On Fri, 22 Dec 2006 07:12:15 +1000, Graham Fountain wrote:

jeremy wrote:
"David Kilpatrick" wrote in message
...
jeremy wrote:
Well, many of us sensed that it was coming.

Pentax had been a longtime user of Hoya optical glass, but to see Hoya
swallow Pentax us is disconcerting.

They had already swallowed a big chunk of Pentax, as their subsidiary
brand Tokina makes most of the popular lenses (not the special stuff)

David

I was hoping that Pentax might release a full crop digital body that would
take their older 35mm lenses, but that appears to be a pipe dream now. Time
to start looking for a new camera brand.
I don't know about that - with the new company having approximately 20x
the capitalisation of Pentax, I think the chances of them progressing
more rapidly are significantly higher. There is nothing wrong with
Hoya/Tokina optics, and now they have a camera system to match their
stuff to. With more money to throw around for things like R&D,
marketing, and quite possibly some new high end gear, the brand can only
improve. Before you jump ship, just remember that Canon don't have
approx 70% market share (in Australia at least, not sure about rest of
the world) because they are any better than the competition, it's simply
because they have been marketed better.

There's also the little matter that they have a camera and lens for just
about any niche you can imagine, while the competition doesn't.



--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)