Nikon have the 50mm f/1.8 for 100 pounds or less, which produces fantastic images. Why doesn't Pentax have this?

I hear what your saying about going Sigma or Tamron but again, it almost reflects badly on Pentax that you'd have to go the third party route. If Pentax are to effectively compete with Cankon, they have seriously got to do something about their pricing, advertising and lens availability.

[HinFrance]

Just picked up a random selection of 5 French mags, 1 Nikon, 1 Samsung, 1 Sony and two Sigma ads on the backs.

I'm sure that the Cankon bias is very much a UK/US phenomenon, although these are, of course, very much the markets to be seen in.

It's a shame that Nikon have to go the third party route and get their sensors made by Sony, don't you think?

[amk1977]

Originally Posted by HinFrance

It's a shame that Nikon have to go the third party route and get their sensors made by Sony, don't you think?

Not really, no. I'm sure if you picked apart any DSLR, you'd find a multitude of components from a variety of different manufacturers. More importantly the sensor is a concealed component inside the camera and doesn't have Sony plastered all over it. When the average Joe goes looking to buy a DSLR and looks at a Nikon camera, all they see is the Nikon badge, with a Nikon lens on the front of it. Its the complete package. Branding. Identity. Not "I Am Nikon..... And This Is My Buddy Tamron".

The D7000 with a Nikkor50mm lens will run you £1200 (£1300 for the f/1.4). The K5 with a Pentax 50mm will cost you £1550. That £250 can get you another lens on the Nikon or a flashgun.

My point is that Pentax seem to be pricing themselves out of the market which is madness considering the small amount of market share they already have. The increased competition from the likes of Sony and Panasonic in recent years is only going to encroach upon that share even more. Add to that, the fact the economy is pretty abysmal at the moment and people are tightening their purse strings, Pentax should be pricing their product much more attractively.

Lets face it, most photographers, regardless of which manufacturer makes their camera body, prefer to stick with oem lenses too. Generally 3rd party lenses are the "poor man's" alternative - which is why they are anywhere between £100-£500 cheaper than their OEM counterparts. This again doesn't reflect well for Pentax's overall image, as it appears that consumers are forced to rely on 3rd party lenses to make up the shortfall in Pentax's own.

If Pentax really want to make their product shine, they have to outcompete Nikon and Canon on all fronts. They already have a superb camera body, of that there is no doubt. Now they need a better selection of their own lenses and the whole lot need to be priced below Cankon offerings. This I would love to see, as it would really shake up the market, forcing more competitiveness from the big two and spurring innovation and pushing technology in the market, which results in more bang for the buck to us consumers.

[HinFrance]

I was only teasing.

There is no doubt that Pentax's marketing is utter rubbish. And not having hypersonic motors in the kit lenses must cost sales. But I'm not so sure about the lens issue in general.

The lower priced Cankon lenses may have the expensive brand name on them, but they are often £ for £ inferior to the after market equivalents. It's rarely until you reach the £1000 lenses that the branded offerings can outgun the after market manufacturers. My neighbour is a frequently published (albeit semi-pro) wild life photographer and Canon* user. Only two of his lenses are Canon, the others either Sigma or Tamron - he just gets what is best for the job he wants to do. If I was going to get a replacement f1.4 50mm I wouldn't even look at the Pentax offering - the Sigma is the gold standard here (and on a Pentax or Sony 3/4 stops IS), and £200 cheaper . As you rightly point out, that could buy a flash gun. Or maybe the new f2.4 (?) 35mm for £169.

I couldn't help noticing that the Nikon 50mms don't have any image satbilisation.

Pentax used to do an f1.4 50mm which retailed at about £200, and it was a pretty good lens. I guess they thought it wasn't good enough. Who knows what on earth goes on in their minds? Although they now cost 50% more secondhand . .

None of this matters, however, when 85% of DSLR buyers never buy another lens for their camera. The people on this site are the exception rather than the rule.

I have no crystal ball, but I can see the likes of Panasonic and Sony driving Cankon up market. Lower volumes, higher profits. Pentax are very successful in their home market, the multi coloured K-xs selling by the bucketload. But I wouldn't hazard a guess as to what the camera world will look like in 5 year's time.

*Every time I borrow one of his cameras I end up getting an E06 error code and start panicking

[Mr Bump]

I couldn't agree more with HinFrance's post. In fact, I would go farther and say that the K5 might be a serious competitor to the EOS 7D rather than just the D7000 (gulp).

