A tiny and personal test of some EVF

Fogel70 wrote:

hikerdoc wrote:

JeremieB wrote:

Pentax was wrong when they said people would come back to DSLRs, because there's no way people come back from MILC AF obviously. But Pentax should really try their best to compete with MILCs, even AF, in order to keep OVFs alive.

I sense Ricoh is looking more to a coexistence, solid cameras appealing to the senses with the OVF and to some sort of emotional satisfaction pushed in their marketing with the principles of photography. A competition with MILC is going to be predominantly metrics driven and a nonstarter. But, with proper subject choice, the resulting images will be indistinguishable, platform agnostic to the viewer. Pentax will happily accept an ongoing coexistence, in the same bag, with an MILC carrying a different logo.

The problem with this approach is that new users would need to be able to try Pentax DSLR before they buy to be able to get convinced of the unique experience.

But it is quite rare to find Pentax DSLR in local camera stores outside Japan.

You may be correct; I have no idea how retail camera stores look in Japan. But, check out the marketshare of DSLR vs MILC in Japan vs Europe or the Americas. Japan, at <12% as of October 2022, has a far lower DSLR marketshare of ILC than in these other regions where it still approaches 40% of ILC market. Japan also has a very low volume of DSLR shipments compared to these other regions. Even if camera stores in Japan still display Pentax DSLR, it is overwhelmingly the foreign markets in EU and Americas where DSLR of any brand are actually being purchased. If actually handling a DSLR in Japan is thought to be the key experience, overall numbers would suggest it is not yet working.

As a caveat, I am referring to CIPA data. It does not break down by individual brands within each segment, so no way of knowing if the progressively dismal overall DSLR numbers in Japan actually demonstrated a large domestic shift toward Pentax. I am sure Ricoh struggles trying to arrive at some winning strategy with Pentax.

https://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-202210_e.pdf