I think Barry has foregone the pleasures of owning a Pentax for the time being, maybe that little ILC they brought out recently was the first of things to come...what was it called again Q? or something, and Nikon with their V...good grief, a song pops into my head but I can't remember all the words, it goes something like ....full of ticky tacky..and they all look just the same. Seems apt somehow.
Greg

Bar a helicopter landing in the back garden over the next few weeks direct from Pentax HQ carrying gold plated cameras and lenses for my free personal use, and a hand written apology from the CEO of Pentax, I'm pretty much done with Pentax

Leaving aside my own recent feelings for the company (which are pretty damning in many ways customer service wise) My initial thoughts about Ricoh were mostly positive when they took over Pentax. Recently though I've had many more "doubts" mostly as Ricoh can be a bit "oddball" and whilst they have some good ideas, they can miss obvious points (GRD series no OVF strange to say the least) GXR whilst novel is really the big loser in the entire mirror less market. An idea that might have caught on had it hit the stores 2-3 years before it did, now seems completely at odds with what people might want to buy.

As for mirror less medium format, I really have no idea of the needs of MF users so I'm sure they would have a better idea than I would.
On the possible 35mm FF model I think an optical viewfinder would make more sense. The problem for Pentax is they have very few full frame lenses in the system, that will require quite a lot of work to pull that off mirror or not.

On the size point I simply don't see why that is a focus for the company, the K-x was a bit small for me really quite a compact SLR if there ever was one (too small in hindsight) K-r a little better I was ok with that size wise, K-5 is also smaller than most a bit larger than the K-r. I really don't see where the desire to make these cameras even smaller comes from. I think it's misplaced logic..I def don't go for big monster pro level Canon sized bodies nor would I ever, but too small hurts handling and comfort something the A55 suffered from badly (IMO)

Yes a FF camera is a strange rumour for Pentax when they have been totally focussed on APS-C (apart from their non interchangeable back 645D and weird Q) with bodies and lenses (DT style). To turn around and offer an entire FF system with a complete new modern FF lens range would cost a fortune; maybe they could bring out an ILC body that just uses their legacy lenses or such, it’s all very strange.
I think what’s happening in Pentax and Sony to some extent, (maybe even Nikon too have pressures put on them by the money lenders, shareholders and accountants), is the bean counters have had too much to say about how much they are allowed to spend on camera development before packing it off to the market.
Greg

You may be right. Certainly, Olympus's camera division has been an acknowledged loss-maker for years, subsidised - or so it was thought before the currect farrago of revelations - by its fine medical products side. It may well be tbat the R&D required for a full camera system (ie FF, APS-C and now CSC) is simply too great in the digital age. I suspect that the survivors of this great tournament will include Canon, Sony and Panasonic as mainstream producers but the rest, including Nikon, might find resources to be a constraint. Fortunes can change quickly, though, as evidenced by Leica which has discovered it can compete on product (M9) without having to resort to silly fripperies like special editions and now seems secure as a niche producer in the 35mm arena while the S2 seems to be propelling it into the top pro-league as well.

This seems to be spreading around quite a bit today:
http://www.mirrorlessrumors.com/hot-pen ... ming-soon/

If it's true that's a K-r type model. If it turns out they stop doing the lower end DSLR's (I'd doubt they would go EVF for that model) then this is a case of amazing timing by myself and I would feel even better for giving Pentax the shove!

From the description it sounds pretty horrible (ie to look at!)