RiceHigh's Pentax Blog: Old Question: Will there be a Pentax Full Frame DSLR?

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Old Question: Will there be a Pentax Full Frame DSLR?

Well, I summarise the events and news in ascending chronological order below:-

Time:-	News/Event:-
October 2007	The Pentax lens system went DA.
April 2008	AP told that Samsung was making a Full Frame sensor.
June 2008	Full Frame DSLR model was under planning.
September 2008	Hoya senior officials targeted to use APS-C to rival Full Frame. (What?! My Pardon?)
October 2008	RiceHigh made a K-mount Full Frame body himself, after prolonged wait from Pentax but got nothing and being so desperate! :-o :-( Big Discovery: DA lens is not working on Full Frame DSLR body! ;-)
October 2008	Samsung denied the development of a Full Frame sensor!?
March 2009	645D Revived but nothing was talked about a Pentax Full Frame.
March 2009	Hoya told that the Full Frame K-mount system was not yet aborted and that the DA lens specifications had to be revised. (but so far up till now we have seen nothing!)
March 2009	RiceHigh had used his Full Frame K-mount DSLR body with his Pentax Full Frame lenses for long, already.
March 2009	Pentax was still sourcing sensors for their upcoming DSLRs
April 2009	RiceHigh continued to enjoy his cheapest FAJ Full Frame Pentax lens on his K-mount Full Frame DSLR body.
May 2009	New lens roadmap was "leaked" and new Full Frame lenses were unveiled.
August 2009	Hoya achieved their set target and promise back to September 2008 - K-m rivaled the K5D in resolution and image details!
August 2009	Sony marketed the ever cheapest Full Frame DSLR body, Pentax/Hoya was still unable to react and had no reaction!
September 2009	Leica also had their Full Frame Body finally, leaving Pentax alone for a legacy 135 system without a Full Frame DSLR body!
October 2009	Latest Rumour from Russia told that a Full Frame Pentax DSLR body would come in late 2010, the broken dream of old film Pentaxians was revived again! (but endlessly with little hope!)
NOW	Pentax has not yet published any update to their previous lens roadmap since it was last updated back to March 2009, with the deletion of some previously announced DA lenses.

Next? The Future? Will Pentax work out a Full Frame DSLR system? Will there be one?? Well, the answer is just either Yes or No - I can guarantee! And I think only this game (or something alike) will tell the Truth! ;-D

Well, I've given up! Just don't think more! Or, you will need to "See a Doctor" or simply, a "Psychiatrist"!! ;-D LOL..

Comments (12)

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Hin Man · 804 weeks ago

My friend, please don't set up an expectation for you and your readers only to get disappointed. You've been there on this topic many times. And the whining will only subsume you to disappointment in the next announcement or rumor mill of the masses summarized by you along with 1001noisycamera and others

I don't enjoy rumors and whining, I should not even come here to comment on this. As I am more positive on K-x and your enthusiasm on K-x. You may be onto another rumor mill in the horizon but I just don't get it. Yes, FF is nice. Would I want one, yes if Pentax make it affordable and put it in their road-map with long lens in 35mm standard. If Pentax runs the number like you do, it will vaporize by next year. Pentax isn't stupid. I am not implying the obvious in the opposite thinking. They just don't have the resources to pull through 645D, k-7 and k-x next upgrade and a FF. If I have an influence on Pentax, I will ask them to kill the FF idea and stick with high quality products with less issues and innovate on aps-c, 645D and whatever crap people talk about san FF. If I run Pentax, it will be a compact digital camera on aps-c type of cmos sensor that is built from ground up around the beauty of a red camera bag Design a compact dslr

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Hin Man · 804 weeks ago

Why is the comment does't take my HTML tags. Where is the missing Edit button from Blogspot and Google. What the duck with Google. I love Google. Sigh....

http://www.techtheman.com/2009/09/design-compact-...

let me try again in the next line:

Design a compact dslr

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RiceHigh 110p · 804 weeks ago

Hinman, take some humours and relax..

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Simon · 804 weeks ago

Pentax, where's the problem ? Get some FF sensors and put them into one of your fat bodies, like K20D. Or, Pentax buy some 5D MkII and fix a KAF mount on it.

