"W Paul Mills" wrote in message
...


The reason Pentax could not do this is the lack of capital. So this
could change now for the better. Then again, depends on the direction
the merged company takes. They may abandon the camera market, and may
not. Only time will tell.


I can't think offhand of any major company that was helped in its financial
woes by being merged into a bigger, better-capitalized company. Typically,
the stronger company buys up the weaker one's resources, customers and
assets at pennies on the dollar and then sells off or shuts down the parts
that do not fit with the stronger company's vision.

What if Hoya were to rebadge their Tokina lenses as "Pentax" and then sell
off the camera unit to Samsung? Perhaps even allow Samsung to use the
Pentax name for a period of time, and then to gradually wean customers over
to the Samsung name, while Tokina lenses were now selling more briskly under
the Pentax brand? That is only one possible scenario.

Pentax's reputation was built by their lenses, not their camera bodies.
Their last noteworthy camera was the LX, and they killed it off, rather than
improve it like Nikon did with their F series. Even if Pentax were to
release a new super "professional" camera model right now, who would buy it?
Professionals have migrated to digital, and those that require a top-notch
film camera would buy the Nikon F6.

Pentax withdrew from the competition years ago, and now that contest is over
and they can't come back. They have discovered, as did Minolta, Bronica,
Contax and Olympus have, that their prior dominance in the film domain was
no guarantee of success in digital--and the buyers are virtually all buying
digital.

I am saddened to see Pentax's demise. All of my film cameras are Pentaxes,
as are all of my lenses, but there is no hope of their being around to
supply me with future photo gear. If the rest of their customer base
becomes of a like mind, they will disappear from the market.