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Comment by dale_glass | Hacker News Reader

I don't think Pentax is sticking to SLR because they've got some very special ideas. I think it's just pragmatic.

Pentax K has a flange distance of 45 mm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flange_focal_distance). This puts Pentax in a tricky position. Making a mirrorless camera is nearly pointless if they want to keep their current lenses. And they're already a niche player with barely any adoption.

Their options would be releasing a fat mirrorless camera, providing an adapter and creating a new lens mount, or adopting an existing lens mount. All of these kind of suck, and would risk losing market share. The easiest option seems to just keep going.

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They also don't have the money to R&D for a mirrorless camera in such an already competitive landscape dominated by AF and video high level performance.

They could only shine in a niche market, like SIGMA is trying with their fp and sd camera (Foveon triple layer sensor)... and DSLR seems to be a safer market for Pentax with huge heritage and strong fan base. The demand for Optical viewfinder in EVF times is there, and will still probably be way higher in the next years when they'll be the only one to care as Nikon and Canon already told they won't release any lens or body anymore with the DSLR technology.

Yeah. Personally, I would never buy a mirrorless camera for still photography (I hate EVFs). I have thought about getting back into photography and most likely I would pick up an old Leica M3. I'm quite happy that film and chemicals have recently become more available again, as film photography has begun to see a resurgence.

Film and chemicals more available again ? They've never been hard to get, at least here in France. They are just WAY more expensive now as they are popular amongst younger photographers who don't mind over paying common vintage cameras and 30euros for 36 pictures to be shot/developped/scanned.

If you want a good finder for still work, you’re much better off with an SLR such as the Nikon F3. The M3 is a stunning camera but it’s usability is very low for anything but some casual stuff. People like them for the prestige.

Anything Nikon from the F3 onwards, F4's seem to be a tad cheaper, is a good choice. Great cameras, hell the F4 was revolutionary at its time, and they work with all F-mount lenses. As do all Nikon DSLRs, and those lenses, especially some manual focus ones, are quite cheap despite being optically marvelous.

Same goes for Canon, but there lens compatability for older models is more limited. Added added benefit: The F4 works with G-versionen lenses, if memory works well, and those work great with the z-mount lenses using the adaptor. Additional added benefit: Fujifilm cameras work great with f-mount and an adapter as well.

Invest in lenses, not cameras.

That loses the flange focal distance advantage. SLRs are great for making professional photographs but they are quite bulky. Leica M rangefinders are nice and compact with some very small, yet fast, lenses.

They made a mirrorless K-mount camera, the K-01, 10-11 years ago. Got some moderately well-known designer to make a moderately trendy looking thing. It bombed.

They also attempted a new mirrorless series ("Q") but I think it only got a little bit of traction even in Japan. Some bad decisions and wrong compromises there, though I did meet a woman who loved her pink one.

I remember the K-01, I didn't care for it. For me, a camera is a tool, not a fashion accessory. I couldn't care less that some famous guy designed it. Reviews said it was uncomfortable and for me that was that.

The Q didn't interest me because of its small sensor.

Agree 100%. All I'm saying is that they've dabbled with these things before, albeit without any real success.

It is of course possible to make a fashion accessory that is also a tool, but then you have a Leica and I can't afford one!

Leica is pretty much done as a professional camera company, it's a luxury brand along the lines of Rolex. Professionals overwhelmingly use Nikon, Canon, Sony and Fuji in that order, Leica has dropped to sub 1% of the pro market. And compared to say Hasselblad they don't have any USPs that would make someone choose their brand other than the brand itself.

Interestingly: amateurs use Leica 2x as much as professionals do, because the myth of the expensive camera making better pictures is still alive and well.

I remember back when Leica made their own monochrome digital camera (this idea isn't new, Leica did this in 2012).

Half their ad was showing off how they make the bag for the thing.

With prominently displayed branding, because after all, you don't want any thieves to think that they might have a $7K device that can easily be carted off sitting around.

Oh, wait...

You're meant to put a piece of black tape over it so you can LARP as a 1960s combat photojournalist.

Minor: The Leica M11 Monochrome does not have a red Leica logo.

Besides the branding not being that obvious, it should be quite difficult to sell a stolen Leica. At least for anything more than a pittance. It doesn't matter what it costs, what matters for a thief is what they can sell it for.

Why would it be difficult to sell a stolen Leica? Do they have some sort of cloud backed locating thing installed?

Leica cameras are very specialized equipment. The market is small. It is not that a random person would pick up a Leica camera. They are likely to be serviced at some point in time, as the range finder might need adjustment. A stolen serial number would be detected instantly.

I don't think that's as likely as you think. There are hundreds if not thousands for sale on eBay right now, and dozens on each of the NY, LA, and SF craigslists.

Exactly: thieves don't care what you paid for it they care what they can sell it for and they can sell stolen Leica's for enough money that this is a real problem when buying stuff second hand. More so because whoever you buy it from may not know that once upon a time it was stolen. This applies to all goods that are resold but for cameras, laptops and smartphones it is a big issue because those are stolen with great regularity (and it is why manufacturers build in protection against theft in some of their devices and will not replace certain parts unless you can prove you are the owner of the device).

