Pentax Ricoh discontinues K-01 K-mount mirrorless camera

Pentax really got it wrong with the K1; - (darned shame though, as it cost them a good few quid to bring it to market). The design alone would suggest that it's designer; (Marc Newson) is a designer of basic/low cost outhouses or beach huts.

I'm sure it's a fine piece of photographic equipment, with a good heart, natural maternal instincts, compassionate, etc..., but the shallow ones in the group, such as myself, will never give her a chance because SHE'S BUTT UGLY!!!

Hahahaha...Just having fun, but really...the b!tch is ugly, man.

Crucify me....

http://steevemarcoux2.com/2013/02/17/pentax-k-01-one-year-with-the-brick/

I think a lot of people that don't like the k-01 haven't used one or held one. The design has really grown on me. I don't own one personally, but if I had $300 laying around I'd buy one tomorrow. This is a camera that has won awards and was one of the most talked about cameras in 2012. It was a total failure, sure, but I think that there wasn't enough to make the system initially appealing. A fast zoom lens that recessed into the body would have been a nice demonstrator. The price was also far too high initially. I've used my k-5 in live view to get a feel for what using a k-01 would be like and found it lacking personally. I never liked any of the point and shoots either for that reason, but I did make them work. On a tripod this would be perfectly fine though as I always use live view. An evf, even on the hotshoe would make this a lot more attractive.....wait for version 2. It will come one day.

What is with all the anger here? Some of you act like the K-01 was somehow single handedly destroying photography. At least half the posters here have never laid a finger on a K-01 or seen it in person. How the heck do you know ANYTHING about this camera? Goodness let it go! And dont pretend that this is the first discontinued camera ever. Goodness you cant swing a dead cat an not hit a Panasonic or Olympus M43 on clearance 9 months after introduction.

Pentax did well with this camera. Design is a matter of preference and ergonomics partially a matter of holding style and hand size. I own a K-01 and I can say with confidence that it is a superb camera. Pentax has updated its firmware and the AF speed & low light AF issues have been resolved.

If you have never used one, especially after its phenomenal price reduction, you're simply missing out. I have used and owned a large number of Pentax DSLRs and currently the only Pentax K-mount body I prefer to use is K-01. Personally, I love its design and -with a light/compact lens- the ergonomics are very sufficient.

For most, cameras are toys not tools...especially in this class. Who wants an ugly toy? This thing looks like water will squirt out of the lens when you depress the shutter button.

it is disappointed to see many who are happy K01 is done has never ever use one and i wonder what is the value for those comments. i will be glad to see someone come up here and share all the nonsense being a K01 owner, that's constructive! well, anyone?

all camera got pros and cons. many pretty looking camera give BS pictures. K01 may be ugly but it gives beautiful pictures!!

yes, i am a fanboy, camera fanboy, i shot many systems as habit and learning so you can save your Pentax fanboy comment just in case. write something more constructive, please.

wish your pretty or "mirrorless must be this and that" camera gives you pretty pictures as a successful camera should be.

personal opinion only.

happy shooting.

Had they designed it in the form of an LX or other historical Pentax film camera, I doubt it would have flopped nearly as hard.

The canons-nikons have had their own flops and their own manufacturing defects. There were light leaks on one of the canon dslr's, and the nikon V2 looks like marc newson could have given it some badly needed design help (same with entire PS G15 line and the NEX's, as far as I'm concerned). Disagree that K-01 is in any way ungainly in the hand. It lends itself to a solid grip and thus better view-screen shooting than anything I've handled. Big enough for a good, long-lasting battery in common with my K-7 and K-5. And rubbish to all the noise about the rubber SD card flap. It's fine. Intuitive menus, great feel to the buttons and dials and the pop-up. Maybe you need to own one to know it, but the K-01 is a solid camera capable of great images, and I didn't need to buy a single lens for it.

