RiceHigh's Pentax Blog: The A Mount Seems to be Aborted, Will K Mount (Ricoh) Follow?

Saturday, August 24, 2013

The A Mount Seems to be Aborted, Will K Mount (Ricoh) Follow?

See what Sony Alpha Rumors report lately:

(SR5) First image of the new ILC-3000 (A3000 in Japan). 230K LCD and 1,44 Million dot EVF.

So, possibly this will soon mark the end of the A-mount lens line as there will be no more new A-mount body. For all those excellent Minolta A-mount lenses, the old users must use them via an adaptor and Sony will be a mirrorless brand from now on.

After all, will the Pentax K-mount get the same fate? There was a rumour about this before. In view of Ricoh has done no development of any on the K-mount lenses during these two years something, that might be possibly true, or if not Pentax the brand is to be trashed.

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zosX · 602 weeks ago

I think it would be premature to call A-mount dead, but its hard to say right now. Time will tell. I don't know about Pentax giving up on K-mount, but given the market today, I don't think that a full frame DSLR is going to cut it for pentax to be competitive. The future is mirrorless. Sony knows it, and I'm sure pentax does too. My theory is that Pentax is making a full frame mirrorless with a new mount, which is why there are no new leneses on the roadmap and the TC and wide angle zoom seem to be lost and forgotten about. Who knows? Pentax needs to do something really different if they want to become competitive again. The full frame market is so tiny, I'd rather them spend their development time on new APS-C lenses and bodies personally. A K-02 would be nice too.

5 replies · active 602 weeks ago

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Anonimity is Great · 602 weeks ago

Initially I thought it wouldn't be a Pentax without the K-mount, or a Nikon without F, or canon without EF/FD. But as I use more camera brands it became clear that what differentiate the brands are mounts, it is the "feel." Every brand has certain feel when we use their cameras, which contributes to our ability for taking good pictures an having a great time doing it. Thus, "feel" is made up of the menu system, the handling of the camera, and the specific features that sets certain brand apart from any other. Mount is not one of them. I am still attached to K-mount only because of financial and nostalgic reason. So, whatever Ricoh releases next, if it is a Pentax, it must "feel" like one.

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Anonimity is Great · 602 weeks ago

edit: what differentiate the brands *are* not mounts, it is the "feel."

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Alex · 602 weeks ago

In the meantime, Ricoh Imaging is preparing new Japanese commercials for... are you ready?... wait for it... wait... Pentax K-mount products. And new Pentax K-mount products are expected.
Neither the brand, nor the mount are dying - quite the opposite.

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Michael A. · 602 weeks ago

There is a simple roadmap for P lenses and users are not likely to dump 24+ million lenses for mirror(use)less with an imaginary mount. N or C are not dumping their mounts to be competitive...

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zosX · 602 weeks ago

So where's the new lenses? Why hasn't the roadmap been updated in literally years now? Where is the DA* wide angle zoom that was promised for this year? Its likely the Tokina 11-16. Too bad pentax will want 3x as much money as tokina would ask for. And where's the teleconverter? Pentax needs to be doing a lot more than putting out new bodies based on an aging platform. The canon business model is not what they should be aspiring to. BTW, is the 645 a dead system now? Still no word on any upgrades.

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AAA · 602 weeks ago

I think if Pentax changes the mount the are dead.
It its sure that I will change the brand if they do.

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Dominique · 602 weeks ago

Why do you say that the A-mount would be aborted when just a new camera WITH an A-mount is announced? They just dropped the mirror, be it swinging or fixed.
On the Pentax front... After it takes Pentax sooo long to bring that FF to their users, I slowly tend more and more to think that they will skip it in order to bring a new mount, mirrorless, for FF sensors, and possibly APS-C at the same time. (just like zosX said above)
Me, I would like that, but ONLY if the electronic viewfinder would be better than everything to date! Bright and sharp image, (nearly) no noticeable delay.

4 replies · active 602 weeks ago

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zosX · 602 weeks ago

The last a-mount camera announced was the full frame A99. Maybe they will keep A-Mount alive for full frame DSLRs, maybe not. It seems sony wants to abandon SLT if the rumors are correct and this may be their first step. The e-mount was designed to be mirror-less and support full frame from the start. Pentax has only slowly evolved K-mount. Canon abandoned FD mount in the 80s and Nikon keeps tacking new things on to their mount, but it is the only one that hasn't broken compatibility yet, at least to AI lenses. I would be sad to see k-mount go away, but if I can adapt full frame k-mount lenses without limitation, what's the big deal? A shorter flange distance would open up all sorts of dead mounts for adaptation. Also it would make it easier to design wide angle lenses. There are a lot of plusses to moving to a new mount. Is a 25-30mm mount extension going to be a huge deal for people? People happily adapted m42 lenses to other systems in the film days. As someone that shoots landscape on a tripod quite a bit I'm pretty used to working with live view. I think it would be pretty awesome to have focus peaking in a viewfinder and that's one of the nicer aspects of the nex system. I'll quit rambling, but I wouldn't take a new mount as a horribly bad thing.

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Mistral75 · 602 weeks ago

The Alpha 3000 pictured above is an E-mount camera.

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Simon · 602 weeks ago

Exactly, another E-mount camera in look of a DSLR and I don't see a link to the A-mount system or future plans.

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Dominique · 602 weeks ago

Oh, no! You're right - E-mount! When I saw the bulk of the camera and above all, the "Alpha", I couldn't believe it wasn't a camera with an Alpha mount! I think the name is plain stupid andmisleading and they should have called it differently, like "E" or "Epsilon" or whatever.

