Holger Bargen
Veteran Member
Pentax never was good at marketing.
A few examples:
- Canon and Nikon support certain Professionals with new gear "for testing" we know that there is a hugh spread in quality for industiral products and so we can imagine that these professionals will get the high end that is possible for their gear. They are doing photos with their high end gear and the high end material - and people will thinkt that the material is best (but maybe they will receive products from the other end of serial spread of quality).
Pentax never did such thing - but actually there was an example for a professional who seems to have received pre-production material - thus, Ricoh seems to have learned.
- Another example: A big Gemany computer magazine that has a digital camera chapter in their magazine, too, wanted to make a test of certain lenses. All other companies gave them lenses for testing (and believe me: these lenses have seen an optical bench right before sending them to that magazine). Pentax told them: buy one - you can buy this lens in nearly every camera shop. They did - and they received a lemon - do you think that this was favourable for Pentax?
- I do not konw if you remember the first advertisements for K-S1. There was a young lady holding a coloured K-S1 in her hands - but proportions seemed to be strange - later some of the members here at dpreview found that photo used for another advertisment for a much smaller Pentax camera. So, Pentax receycled an old photo by using photoshop to promote a product with an intention to sell it in great numbers. Isn't that strange?
- When you buy a Pentax cameras the default settings will be at medium position. Other companies tweak their default settings to the most impressive look (like we know it form point-and-shoots). Many magazines and think also dpreview will test the productes at the default settings and so the cameras of other companies will have better results - even though maybe the cameras are worse.
- I have the old F 70-210 mm zoom from Pentax. It is a superb lens and one reason is that it contians glass with extra-low dispersion element(s) wihtin their design - other companies would have printed this fact in their advertisments and make it in bold letters part of the lens name - Pentaxians did not know what genius they had on their camera until some experts made the secret known: http://kmp.bdimitrov.de/lenses/zooms/long/F70-210f4-5.6.html
Thus, their seems to be some kind of attitude of Pentax to hide their treasures. They always had good products. Their products maybe were not high end - but they were the most user friendly products on the market and with the best price-performance ration you could get (at least before Hoya days). The companiy was absolutely fair to the consumers - and for these resaons there was a group of people who connected their heart not just with their photography but also with the brand that made their favourite gear - those people are called "Pentaxians".
So Pentax was a company which sold their products expecially for insiders and people who wanted to avoid the mainstream. They had a small but stable market share for years.
But let's see what Ricohs plans are for this nice brand. Hope the will keep the genuine Pentax strengths (high quality and very user-friendly products with a very good price/performance ratio) and make it known in a more professional way to ethuse much more people about Pentax cameras (and their stockholders about their sales figures)!
Best regards
Holger
A few examples:
- Canon and Nikon support certain Professionals with new gear "for testing" we know that there is a hugh spread in quality for industiral products and so we can imagine that these professionals will get the high end that is possible for their gear. They are doing photos with their high end gear and the high end material - and people will thinkt that the material is best (but maybe they will receive products from the other end of serial spread of quality).
Pentax never did such thing - but actually there was an example for a professional who seems to have received pre-production material - thus, Ricoh seems to have learned.
- Another example: A big Gemany computer magazine that has a digital camera chapter in their magazine, too, wanted to make a test of certain lenses. All other companies gave them lenses for testing (and believe me: these lenses have seen an optical bench right before sending them to that magazine). Pentax told them: buy one - you can buy this lens in nearly every camera shop. They did - and they received a lemon - do you think that this was favourable for Pentax?
- I do not konw if you remember the first advertisements for K-S1. There was a young lady holding a coloured K-S1 in her hands - but proportions seemed to be strange - later some of the members here at dpreview found that photo used for another advertisment for a much smaller Pentax camera. So, Pentax receycled an old photo by using photoshop to promote a product with an intention to sell it in great numbers. Isn't that strange?
- When you buy a Pentax cameras the default settings will be at medium position. Other companies tweak their default settings to the most impressive look (like we know it form point-and-shoots). Many magazines and think also dpreview will test the productes at the default settings and so the cameras of other companies will have better results - even though maybe the cameras are worse.
- I have the old F 70-210 mm zoom from Pentax. It is a superb lens and one reason is that it contians glass with extra-low dispersion element(s) wihtin their design - other companies would have printed this fact in their advertisments and make it in bold letters part of the lens name - Pentaxians did not know what genius they had on their camera until some experts made the secret known: http://kmp.bdimitrov.de/lenses/zooms/long/F70-210f4-5.6.html
Thus, their seems to be some kind of attitude of Pentax to hide their treasures. They always had good products. Their products maybe were not high end - but they were the most user friendly products on the market and with the best price-performance ration you could get (at least before Hoya days). The companiy was absolutely fair to the consumers - and for these resaons there was a group of people who connected their heart not just with their photography but also with the brand that made their favourite gear - those people are called "Pentaxians".
So Pentax was a company which sold their products expecially for insiders and people who wanted to avoid the mainstream. They had a small but stable market share for years.
But let's see what Ricohs plans are for this nice brand. Hope the will keep the genuine Pentax strengths (high quality and very user-friendly products with a very good price/performance ratio) and make it known in a more professional way to ethuse much more people about Pentax cameras (and their stockholders about their sales figures)!
Best regards
Holger
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. The point of this thread is, that in spite that the Pentax cameras, like for example K-S2, are really great photographic tools, even DP Review doesn't like them too much. They prefer for example the Sony A6000 which, while delivers excellent IQ, is a toy in comparison. There are many objections against this "winner", but those objections come mainly from the Samsung users, none from the Pentax users. Well, something must be really wrong with the Pentax, just we, Pentax lovers, are completely ignorant.