Simple cause of death: it makes no sense to own a mirrorless camera with a SLR's register distance. If the lenses and camera body are no smaller for a given sensor size, then just buy the SLR. It will focus faster and its viewfinder will work better. Pentax tried to cheap out of designing new lenses for a new mount and got exactly the reception they deserved.

IMO the design was fine. Odd but it got people talking. The real problem was that the system as designed had no technical reason to exist.

I liken the design to the Volkswagon Beetle.

Obviously not to everyone's taste who would prefer a small sleek Porsche or big black SUV etc instead. But to those it does appeal to it will become a cult classic, if it hasn't already.

If Newson did anything, he at least got people in the photography world talking, particularly the conservative old bags. It's different, no VF, not really that compact..yet it takes pics with outstanding IQ.

Id like an EVF option, inbuilt, in ko2 and they will sell them. There is a great and acheivable product design in ko2 just by reading commebts of this thread. First company to directly use mirrorless tech to support native brand lensmount. Bad start but we all saw this cameras demise on the horizon. Thats not to say a few revisions and we would have a solid product. Pentax is brining the fight to cost/benefit APSC - DONT RETREAT!

If Pentax ever releases a K-02, they don't need to come up with some ground-breaking k-01 or GXR type configuration. Just stick in the awesome K-5 II sensor with 14-bit color and it will give the X-Pro 1 and NEX-7 a run for its money.

I really liked the design. the image qualitiy was very very good for this class and for anyone with pentax lenses this would have been a great option to go mirrorless or have a second body. I was astonished how many people complained about the looks, almost everybody here as it would be a hasselblad lunar. Pentax should make a Ko2 with more manual control, faster foucus, 24mp, and slightly less bulkier looks...

Update the FW to 1.02, and you'll find the AF comments would be different. Not amazing by many standards, but impressively better. Still, owners can determine how it works best for them, and non-owners will move blissfully forward. The closeout prices are amazing for a camera using the 16Mpix Sony sensor, that's what put one in my bag.

I could get one of the "Look at how ugly I am" yellow ones and use it for target practice at 1,000 yards. Maybe post the video. I'll wait till I see it in the bargain basket at the dollar store.

Maybe it would look better covered in a roll of duct tape. That might contain the ugly.

It's becoming a collectors' item, get one while the supply lasts!

It is amazing how much fuzz there is about the ending off the K-01. Most camera's go down easy, so all this fuzz is about something special!

I just love that 40mm/F2.8 lens in the picture. From the looks of it, lens weights 80 grams, 5 grams of which is actually glass.

Thank goodness. Even people that have never used a camera were apologizing for this thing.

Memo to all companies who pretend to "redefine" the mirrorless market:
the market is micro-4:3rd. Full stop.
Don't waste any more time with "parallel streams" and other such marketing devices to make you waste money and resources.
And FIRE the nincompoops who keep telling you to "redefine" the market!
No? OK, keep running to the edge of the abyss...

I think it`s a shame, at the studio comparison tool, the IQ is one of the best I have ever seen.
There is no need to complaint about the design, just buy something else, IMO I think it could bring some new ideas to the manufacturers... They are so short minded nowadays that all we see is some vintage designs coming back, where is the creativity?

Reading these comments it seems that I am largely alone in my opinion of this camera; I think it's a great camera and it's a shame it's being discontinued. I too thought that the design was ugly when I first saw the press releases on this site last year, but I still wanted one because it was a cheap way to get into the K-mount and the quality of the sensor was on par with the K-5. After I recieved the camera and held it in my hands I began to appreciate the design and the high quality construction. I liked it so much I bought another one because I new that the camera would soon be discontinued. I bought my K-01's 3 weeks ago, so I was able to take advantage of the low price they sell for now. I hope that Pentax continues with this concept but the next camera in this line should have vast improvements to autofocus, ergonomy, and an EVF should be added.

