Pentax Life

Japanese website Impress Watch have interviewed Pentax Chief Engineer Hisashi Tatamiya and SEO Ko Torigoe. Pentax Forums user Katsura has translated this very interesting interview. The most important things that Tatamiya and Torigoe made public are:

• Pentax will update their DSLR line-up every year. Till the end of 2007 at least two new DSLRs will be announced. High-end camera (Pentax K1D or whatever) is in development now as well as K100D successor.
• 8 new lenses will be released this year.
• Company is solving production dificulties in order to provide enough cameras and lenses at the launch.
• Pentax is listening. R&D guys looking forward to satisfy all the pentaxian’s needs
• 20% of the market (or 1 - 1.5 million digital SLR bodies) in two years - that’s the goal.

This correlates with the prediction given by Benjamin Kanarek in our forum: 12Mpix sensor in the entry level cameras, 100-3200 ISO range, 6 FPS, semi-pro body (K10D equivalent) with 12.8Mpix 1.25x crop sensor and some later full-frame high-end DSLR.

I doubt that Pentax will step up from the 1.5x crop till 2010 - to much “cropped” DA lenses on the market today. But the move towards 12 megapixel sensors with the good high sensitivity performance and impressive burst mode is the natural way. In any case, things will change very quickly.

Interesting interview published in the latest issue of Swiss photo magazine Fotointern. Manager of Pentax Switzerland said that at PMA not only new SSM lenses and three new compact digicams (E30, M30, T30) will be presented, but also new DSLRs. No information on this DSLRs available.

As for Pentax 645D medium format digital camera that was announced more than two years ago, it’s release is postponed in order to priorities on DSLRs.

Thanks to DPreview forum user tcom for information.

PDML user Ken Takeshita gave a translation of todays Hiroshi Suzuki (Hoya CEO and future Hoya Pentax HD CEO) interview fragment:

Folks, sky is not falling but a today’s news indicated that CEO of Hoya, in the presentation today on their financials, question was asked what Hoya would do on Pentax Imaging (camera) biz.

He apparently answered that [if there is no appreciable return, but selling would add more value to the biz, we might choose to do so].

Well, it sounds quite unlikely to me. Pentax imaging business is on the grow now, since the K series cameras success. Also Hoya still didn’t sell Tokina brand, so why would they do Pentax?

Leaked firmware update for Pentax K10D digital SLR appeared today in various Pentax related blogs and forums. You can find the most comprehensive list of changes (as well as download link) in the RiceHigh’s Pentax blog. But you should think twice before installing this “leaked�? update – it’s better to wait for a few days till the firmware 1.10 will be officially available from Pentax website.

In any case, this new firmware update is a huge step forward. According to those who already installed it on their cameras, version 1.10 solves the most annoying K10D’s problems listed here, such as high ISO/long exposure banding and “32-sec Bulb�? turn off. Wireless control of external flash through built-in flash function added. But still no 16-bit RAW.

Update: K10D firmware update version 1.10 is now officially available for download.

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Impact branded battery for upcoming Pentax K10D DSLR camera is now available at B&H for $19.95 (thanks to DPreview user manual_focus for information). This battery looks exactly like Minolta NP-400 clones. So the rumor is confirmed.

The same form factor, the same contacts configuration, the same voltage. You can find this kind of batteries almost everywhere for around US$20 and they should work with K10D. Note the common mistypo on the Impact’s battery - “Replaces PENTAX D-L150” - though the Pentax’s proprietary battery is marked D-LI50 (”i” not “1″) in the specifications from the Pentax Japan and Pentax Imaging (US) as well as many others.

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Another high ISO shots from the pre-production Samsung GX-10 DSLR (K10D clone). First, the downsized night shots from the Korean forum SLRCLUB.COM - ISO 400, 800, 1600 - all shoot handheld with Shake Reduction on. And some more pics were posted by DPreview user ANNA yj. The most interesting is 100% close-up crop at ISO 800. ANNA yj said that it was taken by the tester in Korea with GX10 firmware version 0.32 (or 0.34 as in the quoted EXIF table in Korean?).