I think that in many peoples' views Pentax made a big mistake when they seriously hiked the prices of their lens range a couple of years or so ago. Instead they should have concentrated on widening the range to become a viable alternative to Canikon. However, they do offer some superb prime lenses made to very high standards not often seen today and, as HinFrance says, there are plenty of Sigma and other alternatives available to keep cost down not to mention a history of excellent lenses available used at affordable prices - all able to take advantage of the K5's integral shake reduction.

p.s. Jessops - do any serious photo enthusiasts actually go there??? Who cares whether they stock Pentax. They also don't stock Leica

[amk1977]

Absolutely, the K5 looks to be a very serious contender that has the potential to rock Nikon and Canon to the core. This is why I would so dearly love Pentax to make themselves more competitive and attractive. I agree totally with you that not expanding the lens range to become a viable alternative (or even better alternative) to Cankon was a mistake.

I'm looking at buying the Pentax from a non Pentax owner's perspective. What would Pentax have to do to make me want to sell my camera and lenses and jump ship? The K5 certainly looks like a fantasitic camera body but, if the D7000 comes close in its IQ, there isn't much incentive for me as a Nikonian to cross to the Pentax. Doing so would mean selling all the lenses, flash and other sundry items at a loss and replacing them with Pentax equivalents, which is a further expense. Also my little 50mm f/1.8 only cost me £100 new. The Sigma 50mm f/1.4 is £300, £100 more than the Nikon f/1.4D and the same as the AF-S version.

This is the same scenario that a great many photographers will be facing and will most likely prove to be financially unviable for the majority. They may be able to afford the £1100 for the body with funds from the sale of their current one to go towards it, but its the replacement of the lenses which will probably be the deal killer, particularly the pro grade glass.

With regard to Jessops, like them or loathe them (and I'm in the latter since they are part owned by HSBC and I loathe banks even more) they undoubtably account for a great many camera sales in the UK, getting voted the best retailer2010 if I remember rightly. The fact that so many people go there and that Pentax isn't stocked will definately be a major blow to both their product awareness and market share. I know they don't stock Leica but in fairness its like comparing apples and oranges.

Leica are and always have been the Rolls Royce of cameras, with a formidable reputation and price tag to match. They are subsequently positioned in much more of a specialist niche market. Pentax on the other hand, are trying to appeal to the same Amateur/Prosumer markets as the rival ASP-C, Nikon/Canon/Sony/Panasonic/Olympus cameras. The fact that they aren't stocked by Jessops can only be a negative to Pentax, unfortunately.

[Mr Bump]

The reference to Leica was tongue-in-cheek (hence the wink smilie) but, seriously, I am not sure that many enthusiasts with £1,000+ to spend on a camera body would do so in Jessops (I may be wrong). However, you are absolutley right in that those moving to DSLRs from compacts are not likely to take the Pentax route if Pentax compacts are not available on the high street.

Pentax missed their big opportunity when a lot of SLR film camera users were moving to digital. Canikon, and even Sony/Minolta, grasped the opportunity and got customers buying into their systems. Pentax was caught napping and, as you say, most enthusiasts (and pros) are now already locked into systems that are too costly to abandon. I'd really like to see Pentax where they were in the 60s and 70s but the odds are against them - even if they had products that knocked spots off the competition and they tripled their advertising budget to raise their profile.

I can see there being a lot of pressure inside Pentax to move to Micro System Cameras but then they'd be up against competitors with vastly more financial clout. On the other hand, specialising in large format digital camers would probably not be a viable business. What a dilemma.

[amk1977]

I'm always encouraging my dad to shop around online rather than just purchase retail because of the savings to be made but, rightly or wrongly, he's always bought his DSLRs from Jessops. So far thats been the Nikon D60, D70 and D200. He also bought my D90 for me at a cost of £800.

If it'd have been me, I'd have looked for the best deal from a reputable online retailer. Some people though (particularly the older generations who are either PC illiterate or fearful of online transactions) prefer to see what their buying knowing that if there's a problem, they can take it straight back to the acne-faced young man in the shop, who tried to sell them the extended warranty too. I am trying to make him see the light, especially with regard to spending money in Jessops lol.