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X.9. · 602 weeks ago

It is futile to foretold the future of one mount based on random behaviour of the company that is responsible for an other mount. I would not say Sony has any strategy at all, because unike Pentax, Nikon and Canon, Sony is not an optics company. Sony is a digital camera body company and to me, Sony reacts to its whims and impulses, and changes body strategies not in conjunction to any glass investment because they have none and care about none. What Sony fancies to do, means nothing to Nikon, Canon and Pentax.

1 reply · active 602 weeks ago

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Art · 602 weeks ago

Sony doesn't have any glass? Seriously/?

500mm F4 over $10,000
300mm F2.8 $7,000
Zess 135mm F1.4
Zeiss 85mm F1.4
Zeiss 50mm F1.4 (just released this year)
Zeiss 24mm 2.0
Zeiss 16-35mm F2.8
Zeiss 24-70mm F2.8

All these lenses are well over $1000 each. and all are AF lenses that AF with A-mount.

It's outright stupid to claim that A-mount is dead. The rumors are that Sony will release slew of A-mount mirrorless cameras with on sensor PDAF early 2014

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Yoku · 602 weeks ago

Sony will produce A-mount mirrorless cameras. A-mount won't be aborted.

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SNAPPERTIM · 602 weeks ago

Maybe this is the last desperate gamble to keep e mount alive, the sales outside japan are abysmal, Canon and especily Nikon have said their mirrorless systems are on the edge of extinction, Panasonic launched a very similar design for 4/3 and it has not sold well, Sony made e mount nex in response to Samsung's nx, but Samsung now seem more interested in compact cameras with an android system onboard and trying to out pace Nokia in the camera phone side of things, any how Pentax has a mirrorless system Q maybe we will see a new version of Q7 with an EVF must be a reason Q7 looks like Q and not Q10 maybe style Q10 plus view finder will be Q5 or Q1 now the chip is sorted out.

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Chris · 602 weeks ago

Well, mirrorless may be "the future", but as long as viewfinders have resolutions around 1 MP only, many will prefer a DSLR.

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revdocjim 1p · 602 weeks ago

To the OP, you have clearly misunderstood what Sony is doing. They have affirmed over and over again that they will continue the A-mount and they put their money where their mouth is by continuing to develop and release fabulous A-mount lenses. Most recently they have released new versions of two of their top tier professional grade zoom lenses.

The SLT was intended to be a transitional technology from the beginning and this was clearly stated by Sony in a number of venues. All along their goal was to get rid of the mirror but AF technology, especially on sensor PDAF just wasn't there yet so they had to go with the SLT for a short while.

At the same time they developed the E-mount NEX line and it has done very well too, but it was never intended to replace the a-mount. There certainly is cross-over between the two as evidenced by the up-coming full frame NEX and the multiple entry level a-mount cameras. Also the LA-EA2 adapter really makes it interesting, allowing NEX cameras to enjoy not only A-mount lenses but PDAF as well.

No one knows exactly where they are going but it would appear that the e-mount may end up with a larger share of the entry level products and the A-mount may focus more on the higher end. Either way, these are distinctly exciting times for the A-mount and Sony in general. In just a few months we'll have the first ever mirrorless, native a-mount camera. Of course the million dollar question will be whether the AF is really up to snuff... I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

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Dan Johnson · 602 weeks ago

Evan though you're not supposed to answer a question with a question, didn't Samsung have a K-Mount DSLR (10&14MP) before they switched to an NX-Mount which now records 3-D video @ 60fps with a Full Frame sensor on the way! Sony is used for the movie industry, but their home movie cameras use NEX-Mount (with support from great lens makers) and their still frame cameras record video @ 60fps with a Full Frame EVF on the way, while their commercial model 4K resolution Digital models use PL-Mount Lenses, sure you can get an adapter for A-Mount lenses but it seems to me they've intended to sell EVF still cameras as a stepping stone to making better Talkies. What really puzzles me is what lens factor do we get if we put a NX-Mount lens on our K-5 DSLR without a mirror (eliminating the clearance needed for it like a Leika) and send the image (via WiFi) to a viewfinder (in a 2nd. Hot-Shoe lika a Zeiss Ikon) or hand-held with a Sekonic Pocket-Wizard for a trigger.

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John · 602 weeks ago

Could be a great body for pentax lenses, with the K to Nex adapter. All manual of course, but with focus peaking not that bad

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foton · 602 weeks ago

Looks like this camera is a piece of crap. Viewfinder is something as bad as it could get to, according to specs given in dpreview.

1 reply · active 602 weeks ago

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Art · 602 weeks ago

It's the cheapest APSC camera ever made, $400 at launch date, with the lens. What do you expect? That's almost half the price of RX100 II and about same price as 1/1.7" point and shoot cameras.

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Linus · 602 weeks ago

Sometimes I wonder if by buying Minolta's designs Sony inherited Minolta's business dna (first to market [at least sometimes], not first in sales).

I like Sony's cutting edge schtick (I'd like to find out that my EOS M was pre-wired for a hot shoe mount EVF to come but I'm not holding my breath) but you know Canon and Nikon came out with af after Minolta and rapidly cleaned their clock. The real nice e mount lenses are pricey and the standard ones not always the best. I actually really liked the a mount cameras (the a77 with that pro 16-50 seemed like a good deal earlier this year [although there's no pro aps-c telezoom to go with it even from aftermarket makers]) but this announcement + the announcement that the new ones will be mirrorless really raises concerns about the future of the mount.

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Saturday, August 24, 2013

The A Mount Seems to be Aborted, Will K Mount (Ricoh) Follow?

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