There is a whole industry in unbricking stolen laptops, for instance.

Laptops are common equipment, Leica cameras are not. Especially M series cameras are only used by enthusiasts. They know about stuff and won't pick up a shady one. The next service would put them into trouble anyway.

Your random thief is just going to grab the bag based on the brand and run off, they won't know or care if it is an 'M' series or not, just like your average Rolex thief isn't going to care beyond the basics of 'expensive brand'. That's all.

Except Leica also makes an entire model option (a few in fact) that also minimize or eliminate any branding.

> this idea isn't new, Leica did this in 2012

They also released the M10 monochrom in 2020 and the M11 just this year. As long as there's people willing to pay 7k for a (B&W) camera, leica is going to make them

And as the Pentax is the only competition, a lot of people are willing to pay for the Monochrom.

That last comment is a bit unfair, no? Yes, there are plenty of "fools" that throw money on Leica gear and wearing it as a fashion statement. However, Leicas are also darn fun to shoot, even if they make zero sense for a professional that most likely want reliability and are optimising for nailing each shot.

I, however, very much enjoy the "flawed" process of using a rangefinder. It makes me obsess less about each shot for some reason. Likewise, it is great to be able to share lenses between my non-Leica film camera and digital Leica. Plus, having access to lenses going all the way back to the 30s is also fun, despite them having serious flaws at times.

So, yes, I agree that Leica is "done", but has that not in many ways been the case since the professionals got proper SLRs into their hands in the 60/70s? I for one appreciate the "fools" that throw money at Leica so that I can pick up a second hand digital one ever half a decade or so to keep my fun going.

All of the above applied pretty much equally to Fujifilm at this point, though.

I’ve heard it said that Fujifilm is the Leica of the 1970s, today. I think I agree with that.

I love my X-Pro3. It’s 100% a choice I made for the joy of photography, not practicality. I considered Leica. I could afford it, but they just didn’t offer anything Fujifilm didn’t outside the brand itself.

I usually hear that something like a Leica Q (Q, Q2, Q3) would be a step up in lens and sensor quality. They have full frame sensors, the newer models have a higher resolution and a matching lens. It's also a step up in price... Used Leica Q models are not out of reach price wise. M cameras often are.

I bought a Q2 just be for the Covid pandemic and I kind of expected to be disappointed, given the ratio of capabilities and price. But I wasn't. I actually like the output of the camera.

I mostly agree and love what Fujifilm is bringing to the table (the viewfinder in particular). Sadly their sensor size breaks backwards compatibility though with relation to old lenses. Other than that, I wholeheartedly agree and readily recommend Fujifilm cameras to others looking to get into photography and are not looking to use old lenses and swap lenses between film and digital gear.

Do any of the fuji digital rangefinders have true mechanical focus rings, rather than "focus by wire"? I had an original X100 and thought it was a terrific camera. But I couldn't shoot with it the way I prefer because the manual focus mechanism was too slow and lacked the tactile+visual feedback of mechanical focus.

I looked a couple of years ago at the then-current fuji offerings and thought they seemed great, again, but still weren't the right thing for me because none of them had physically coupled focus rings.

Yes, they do. I have Fujinon 16mm f/1.4 that allows you to switch to manual focus mode on lens and have depth of field for apertures and distance markers, so you can pre-focus in advance.

Thanks. (And that sounds like a fun lens!)

We had a couple. Irregardless of their design, they were great cameras. They still work. It's amazing when you can put on your 40 year old telephoto lens, and everything just works. (Manually of course.)

The neat thing about Pentax K mount is that it's backwards compatible with M42 screw-mount lenses which opens up an enormous ecosystem of classic lenses.

Yeah, but that's a very niche interest.

Those don't autofocus, don't manually focus well unless you mod the camera with a split prism, and are optically not great unless you're into it for the swirly bokeh or such niche things.

Certainly there's niche appeal for it, but not mass appeal by any means.

>don't manually focus well unless you mod the camera with a split prism

You can use electronic focus confirmation with MF lenses.

You're obviously thinking of Helios 44 and other Russian lenses, but there are also many outstanding m42 lenses, including Pentax Takumars.

I have a 50 1.4 takumar, it's optically not great by today's standards. You really do only buy it for the look and feel (or because it's so cheap)

They are as compatible with M42 as is my Sony A7 with an adapter.

I agree that owning the DSLR niche is a good strategy for Pentax. Ricoh hasn't given them the budget to make digital autofocus systems that are competitive with the other big brands, and it's likely hard to justify doing so with their market share.

There's an interesting world where Ricoh sells Pentax to Samsung or Apple or Google. Taking cutting edge computational photography from smartphones and applying it to a full-size camera with the sensors and optics to match could be really compelling. Pentax has good brand value and the optical expertise to make this credible to photographers, and there'd be growth potential in just taking market share from other players.