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Jon · 804 weeks ago

Olympus has a FF DSLR?

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Tim · 804 weeks ago

Pentax CANNOT bring out FF DSLR. They have no lenses for one! Where is the DFA* 28-70 or the DFA* 70-200? Also the DA* 300 mm is limited to an APSC image circle. What lenses could you put on if you had the camera? Only limited prime and old crap from 20 years back. Therefore: no FF within the next 5 years.

3 replies · active 804 weeks ago

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RiceHigh 110p · 804 weeks ago

Not Really! The problem faced by Pentax is their limited production capability and limited market demand. But they DO have many many *designs* of Full Frame, i.e., film, lenses. Their FA lens lineup was strong and very complete and most of the FA lenses are excellent with high optical performance, especially the FA* Star lenses and most FA primes are not bad.

To re-build a Full Frame "digital" lens lineup is not too difficult as the most difficult thing is actually about design. How to produce them again in revised versions is surely a problem, though, and that's what Pentax need to think about.

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chillgreg · 804 weeks ago

Fall off my chair and eat my hat RH, but you ARE EXACTLY RIGHT.

I've heard Hoya is bigger than Nikon, and wouldn't pure business logic dictate that as Hoya has made a SIGNIFICANTLY investment, why wouldn't they SIGNIFICANTLY increase QC, production capacity, marketing, retail POS support etc etc etc??? Colours only in Japan???

Ned and mates get your head out of the hole.

Can Fake Chuck please be contracted to Pentax to shake up the OLD-SCHOOL machine that is still crippling Pentax!!!

PS agree with hinman, can you please add HTML support ala DPR italics/bold/underline/image support/links/preview etc

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Simon · 804 weeks ago

Guess what, we want to use that "old crap" on a FF Pentax body.
You probably never used one of these old jewels, go and start playin with your plastic toys sold nowadays.

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Hin Man · 804 weeks ago

Full frame lenses are there in the FA and FA* series. Among the few that I have tried, they are wonderful especially in the primes. Please bear with mistakes in listing, few popular primes comes to mind:

FA 20mm f/2.8
FA 24mm f/2.0
FA 28mm f/2.8
FA 35mm f/2.0
FA 50mm f/1.4
FA 77mm f/1.8
FA 100mm f/2.8 1:1 Macro
FA 135mm f/2.8
FA 200mm f/4.0 1:1 Macro

All of the above primes are of great qualities and good reputation. There are perhaps more than the few quoted or the misquoted by me. For zooms, it would be lovely to bring back FA 28-70mm f/2.8 and FA 80-200mm f/2.8, those are the cream of the cops in Pentax not easily found in the used market. If FF mainly slated for studio work and landscape, Pentax lens line up is not lacking the lenses, but I see lacking in the long end and zoom inventory with the latest. If Pentax does consider the FF, the lens line up need to be re-inforced on the longer end and have refined SDM, say SDM*, to cover the new need.

Lenses is there but I find the business reason is hard to justify and it is lacking a reason to go compete heads-on with Canon and Nikon which are seems so far ahead of Pentax in FF. If I run Hoya, I will push full strength and give Pentax Japan and Ned greater freedom, meaning financial support, to add FF. But RH, Hin and all of Pentax users don't run Hoya and I see little reason for them to sacrifice their time to get distracted. I welcome the FF idea but I won't bet on it with anyone. It is too risky for Pentax to go FF. Also as RH has done a great job in reporting all the issues and problems of current Pentax products, what are the odds and irony that Pentax should take note -- are we asking Pentax for a FF or are we asking Pentax for a quality product. Let say users get to choose one over the other, I will choose quality and have FF as a back burner. RH, what do you think? Do you want the FF or do you want to continue to report more problems and issues with Pentax? I choose quality over FF, what about your.

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Hin Man · 804 weeks ago

Of course, I forget the lens that RH and I love

F* 300mm f/4.5
FA* 300mm f/4.5

1 reply · active 804 weeks ago

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RiceHigh 110p · 804 weeks ago

Hmm.., I have more Pentax modern primes (FA, FA* and FA Limited) that I love which cover most of the common focal length range! :-D

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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Old Question: Will there be a Pentax Full Frame DSLR?

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