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Rumor of Pentax's Demise


lewis_hizer

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Hi, I'm brand new to posting on this forum though I read it frequently. I'm a wedding

photographer who uses a Fuji S3, along with a Pentax 6x7 for the large formal

group shots. (Also a K100D for low-light grab shots, and an LX for occasional

35mm film use.) Anyway, I noticed that I spend as much on 120/220 film and

processing each year as the price of a K20D, and since it's image quality seems

to be so good, I thought I'd buy one. Of course no one in town has one in stock,

but what disturbed me is that at one store I tried, which always had Pentax

cameras and lenses such as K10D, 50-135mm f2.8 DA* zoom, etc.,, they

suddenly have NOTHING and the salesman claims all of the following:

that "Pentax is dead", Hoya is not going to continue carrying Pentax cameras,

they've "suspended production", they will probably sell it all to Samsung, maybe

Samsung will continue the cameras under Samsung brand name but won't honor

warranties on Pentax-branded equipment, etc. etc.

It all sounded a bit phony to me, but I've known the guy there since I bought my 67

from him in 2000. I'm used to B.S. about Pentax from camera-store clerks since I

started hearing it in 1976, but this store always heavily featured Pentax and its

sudden disappearance kind of shocked me. Has anyone else heard these

rumors?

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I had a a few dozen Takumars, Super Takumars, SMC Takumars. Several Spotmatics, H3V, and ES2. With few exceptions all were great cameras and lenses. Pentax had significant market share.

 

They seemed to fall off the wagon in the 80`s or 90`s producing strange looking cameras and lenses. Maybe the pics were fine, but I never tried one. The old craftsmanship just was not there and I had moved on to a different system. Evidently others felt the same and the brand slipped into third world status.

 

I guess they did not have the resources to compete in the digital revolution. Hoya capital may pull it out, but once the market shifts it is very hard to get it back. VERY HARD. Ask General Motors. They let a 57% market share slip thru their fingers.

 

Time will tell how Hoya/Pentax does. My vote is they are through even though the current products may be superb and state of the art.

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Recently the local camera dealers were hit with $50,000 minimum order requirements to retain their Olympus and Sony product lines. Maybe hoya pentax has decided to improve their product representation with this new marketing feature too?

 

 

Nikon & Canon have not pulled this stunt yet, however you must be a high volume dealer to obtain full frame D3 dslrs from Nikon at wholesale for resale.

 

Lindy

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Interesting you should mention this. I went to a (the) local independent photo shop today to see about buying the new 300mm f4 from them rather than on the web

 

They report serious difficulties in getting good info from pentax since last year's "re-organization" (downsizing.) Bottom line: Baltimore's leading supplier of photographic equipment was willing to have me walk away and buy off the web (which I did) rather than make an effort to order the lens.

 

I don't know how much this reflects real Pentax problems or simple arrogance /complacency on the part of the shop. Either way, it's disconcerting.

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Most camera sales people are out to make a sale immediately with whatever they

have in stock. I used to sell cameras (working my way through grad school) and I

heard the most unbelievable crap come out of salesmen's mouths on a regular basis.

 

As a camera salesman back in 1985 I also heard the "Pentax is dead" line, and it's

almost always said for the following reasons:

 

1. The store doesn't have much Pentax gear in stock, so they can't run up a big sale if

they try to sell your Pentax gear. The few pieces of Pentax gear they *do* have is

"window dressing" to give the appearance of a complete line of inventory, but the goal

is to switch you to something else. They don't want to special order anything,

because they won't get a good wholesale price from the manufacturer (no volume

discounts), and don't want to go through the extra work.

 

2. Another camera brand (C* or N* perhaps) is offering "spiffs" on every camera sold.

"Spiffs" are incentives paid directly to the sales person for moving a particular brand of

camera. It's essentially a bribe by the camera manufacturer to have the salesman

push that brand.