I agree that Pentax really are in a major dilemma and as Chris mentioned in an earlier post, they are suffering from a lack of direction. If they were to move towards the micro systems in the near future, like Olympus and Panasonic's M4/3 system, they again would be late to the table with their offerings. Consumers would most likely already be locked into their new lens systems and would require a big incentive to once again jump ship.

The only way I can see Pentax making waves rather than going under, is by giving the consumer quality cameras like the K5 but, at a vastly reduced price of the competition, at least short term. While the profit margin per unit may be reduced significantly, the volume of sales would hopefully outway it. More importantly, once consumers were on board, they'd then be locked into a Pentax lens system, which would go a long way to protect its future in the marketplace.

Rather than try to convert photographers away from their current systems, perhaps targeting those moving from compacts to DSLR for the first time will be their their best bet but again, a lot of those people are the ones that walk into the Jessops stores in the big shopping centres, with no Pentax cameras in sight and even if they were to buy a camera mag, they'd be hard pushed to find a Pentax advert in them.

When I was growing up, photography was for anoraks and old fuddy-duddies, in dark rooms with red lights. Now with the internet and the ability to share images across the world, photography has become fashionable and fun. Nikon's latest ad campaign (I Am Nikon) has really brought photography to a wider and younger audience as its been marketed as a hip and trendy thing to do. I honestly couldn't tell you what the latest Pentax campaign has been .

I'd love to see Pentax make a return to their former glory but as you say, the odds are definitely against them. Unless they significantly increase their market share, I wouldn't be surprised if Pentax disappeared in the next decade or so.

[Mr Bump]

Originally Posted by amk1977

brought photography to a wider and younger audience as its been marketed as a hip and trendy thing to do. I honestly couldn't tell you what the latest Pentax campaign has been

I believe that is what Pentax has been trying to do with its wide choice of camera body colours. This has been smirked at on many a forum here but it has worked in Japan. It could work here too if they were a) adequately promoted in magazines (not just photographic magazines) and on tv and b) highly visible on the high street.

Of all the under 30-year-olds I know (and that's quite a lot), every single one has either a digital compact or a camera phone and they all use them constantly for taking snaps to share with friends. However, when asked, it seems that none of them are at all interested in getting any other sort of 'better' camera. They just want something that slips in a pocket or handbag. So to survive perhaps Pentax just needs to concentrate totally on the compact camera market? That would be a shame.

Pentax has been thrown lifelines by Samsung and Hoya but still seems to bumble along. I very much doubt that Minolta would now exist if it had not been taken over by the major worldwide company that Sony is. OK the Minolta name is lost but compatibility has continued in Sony cameras for Minolta fans. With very competent products like the Kr and K5 will Pentax start to look attractive to Sony-sized organisations?

[Eyeayen]

The main trouble I would imagine Pentax have is they are only very small compared to the other manufacturers they are competing against. Sony has a huge backing and it's statement when it started on the DSLR market of wanting to be up there as one of the top 2 or 3 DSLR brands was backed up by constant advertising. As well as this they have also got a full frame camera, this is something Pentax don't have.

When you watch any news item that has a photographer in it snapping at some celeb in a car or at a sports event I almost guarantee the pro will be using either Canon or Nikon, so if you start looking for a camera knowing nothing about the photography scene those names will already be in your head because you've seen them on the news / in the paper / wildlife documentary / in a film. It's free advertising. The fact that both those brands have enough spare cash to 'sponsor' photographers gets even more logo's out there for inclusion in the free advertising I've already mentioned.

On top of that the full frame camera's retail for a large amount of cash, I don't know what the mark up is on camera's but I don't expect them to be making a loss, therefore even more cash is coming in which in turn can be used for advertising and developing new lenses and the tech to make them.

Pentax have none of this, it was very good to see them release the 645 and I hope it does well and generates better revenue for them to put into their other classes, likewise I hope the mulitcoloured bodies also generate enough money for them to put it back into making a full frame DSLR and getting it out there to the pro's or whatever they need to do not to disappear.

The trouble is in general this country is quite narrow minded, I don't know how Pentax fair in the States or the rest of Europe for that matter but I think as has been hinted at above they are being pushed out of the market in this country because most people know Jessops and the fact they aren't stocking them doesn't help things. London Camera Exchange stock them and where I live there is a little photography shop down the road, they're a very small chain, 4 or 5 stores in the local ish area who stock Pentax. Unfortunately they seem more and more to be a fading name and unless all of us go out and start buying them now and keep buying them they will disappear.