I hardly think the K-01 failed because most people care more about how a camera *looks* than the images it produces. People who think that way are more interested in bling than photography. Any self respecting photographer would prefer K-01 IQ to anything m43.

IMO the K-01 didn't succeed because Pentax missed the point of why people want a mirrorless camera--which should be smaller and lighter than a DSLR. Sony succeeded with the NEX because they put a very good sensor in a small light weight body, that retained a VF and included a flip out screen. But that also entailed a whole new line of *lighter* lenses to keep the weight down.

Entirely predictable, a concept so FUBAR it defies belief that anyone thought it could work. A large mirrorless camera with no evf, slow af and brightly coloured lights. Great for the Manga teens but if anyone had actually asked any semi serious photographer whether they would be seen dead with it then they would have had their answer, and saved themselves an awful lot of money.
Sorry Pentax lovers but there is a lot more to a camera than having a nice sensor and pretty coloured lights. Please don't tell me I'm a design dinosaur who "doesn't get it", I laughed at it when it was released and I'm laughing now, a classic case of "The emperors new clothes" I'm afraid. If you want to do something radical at least ensure that you include the advantages of the chosen format and make it functional. Two of the biggest advantages were missing - size and evf, epic fail.....

It just looks like a toy. It may be great for photographs but that is not always what determines how well it will sell.

I guess the Execs at Pentax didn't get the Joke either.

about time

Here's proof that while it should be what's on the inside that counts....we're all still hung up on how a camera looks on the outside. This K1 is ugly...and that's why it didn't sell.

It is just a toy, who cares its existence.

I can't wait to pick this up for pennies and get paid for the images it produces! ;)

Absolutely nothing wrong with this camera at all. I highly recommend picking one up discounted before they vanish. It is a great quality, great results, feels good in the hand and is a solid camera. It is not a DSLR or a pocket camera. Who cares about no viewfinder? The fact that it is discontinued does not mean failure. Some of the biggest and most successful companies have discontinued products and they have done quite well. Kudos to Pentax for trying new designs and concepts. In Japan, the K-01 is seen often on the streets but the Western world has been brainwashed into worshipping all things Canon and Nikon--both flawed camera producers with their own list of failures.

Buh-bye, Marc Newson brick. The time I tested a K-01, I found it to be heavy, awkward and ungainly in the hand. It felt much less enjoyable to use than competing models from Samsung and especially Panasonic, and even worse than some of Pentax's own entry level dSLRs from a few years ago (see the K-m).

If Pentax is looking for a niche to fill, here's one field entirely to themselves: a truly affordable, prosumer friendly medium format system priced in the $4k range for body and lens. I'd love to bump up to the 645D but the price with a couple of useful lenses would get me a new Kia Rio. Integrate the sensor (32MP or so), license Sony's translucent mirror technology for faster operating, throw in the sharpest OLED viewer available, and Pentax might find thousands of grateful pro shooter rushng to the camera. Just an idea, of course, but lower level consumer camera fields are pretty much played out. (Even a d-medium format rangefinder would be welcome...a la Mamiya 7D, for instance.)

Yeah... I remember that... they actually hired a "designer" for this ugly toy-camera-like thing!

Sad but I felt it was doomed from the start. I hope Pentax did not lose too much money with this K-01. For my part, it was a "hate at first sight" for that camera, but at least was it a nice try to propose something different. I hope that this unfortunate attempt won't prevent camera makers from taking some risks in the future...

great ideas come from some bad ones or so called bad ones and lessons are learnt but only when you put something into production do you realize it was perhaps not the best thing to do...but you take risks and sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. good on pentax for sticking their neck out.

There can only be one!
Hassy is the Highlander of ugly.

Thank God that idea has been scrapped now take a leaf out of fuji's design book, I for one would love to see a Pentax K mount designed like an old ME/ME Super. Sepically with all those lovely Ltd lens. Thats what the K-01 should of been nor a stupid designer piece of rubbish.