Re: Special Interview with PENTAX @PMA

[Herb Chong]

there are only two designers of larger than 35mm format sensors and one of 
them, Dalsa, is scaling back although it is a profitable company that is 
growing. Kodak reduced its MF back line from several down to one. no-one is 
investing in new capacity, let alone new production facilities. no-one is 
paying for it. if Pentax is going to introduce anything this year, it has to 
be using a sensor that is available right now. that means it'll be priced 
just like the Mamiya ZD at around $12K list using a 48x36mm 22 megapixel 
sensor. it could be worse if it is priced like the Hasselblad H1D at $16K 
using the same sensor. i expect the Pentax body would have to come in at 
about $13K list to have a chance of recovering its costs.

prices of DSLRs are holding fairly steady compared to P&S cameras and that 
is deliberate. manufacturers are consciously avoiding a price war. how long 
that will continue is anybody's guess. a price war in digital medium format 
will put everyone in it out of business.

Herb...
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "P�l Jensen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <pentax-discuss@pdml.net>
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 9:01 AM
Subject: Re: Special Interview with PENTAX @PMA


These kind of arguments a rather pointless although they may be true, 
because they only reflect the current situations. I can remember when only 
few companies globally manufactured CD's. The yield rate was low; prices 
high. The experts claimed that in the future only major artist (like 
Michael Jackson) would ever be released on the CD medium. Nowadays the 
least sold records of all time are avaiable comercially on CD and you can 
even burn them at home.