 

3. The salesman doesn't know *how* to sell a Pentax camera as he's probably never

even played with one. Many salesman learn only a few different camera models and

are pretty much incapable of answering questions on cameras that they don't know.

 

Remember, many salesman exploit FUD (fear, uncertainty,and doubt) in consumers to

drive them to a particular purchase decision. The photography sales business can be

quite ugly, and now with internet business severely cutting into local stores' profits,

you have to take everything you hear with a huge grain of salt.

 

I am proud to say that I pushed Pentax cameras when I was doing sales, and I took a

lot of crap for it at the store where I worked. The manager hated that, but I was a good

salesman and knew how to move gear. :)

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Bottom line is Pentax is not going anyware. They are here for the long run. What Pentax is guilty of is ''LOUSY'' marketing....The only Marketing pentax really has is us forum folks who sit here and try and tell the world what a great product it is and defend Pentax against those canikon people and so forth...I live in Los Angeles...The largest market in the states and I see NO pentax marketing what so ever.....Rumors like this are bad and until Pentax gets a clue they will make their rounds.....
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I haven't read anything like this recently on the other Pentax Forums I frequent. Not to say this is or isn't correct, but if it is, you just broke the news to the entire Pentax global community.<p>What I believe is going on is Pentax changed its US distribution focus from direct sales by Pentax reps to account sales to large distributors - and they rely on the distributors' sales forces.<p>If you are a regional camera store chain, large enough to buy direct but not a national chain, and you lost your Pentax rep, your distributor rep might not be up on Pentax yet, or the distributor might not have accepted any Pentax promotions yet (Canikon would try to prevent that).<p>All this means is Ned Bunnell needs to get this train moving - Walmart and Target aren't going to cut it in the higher-end DSLR market.<p>Pentax NA will get its act together, but it will take longer than we would like. I'd bet this Christmas season is uncommonly important.
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Hoya bought Pentax for the medical devision; that is the significant money maker; not the camera side. I do think these are critical times for the imaging group, but they have good products, they are restructuring to streamline the company and increase it's profitability; it's just business. And the DSLR market is certainly a growing business.

 

I really think they are going to do fine. But worse, worse case as in Minolta the system has a such a legacy and install base K mount will be around a long, long time. I wrestled with all this before dumping my Canon and jumping whole hog into Pentax last year. About $7 in gear and a year latter it was the right choice for me. And who know in ten years or so what we'll be shooting as a standard cameras. I'll be willing to bet it won't be a DSLR system. These are computers with lenses now and the technology is moving faster than ever. It's hard for anyone to see more than a few years out.

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Pentax is a valuable company for the same reason Carl Zeiss is a valuable company: Lens development and production for medical equipment. Hoya's purchasing Pentax had almost everything to do with that and almost nothing to do with individual consumers of photographic equipment.

 

Still, Zeiss recently came out with a line of high end lenses for K Mount and, correct me if I'm wrong, but Pentax's print ad campaign is all over the photography magazines. Both companys seem to be staying with photography and, more to the point, continue to produce the higher end stuff for "pro-sumers" even though it's not the main focus of the corporation.

 

I too had a camera shop salesman tell me it's almost impossible for him to get Pentax lenses in a timly fashion. Another salesman at another store said they don't carry much Pentax equipment because it's mostly cheaper stuff that they occasionally sell to students (he said this while standing in front of a wall literally wallpapered with Nikon posters).

 

Yes, theoretically Pentax DSLRS could stop production virtually over night. It is just as likely that a more secure mega-corporation like Sony could decide at the next board meeting that DSLRs are no longer meeting their profit margin and to stop production on them. You take your chances.

 

Still, by all reports, Pentax sales/profits are on the rise. I just can't imagine a company cutting a growing facet of its organization loose.

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C'mon we've all heard that dribble for years. Then the K10D was launched and now the K20D and K200D. Sounds like a typical sales guy trying to use the S.W.O.T tactic. Sell What's Available Today. As a director of sales and marketing it's a strategy I drill into my team!