Update: ISO Priority mode test (downsized samples) from Korean tester nicknamed ‘film user’: ISO 100, 125, 160, 200, 250; ISO 320, 400, 500, 640; ISO 1000, 1250, 1600.

Japanese website All About have published the brief Pentax K10D “review” (original article in Japanese: page 1, page 2, automatically translated by Google: page 1, page 2) along with several downsized photos taken with it (thanks to DPreview forums user Susumu for the link). As you can conclude from the machine translation the reviewers - Kazunori Kawada (photographer who was talking about using K10D at the recent Pentax talk shows) and Yasuhiro Tsuchida - are happy with the results they’ve got.

Some more downsized samples (with the terrible JPEG compression) could be found on the blog of the Japanese photographer Tanaka (1, 2, 3). He is pleased with this camera as well.

Unfortunately, all the pictures in this reviews are too small to make any conclusions on the image quality. This mean that firmware version 1.0 is still in work and no full size samples will be available until it’s final release. Also any mentions of K10D availability in early November have been removed from the product page at the Pentax Imaging website. So, no final K10Ds till the end of November? But the people in the Pentax Imaging Technical Support says that “We are EXPECTING the K10D to be released by mid-November“.

Amazon.com has updated availability status of Pentax K10D (body only and kit packages). Now there is note on the K10D page: “This item will be released on December 1, 2006. Pre-order now. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.” Well, it’s just one day after official release which was postponed recently to November 30.

Samsung’s clone of K10D - GX10 also available for pre-order at Amazon.com but the actual cameras will be delivered after the January 15, 2007. “Availability: This item will be released on January 15, 2007. Pre-order now. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.”.

K10D and GX10 prices are the same: $899.99 for body only package; $999.99 with 18-55 “kit” lens; $1 049.99 for double-kit (Samsung only). It’s funny but Pentax body and kit are 4 cents cheaper than Samsung.

This is screen shot of Rangefinder Magazine page claiming Pentax 645 Digital street price is $1889. I guess it will be a bit of surprise for Fumio Urano and other Pentax guys. The first surprise is that there is the street price for the camera that has never been manufactured yet. Frankly, it is in development status now. And the second surprise is that the Pontiac GTO costs less than two grands - Mr. Urano told in July, 2004 that the upcoming digital medium format camera will cost like Pontiac GTO which is about $33k. Well, maybe Rangefinder Magazine guys forgot to put “3″ before “1″?

• USA - $919.95 for body only, $999.95 for kit
• Canada - CAD 1 099 body only ($970; thanks to randyroi for information)
• Japan - ¥115,500 ($981 for body only)
• United Kingdom - £599.99 ($1 115 - body only)
• Germany - €929 ($1 180 body only) Body+DA18-55 = €999 ($1 258; thanks to Dierk Hilger for information)
• Sweden - 8 295 Swedish kronor ($1 132 body only)
• France - €860 ($1 092)
• Switzerland - CHF 1′130 ($903)
• Czech Republic - 24 120 Kc (about $1 100 body only; thanks to Martin Vojta for information)
• Australia - AUD 1 269 ($977) for body, AUD 1 459 ($1 123) for kit, awaited 22nd November
• Netherlands - €1 029 for K10D with DA18-55 kit lens ($1 302; thanks to Henk Sweet for information)
• Finland - €930 body only, €1 030 kit ($1 177/$1 304; thanks to Hannu Tiainen for information)
• Luxembourg - €849 ($1 065)
• Thailand - $995 body only, awaited in early December’06
• Poland - body only 3600 zl ($1200) K10D + DA 16-45 = 5050 zl ($1680) (thanks to Zbigniew Piatek for information)

Please, contact me if you have any information about price and availability in your country.

Last updated on November 5, 2006