[wim]

I obviously see they're not stagnating, and it's very visible on my bank account. The FF K-1, the new lenses? How can you ignore those?

 

The FA lenses were gradually introduced starting with 1991 (with a few years of advance preparation), and through 2001 - most of them being discontinued in 2004. In more than a decade, by a company which was continuously operating. You're blaming Ricoh Imaging for not building a complete-but-modern lens line in 5 years since they took over? And you call that 'fair'?

 

The problematic SDM lenses we're introduced in 2007, that was even pre-Hoya; and last Pentax SDM lens was introduced in 2008 - how is this Ricoh Imaging's fault? The SDM doesn't need constant usage; that might've been the case for some defective samples.

 

The falsehoods as stated in my previous post remains.

 

"I just got fed up with looking at great lenses I couldn't use on the K mount" - you're doing it again, feel the need to "explain" why you jumped ship. Who cares? Use whatever brand you can be happy with.

Interestingly enough, as I'm going full-frame the lenses I'll miss the most are ones not offered by neither Canon nor Nikon.

 

Actually, you need to read again, I think. The great lenses are the ones that Pentax never made, and for which no K-mount lenses were made availble, i.e., 3rd party lenses.

 

Personally, I stopped shooting with Pentax around 1998, and although I kept all my analog Pentax gear, just before Christmas I finally got rid of all of it, quite a stack of lenses and 3 bodies. I am never going to shoot Pentax again myself, I couldn't wait either.

 

In the 1970s and 1980s Pentax was great, right up there with Canon and Nikon, and Minolta, Olympus, etc. However, after the LX they seemed to invest in consumer cameras only, which IMO was their downfall. Their dslrs, based on the returns a retailer friend of mine had, and stuff I heard from other retailers, was never that great, certainly not in the same league as Canon and Nikon. Most problems were AF related, with any lens, it seemed. This apart from other malfunctions.

 

They brought out the 645D a few years ago, and that was a camera which was very tempting, just that I couldn't afford it, and more recently the K1. Lenswise, they did not really update their range as Canon and Nikon did, or just sold the same lenses from the analog period in new packaging. Although their coatings are very, very good indeed, if not the best, their lenses are IMHO not at the same level as those of other manufacturers, and if it takes Ricoh 5 years to produce anything that is similar to the other manufacturer's products, for me that also was a much too long wait.

 

Great to see some defenders of the Pentax faith, but for me, and several others, it was too little too late, and it still seems to be continuing that way, even though Ricoh appears to put quite an effort in. It'll take years for them to catch up, and personally, I wasn't going to wait around anymore.

 

No need to feel offended, attacked, or being treated unfairly - we all have our opinions, for different reasons.

 

Great to see you are happy with the choices you made, but then, so am I.

 

Kind regards, Wim