Price of K-mount glass?

It's hard to predict now where the prices of brand new and used lenses for Pentax go. However would anybody share what happened with lenses prices when Hoya just acquired Pentax a few years ago?
Thank you in advance,
SG

Greyser said:

However would anybody share what happened with lenses prices when Hoya just acquired Pentax a few years ago?

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They went up, partly pretty strongly ;-)

Pentax glass prices went through the roof after the Hostile Hoya take over which has left Pentax all but for dead. Ricoh at least have an interest in the Pentax camera business which Hoya did not and this can only be a good thing. It should result in a dump in lens prices and a raft of new, long called for, glass appearing.

PolarHki said:

PolarHki said:

However would anybody share what happened with lenses prices when Hoya just acquired Pentax a few years ago?

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They went up, partly pretty strongly ;-)

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But everything went up like nuts the past 2-3 years due to crummy exchange rates. Not sure that had anything to with the Hoya purchase. Canon glass is up about 25% in most cases, for example.

tkbslc said:

But everything went up like nuts the past 2-3 years due to crummy exchange rates. Not sure that had anything to with the Hoya purchase. Canon glass is up about 25% in most cases, for example.

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That is correct yes all makers have ramped up prices. But..
Not on everything they know some lines have to be held or still left attractive.

Fortunately I know exactly how much some lenses went up as I made a multi maker spread sheet some time ago. It's only a few select lenses granted but

UK price wise at the first quarter of 2008 the 50mm f1.4 Pentax was around £175 on average. The price now is around £309 odd. At the same time the equivalent Canon, Nikon and Sony ones went up around £30-£40 odd. All 3 are currently cheaper than the Pentax with the non G Nikon f1.4 selling for almost £90 less!

From that alone you can see the increase in price is far far higher from the Hoya inspired price binge. Ok not all lenses have gone up that much..but they have all pretty much gone up quite a lot more than any of their competitors.

This has made K mount pretty unappealing to many users

The hike in Pentax lens prices has been ridiculous as rightly pointed out above and has little to do with any recession. Recession will often tend to lower prices outside of any normal inflation. Lenses from other manufacturers have not gone up 80-100% over the last 4 years but pentax have thanks to the mighty Hoya fu* up.

Yes, because of Hoya pumped them up. What happened between the acquisition moment and Hoya's real taking over the Pentax business? We are going to have a few months of uncertainty. I think that the lens prices will go down for a few coming months till October-November-December (maybe). Did it happen in the past in a few uncertain months before Hoya pushed them up? And, if so, how sharp? I'd like to buy some more fine glass, especially, if the price is right

I think it's really impossible to know what will happen, but it is probably a good thing that Ricoh is very large and has deep pockets. If they want to place market share/saturation above profitability for a while, they can afford to do that, but will they? It'll take quite a while for any changes to take place, IMO.

I don't think it's going to be a dump here. After initial Hoya's price jump we all got used to the current figures. And we all have LBA issue, I guess. It would be unreal to expect official price cut. But we may see market natural price drop for 3-5 coming months of uncertainty.

Lens prices doubled - in some cases (DA12-24 springs to mind) they tripled. In fact, if Ricoh make the lens prices more reasonable I'll be happy with the deal.

I really doubt it

Believe it or not but lens prices are set by the consumer. It is called the law of supply and demand. Hoya raised prices and the consumer still bought them. If the consumer had not bought them then the price would have dropped to a point that the consumer began buying again.

If you have a bushel of apples for sale at one dollar per apple I doubt that anyone will buy them. Prices need to drop before the apples rot. so the prices are dropped until a pont is reached that the apples sell before they rot.

Capitalism...what a wonderful thing it is IMO. The only way to fly.

Cheers.

Ron

--
Ron - 'We don't have time to go take pics this afternoon Carl.'
Carl - 'What do you mean? It will only take 1/1000s.'

'Keep your eyes looking forward. However, glance back now and then to see where you've come from. It will put a smile on your face.' ~ brandrx

brandrx said:

Believe it or not but lens prices are set by the consumer. It is called the law of supply and demand. Hoya raised prices and the consumer still bought them. If the consumer had not bought them then the price would have dropped to a point that the consumer began buying again.

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Voice of reason. However in Hoya's case I wouldn't exclude a deliberate artificial price increase in order to promote a certain image for Pentax they were trying to sell.. to a potential buyer company.

gaddigad said:

brandrx said:

Believe it or not but lens prices are set by the consumer. It is called the law of supply and demand. Hoya raised prices and the consumer still bought them. If the consumer had not bought them then the price would have dropped to a point that the consumer began buying again.

Click to expand...