 

After dropping into my local photography store yesterday to Purchase a Lowepro Flipside and a couple of filters, I found their current sales trend interesting. This is a shop that has primarily sold Nikon first, Canon second and Pentax third. Nikon is up respectably, Pentax seems to be the number 2 choice and Canon is slipping. I used to have to order in Pentax accessories - now he's stocking a good assortment of Pentax lenses, flashes and 3rd party K-mount lenses too. This is a small business owned by an individual who has been supplying photographers for over 30 years. They only invest in product that will provide an excellent return on investment. Interesting that he's buying significantly less in the way of Canon accessories, but I'd hardly say that that translates into Canon dying.

 

I'd personally pay no heed to the demise rumors, after all how many times should have the world ended before today.

Cheers

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Jim B: Shedding some light on spiffing and camera store sales people (as opposed to discount store clerks who don't know a camera from a bottle of perfume): I was a Pentax rep back in the 1970s, and we did plenty of spiffing back then too. It is not really "bribing" -- consider it a commission over and above what the store is willing to pay them. Furthermore, it is never done without the full cooperation and support of the store's owner. Sometimes the tight-fisted owner will not allow spiffing directly to his employees, and will demand the manufacturer pay the spiff directly to him, or his brother-in-law, or his secret account in Switzerland -- you get the idea.

 

Another point about real camera store sales people vs. know-nothing clerks, is they are mostly photo hobbyists or wannabe pros, and they push the hardware that they are fans of and most familiar with -- just as you did in the 1980s with Pentax. Again, though, this "pushing" of one brand over another is usually directed by the store owner for strictly business reasons. If you insist on pushing Pentax because you are a fan but the owner wants you to push Canon, you won't be there long.

 

There are all kinds of behind-the-scene things going on between the owner/buyers and the manufacturers that the store sales people are never aware of. In fact, the manufacturer representative may not even be aware of deals made between a sales manager and a store owner with large buying potential. I was asked to go get the buyer and sales manager a cup of coffee during a meeting once (wink, wink), and when I returned with the coffee, there was an order for $250,000 worth of Pentax products waiting for me on the buyer's desk. I have no idea what was discussed when I "fetched" their coffee.

 

Will

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Wow Roger, $7,000 in pentax kit purchases in one year. You've built a very nice system indeed. Since January I've dropped $5,500 on brand new eos items and I want a second full frame 5D and one grip drive and remote so there goes another $2,200. Then I'm done, well except for lusting after a couple more lenses that I can do without. Canon's instant cash off saved me $700 so far and another $300 on second 5D before July 19th so this instant cash off marketing plan made a big difference to me.

 

I've spent the past 15 years buying used equiptment and now with my Eos System move I am getting brand new glass. The 5D really makes me happy. Immediate shutter release with any old adapted lenses, like my 8mm f2.8 Olympus circular fisheye, and 300mm 2.8 nikon ED, is a big plus. Big, normal sized Viewfinder for my aging eyes is a huge benefit to me. I'm quite happy I now own a full frame dslr after wanting one for years.

 

Anyways, Pentax K Mount will always survive. Samsung knows how to make K-AF Mount dslrs, Tamron and Tokina knows how to make K Mount lenses. You may loose the "Pentax" logo in the future if/when Hoya decides to cut the dslr division loose. Hoya CEO was explicit in saying a year before the long & endlessly drawn out buy-out pentax corp takeover that he saw no value in dslr division versus THE Coveted pentax medical division. So its no surprise to me if Hoya can first limit the divsion, like

 

"terminating all their knowledgable pentax reps"

 

and then later parts out the pentax dslr line&35mm imaging to someone like Samsung Corp. Samsung is Huge like Sony is Huge, and I wish samsung had gotten to buy Pentax instead. Oh Well. No regrets here since I'm finially getting what I need elsewhere after playing the wait around and see what we may issue game with pentax the past few years.

