The launch of the Pentax 17, a brand-new half-frame film camera, has been hugely successful for Ricoh. So much so that the company has been forced to stop accepting orders for it as it scrambles to catch up to demand.
Since it is being produced by a company that already has a hard time keeping its GR III cameras in stock, it should come as no surprise then that pre-orders for the Pentax 17 have been far greater in number than anticipated and that there may be a significant wait to deliver them all.
Pentax is considering making a brand-new hand-winding manual film camera as part of its endeavors to develop a new analog camera that appeals to young film enthusiasts.
Ricoh has announced the Pentax KF DSLR, a camera that is, outside of a few minor changes, pretty much identical to the Pentax K-70 that was originally released in 2016.
In addition to the Limited Lens series announced yesterday, Pentax has also updated its lens roadmap to include four more optics as well as launched a set of K-1 Mark II recolors for Japan.
In an interview with Alfa Romeo Japan, the President and CEO of Ricoh Imaging Shinobu Takahashi is surprisingly upfront about Ricoh's acquisition of Pentax and the issues the company has had with finding its place in a competitive and collapsing market.
When Ricoh announced the new "Brand Vision" for Pentax, they promised to share more details about upcoming products very soon. Earlier today, they delivered in a follow-up video showing off the upcoming Pentax APS-C flagship DSLR.
Agree or disagree, you have to admire Ricoh/Pentax' stubbornness. As every other company focuses all of their resources on mirrorless cameras, Pentax has just launched a website and multiple videos reasserting the brand's commitment to "the future of SLR photography."
Ricoh has announced the development of its third "Star-series lens" and second Prime in the lineup: the HD Pentax-D FA* 85mm f/1.4 SDM AW. Like previous FA* lenses, this 85mm promises to deliver "perfect image quality" and "high quality workmanship" for users of Pentax DSLRs.
The K-3 webpage leaked yesterday (and along with it much of the information we now have) but now we're done with leaks and rumors: Ricoh Imaging's Pentax K-3 is official. A beastly APS-C shooter with a stacked spec sheet, the camera is sure to please serious photographers.
We've said it before and we'll say it again, October is looking to be a big month for camera announcements. And of course, along with announcements come leaks. Case in point: the upcoming Pentax K-3 isn't supposed to be announced for another 24 hours or so, but someone at Ricoh accidentally let the webpage go live briefly.
Last October Ricoh sealed the deal with Pentax, buying out the company for a sizeable $124-million. Since then we haven't seen any major changes as Pentax has gone about its business as usual. That, however, isn't going to be the case for much longer. According to the President of Pentax Imaging Ricoh, Noboru Akabane, there is a major change on the way: Pentax will be dropping compact, fixed lens camera development all-together, leaving all of that to Ricoh.