Maybe there is a market for smartphone filters in full blown DSLRs. Maybe not. I for sure want my DSLRs to give me a clean RAW file if I want it. And my phone, too. Which my Pixel does.

Sure. But isn't "computational photography" also all the "smarts" around taking the picture?

Like subject detection for focus tracking. Or trying to "understand" the scene and figure that since the subject moves, it's better to up the ISO and the shutter speed because the stabilizer won't help you. Or figure that some 300-year-old building won't start moving just as you take the picture, so it can do the reverse and take advantage of the stabilizer.

Auto-exposure exists since the 90 in SLRs, auto-ISO since the first DSLRs. The result is still a normal photo, either on undeveloped film or, if you want so, a RAW file.

Kind of the same goes for Auto-Focus with subject and face recognition and such. Still, the result is, ideally, well exposed and focused picture.

Computational photography is everything the camera does between the RAW image data (which is itself already processed sensor data) and the JPEG it creates. Thisbis as well as old as the first DSLRs, and such far from all the post-processing e.g. smart phones do. And the latter so, well, I am not sure how much it has to do with photography when information coming from sources other than the RAW data is used. Or when a ton of filters, auto-pseudo-HDR and focus stacking is automatically applied.

My favorite camera + lens in use is a micro 4/3 mirrorless body with a pentax lens adapted with an off brand "speed booster" making my lens an F/1 in principle. Filling in the gap where the mirror was supposed to be is an easy problem, making it fun to repurpose lenses designed for SLRs on mirrorless cameras. There are even passive spacer adapters that just fill the flange distance. It can be an option for Pentax to design these adapters with the autofocus also working.

I also have a micro 4/3 camera with an adapter and a bunch of vintage (70s) Pentax lenses from the Super Takumar range (M42 screw mount).

You can get them off eBay for under 100$ each in almost-new condition, and they're super fun to play with..

How is this different from other manufacturers? Focal distances are pretty similar between all of these for SLR versus mirrorless.

Canon offers adapters for their mirrorless cameras, both EF-M and RF. https://www.canon.ca/en/products/Lenses/Mount-Adapters

Nikon has the f to z adapter: https://en.nikon.ca/nikon-products/product/lens-mount-adapte...

Sony has an A to E adapter https://electronics.sony.com/imaging/imaging-accessories/ima...

They could make a mirrorless camera with a new short flange mount and include an adapter to the k-flange. They could include (or just sell) adapters to other popular mounts.

For something like a oddball monochrome camera, being able to use it with assorted odds lenses would be a big selling point.

Pentax is probably the most conservative Japanese camera maker still around (despite belonging to the Zeiss lineage along with Nikon and Yashica, not the Leitz line).

A 'fat' mirrorless camera wouldn't be too much of an issue; many people find skinny MILCs too small to hold, and Canon and Nikon both still produce full-grip MILCs at the top of their ranges.

Seriously my Olympus did not even begin to feel usable until I had bought and installed both optional grips. And I have small hands.

My daughter has a pink, what else, Nikon 1. Fun little camera, and image quality is great. A pitty that the orginal Nikon 1 lenses, while being great optically, are flimsy mechanically. Well, G-series Nikkors work just fine with an adaptor, and she likes the thing with a cheap 18-55 DX kit lense on it. Only downside, the camera is bigger.

It also a great camera, with small sensor to give some additional reach over DX. And the sight of it with a 600 Novoflex attached to it is something to behold! Or a 300 mm with a 2x TC. Tripod mandatory!

That's not too far off Canon EF (44mm) and less than Nikon F/AF (46.5mm).

Their mirrorless cameras don't use these though and require an adapter at best.

The existing Pentax lenses are just rebadged Tamron lenses. Tamron and Sigma make a full suite of mirrorless lenses. Of course, they could also use the L-mount.

I tried researching this claim and found forums[0] discussing that in some cases Pentax has sold Tamron designed lenses but it sounds like it's far from all Pentax K-Mount lenses.

Also worth reading this article and the comments[1]. Sounds like all * lenses are in-house Ricoh designs, and just a few select lenses have been partnerships with Tamron.

Do you have sources?

[0] https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/10-pentax-slr-lens-discu...

[1] https://fstoppers.com/originals/comments-suggest-newly-annou...

What I mean is that if Pentax changes mounts, they run the risk of upsetting their current very hardcore user base that now owns a bunch of lenses nobody else will want that much.

If they adopt an existing mount, they risk becoming less distinctive. They become an alternative body in some pre-existing lens ecosystem.

And since the flange distance is so large, a K mirrorless will be rather fat and compare unfavorably to the existing mirrorless market. It'll also suffer from all the downsides of a long flange distance, like the difficulty of making good wide angle lenses.

However you slice it, they're in a tricky position.

Only a few are Tamron designs. Most Pentax branded lenses, including the most iconic, are exclusive designs: the FA Limited, the DA Limited, the DFA 100mm Macro, the * star lenses.

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