 

Everything I 've bought brand new this year says:

 

Canon Made in Japan.

 

Is anything "Pentax" puts their name on this year say

 

"Made in Japan?

 

I highly doubt it.

 

Lindy

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Will Daniel:

 

Thanks for the extra perspective from being a Pentax sales rep! Of course I should

have mentioned that Pentax offered spiffs as well; the problem was the store where I

worked didn't have enough Pentax gear for those spiffs to make any difference.

 

Although I aggravated my boss by pushing Pentax SLR gear (when we had it), I

managed to keep my job by selling large numbers of autofocus P&S cameras, which

were just becoming really popular at the time. At one point we made the highest

margins on a particular Konica P&S model (which was pretty decent), and I was

happy to sell that all day long since I had a hundred of those in stock, and maybe two

units of the competitive Pentax model.

 

Of course, especially on 35mm SLR gear, the goal was always to sell a filter and a

case as that was where we made our profit. :) We made much higher margins on P&S

cameras than SLRs because of the price pressure from mail order competition for the

more expensive gear.

 

It was certainly a chicken/egg problem for us at the time for Pentax; we had very little

Pentax inventory in stock, so if a customer was truly interested in buying a Pentax

camera with a few lenses, we most likely could offer only the camera.

 

The conversation would go like this:

 

Customer: I want to buy the Pentax 70-210mm zoom and a 28mm along with Super

Program camera.

 

Me: We don't have those lenses in stock, but I can order them for you.

 

Customer: Never mind...I'll just order everything mail order. Thanks for showing me

the camera.

 

Me: (whispering to myself after spending 20 min with the customer) @#%%#^$*$#&!!!

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Jim, that conversation between you and your customer was typical, and I'm sure that modern-day camera sales people still hear that from customers, and still utter those expletives after the customer has departed the store.

 

One point of clarification on spiffs I forgot to mention earlier: It was not unusual for camera store owners to allow their sales people to accept spiffs from one or more manufacturers, but not one or more others. If he wanted you to push Canon and Nikon, you wouldn't get the Pentax, Minolta or Konica spiffs, for example. Their selective use of spiffs was always driven by business decisions that the personnel on the sales floor were not privy to.

 

Will

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I was at a big chain camera store and I overheard a customer ask what are the drawbacks to buying Pentax.<p/>The clerk responded with that there's a much smaller choice of accessories and lenses and the lenses are harder to get. If you look at the lens offerings at the big mail order houses and just glance at the offerings, it does look like Pentax has less choices. But when I look closely, the lenses not offered are the real esoteric ones that I really don't think I would ever need.<p/>Oh, that customer then went and bought a Cannon.<p/>Personally, right now, I think Pentax is the best value in DSLRs. I don't mean value as in cheap; I mean the biggest bang for your buck. And I think part of the reason is they don't have all that marketing and advertisements the others have. Nikon ads really crack me up! "Nothing scares a Nikon Professional!" Those big page 1&2 glossy ads cost big $$$ and their customers are the ones paying.
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Jim & Will: For the record, I'm committed to supporting local independent shops so, having done the research on-line, I went out of my way to try to buy the (4-figure) lens from the local shop. They were simply unwilling to pick up the freakin' phone to contact Pentax USA and get a freakin' price.

 

It's not like they could get me to buy a canikon lens instead--they were willing to let me walk away and buy it from Beach (which I did.) Either they're just riding the canikon wave out of laziness or there's a real problem with the Pentax sales infrastructure --or both.

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I can't find it listed Paul, is it yours or did you just buy it? I need a 1979 3 ring binder and info. Is "Monocular K" listed in it? My Pentax info is weak from 1979 thru 1982 and this is where I've assumed Monocular K was offered and then met its demise. Monocular K is very cool telescope eyepice assessory for supertelephoto lenses. as its a 10x eyepiece.

 

Lindy

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