Voice of reason. However in Hoya's case I wouldn't exclude a deliberate artificial price increase in order to promote a certain image for Pentax they were trying to sell.. to a potential buyer company.

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Assume that I am right in that it is the consumer that sets the prices. An artificial price increase by Hoya would have resulted in no buys for the lenses, therfore affecting the bottom line, which in turn Ricoh (or any potential buyer) would be able to clearly see. I don't think it was an artificial price increase. I believe it was just a massive increase to see what the market would bear. Apparently it worked because, like I said, consumers kept buying the lenses.

Ron
--
Ron - 'We don't have time to go take pics this afternoon Carl.'
Carl - 'What do you mean? It will only take 1/1000s.'

'Keep your eyes looking forward. However, glance back now and then to see where you've come from. It will put a smile on your face.' ~ brandrx

brandrx said:

brandrx wrote:
...consumers kept buying the lenses.

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We have no choice, Ron. It's that simple. We may see some noticeable price fluctuations soon, but not for the long time, I'm afraid.

Perhaps. I wonder how much they would have sold otherwise though.
--
Ask not what your camera can do for you, but what you can do for your camera
http://www.fluidr.com/photos/gs-photos

Prices are set by the consumer (they're not they just decide to buy it or not)

What we don't know is how many folks didn't buy XYZ Pentax lens and bought a s/h one, another maker Sigma/Tamron, or even how many folks liked what Pentax were doing body wise but saw the lens prices and got scared off and went somewhere else.

Which takes us back to the main point the prices are simply unreasonable on "some" of the Pentax lenses (esp Europe) to the degree where I do think it is impacting new users coming on-board.

You can jack up prices but as we've seen despite the success of some models esp the K-x Pentax didn't go anywhere with market share. Hoya might have made more money per lens but they could have lost a significant number of users coming on-board.

If you add up a person's spend on a DSLR system lens wise over a longer period it's pretty significant. This is why Hoya's strategy was deeply flawed it was short term profiteering and not thinking about long term for K mount.

I hope Ricoh have the sense to make some adjustments and to expand the lens range esp more affordable primes and zoom and some selected lenses that have been in demand for some time.

I don't think you'll see a large scale price cut. If the price on anything went down in huge steps overnight, current customers that had already bought one would be ticked off big time, and retailers would be thrown into chaos with returns and price match refunds. Tho if the 31mm did drop to $500 my LBA would kick in in a heartbeat

On the flip side, Ricoh does have the financial resources to bring prices down as part of an effort to gain market share, perhaps thru aggressive pricing on new products and evolutionary price cuts on existing products. I'd expect this to happen primarily in bodies tho, as I think most consumers tend to pick a body (kit, really) and add lenses around it if the hobby takes root - and by that point the price is not driving the purchase. Professionals might tend to put more weight into lens availability and price, but press so far indicates Ricoh is going after the high end consumer with this deal.

We of course hope some of that financial backing will bring about new, capable products, but I also hope they'll put something into marketing and expanding retail channels. IMO it is sorely needed, and it would be great to find Pentax on the shelf at my local store again.

Oh yeah, Ricoh, if you're listening, this consumer would love to see a "kit" of K5+31mm for $900. <Pop!> Whoops, just woke up, was dreaming again... or was that sound my bubble bursting...?
--
just visiting this planet

Barry Fitzgerald said:

That is correct yes all makers have ramped up prices. But..
Not on everything they know some lines have to be held or still left attractive.

Fortunately I know exactly how much some lenses went up as I made a multi maker spread sheet some time ago. It's only a few select lenses granted but

UK price wise at the first quarter of 2008 the 50mm f1.4 Pentax was around £175 on average. The price now is around £309 odd. At the same time the equivalent Canon, Nikon and Sony ones went up around £30-£40 odd. All 3 are currently cheaper than the Pentax with the non G Nikon f1.4 selling for almost £90 less!

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That comparison is unfair on so many levels it's hard to keep track of them all.

A) You picked the one common lens that went up by more (percentage) than any other
B) You picked a lens that started out at only half the price of the others
C) The only reason the non-G Nikon lens is cheaper is that it's being closed out
D) The difference in current prices for current 50/1.4's is a matter of pennies.

Basically, this lens was repriced to be more in line with the competition. Some other specialty lenses went up a fair amount too. But the increase for the average lens was no more than what should be expected given the market and exchange rates - in the 20-25% range.

--
Marc Sabatella
http://www.marcsabatella.com/
Blog: http://marcsabatella.blogspot.com/
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I just don't get pentax lenses anymore. They no longer represent anything like good value for money and much better value and often quality can be found in third party lenses.