In 2019, whereas each different digital camera producer was embroiled within the race to develop mirrorless programs, a Ricoh govt stated one thing really outstanding: “After one or two years, some customers who modified their system from DSLR to mirrorless come again to the DSLR once more.” He went additional, predicting that “the DSLR market is presently lowering slightly bit, however one yr or two years or three years later, it is going to [begin] getting larger.”
It has been six years. His prediction, optimistic because it was, did not pan out. Spectacularly, catastrophically, nearly impressively improper.
However here is the factor: Pentax continues to be right here. Nonetheless making DSLRs. Nonetheless current in a actuality the remainder of the business deserted someplace round 2018. This is not a narrative about an organization making sensible pivots or studying market tendencies appropriately. It is a story about an organization that selected a hill to die on and one way or the other hasn’t died but.
The DSLR Dedication No person Requested For
Let’s begin with the plain: Canon stopped growing new DSLRs. Nikon stopped growing new DSLRs. Sony deserted their A-mount DSLR/SLT line to focus fully on mirrorless. Pentax is actually the one firm nonetheless all-in on this know-how. Not hedging their bets. Not sustaining a legacy line whereas specializing in mirrorless. All in. Fully dedicated. The final believer standing.
Their present lineup tells the story. The Ok-1 Mark II, their full body flagship, launched in 2018. The Ok-3 Mark III, their APS-C flagship, got here out in 2021. A handful of entry-level our bodies are nonetheless in manufacturing. Pentax confirmed in late 2023 {that a} new APS-C DSLR is in improvement, although no launch timeline has been introduced. No public roadmap, simply obscure assurances that improvement continues. That is it. That is the fleet.
And here is what makes this so unusual: the cameras are genuinely good. The Ok-1 Mark II has weather-sealing that might make a Canon 5D look fragile, in-body stabilization that works with actually any Ok-mount lens going again a long time, Pixel Shift know-how for ultra-high decision information, and Astrotracer performance (with an optionally available GPS unit) that permits you to do long-exposure astrophotography with out a monitoring mount. The Ok-3 Mark III is constructed like a tank, shoots 12 fps, and works in situations that might kill most mirrorless cameras. These aren’t unhealthy merchandise. They’re wonderful merchandise that just about no one needs.
As a result of Pentax did not decide to DSLRs for enterprise causes. They dedicated for philosophical ones. In 2020, Pentax president Shinobu Takahashi declared that there is “merely no substitute” for SLR capturing. The corporate launched a complete advertising marketing campaign round “the enjoyment of utilizing an SLR” and the way the optical viewfinder lets photographers “sense and seize the sunshine coming by the SLR-exclusive pentaprism.” This wasn’t a calculated enterprise resolution. It was nearly ideological. They believed in DSLRs the best way some folks consider in analog audio or mechanical watches. Not as a result of it is higher, however as a result of it is proper.
The market disagreed. DSLR shipments fell to 1.17 million models globally in 2023 in response to CIPA knowledge, down 37% yr over yr and a catastrophic decline from the height of over 15 million. That quantity continues to fall. That is not a market; that is a demise rattle. However Pentax owns that demise rattle now, fully unopposed. They’re the final restaurant on a road everyone deserted. And one way or the other, improbably, they’re nonetheless serving clients. Panorama photographers who want that Pixel Shift decision. Astrophotographers who need Astrotracer. Out of doors shooters who want bulletproof weather-sealing. Individuals with drawers filled with Ok-mount lenses who refuse to begin over. It is a area of interest, but it surely’s theirs. No person else needs it. No person else is competing for it. And that is perhaps the one factor maintaining Pentax alive.
The Ricoh GR: The Factor They Acquired Proper
If you wish to perceive how bizarre Pentax’s state of affairs is, have a look at the Ricoh GR III and GR IV. These pocket-sized cameras with mounted lenses and APS-C sensors are all over the place in road pictures circles. TikTok photographers love them. That is Pentax/Ricoh’s precise profitable product, their one unambiguous win within the fashionable digital camera market.
The GR proves one thing essential: Ricoh can learn the market after they need to. They perceive that compact, discreet, no-nonsense design works. They get that photographers need instruments that do not draw consideration, that slot in a pocket, that do one factor very well as an alternative of making an attempt to be all the things to everybody. The GR embodies the identical design philosophy Pentax claims drives their DSLR dedication. Easy. Sturdy. Targeted on the necessities. So why does it work for the GR and never for Ok mount?
The query no one at Ricoh will reply is that this: if the GR works, why not apply that considering to interchangeable lens cameras? Why not make a GR-style mirrorless Ok-mount digital camera that carries over that very same ethos? The reply is less complicated than you’d suppose: they already tried.
In 2012, Pentax launched the Ok-01, a mirrorless digital camera that used the present Ok mount. This was precisely what Ok-mount customers claimed to need. A mirrorless physique suitable with a long time of Ok-mount lenses. The issue was that maintaining the Ok mount’s flange distance meant the digital camera physique needed to be awkwardly thick, negating many of the measurement benefits of mirrorless. Pentax compounded this by hiring designer Marc Newson to create a weird, brick-like industrial design that regarded extra like an idea piece than a working digital camera. The Ok-01 bought poorly and was discontinued after about two years.
So when folks ask why Pentax does not make a mirrorless Ok-mount digital camera, the reply is: they did, and it bought poorly. The lesson they realized wasn’t “strive once more with higher design.” The lesson they realized was “Ok mount and mirrorless do not combine.” As an alternative, the GR exists in a totally separate universe from Ok-mount DSLRs, as in the event that they’re made by totally different corporations with totally different philosophies. Possibly they’re at this level.
The Movie Digital camera Gambit: Nostalgia as Enterprise Mannequin
Then there’s the Pentax 17. The Movie Digital camera Undertaking was introduced in 2022, however the Pentax 17 itself was unveiled in June 2024. It is a brand-new half-frame movie digital camera. Not a reissue of some traditional mannequin. Not a restricted version nostalgia piece. A very new design, developed from scratch, with fashionable manufacturing and a guaranty. Whereas Canon is placing AI autofocus in all the things and Sony is chasing 100 megapixel sensors, Pentax launched a digital camera that shoots 35mm movie.
The Movie Undertaking, as Pentax calls it, has a roadmap. First was the compact movie digital camera, which is completed. Subsequent is a high-end compact, timeline unclear. Then an SLR mannequin, timeline very unclear. And at last, the dream digital camera: a totally mechanical SLR.
What does this inform us? That Pentax is investing in movie pictures whereas the remainder of the business invests in computational pictures and AI. Movie gross sales are rising, due to Gen Z discovering the aesthetic on TikTok and Instagram. Kodak has ramped up manufacturing. Labs are reopening. Ricoh explicitly cites this rising youth demand as justification for the Movie Undertaking. There’s an actual market right here, greater than many anticipated. However is it a market that may maintain digital camera improvement long-term, or is it a brief wave they’re using?
The Pentax 17 is cool. I genuinely respect it. It is charming, well-designed, and fills an actual hole out there. However it’s not a enterprise technique. It is a love letter. They’re making cameras for a world they need existed, not the world that really exists. And that is been Pentax’s drawback all alongside.
The Mother or father Firm Downside and the Mirrorless Query
Ricoh, Pentax’s mum or dad firm, generates roughly ¥2.13 trillion yearly (roughly $13.8 billion) throughout all its operations. Workplace gear, printers, copiers, doc administration programs make up the majority of that. The digital camera division represents a tiny fraction of that income. They acquired Pentax from Hoya in 2011, tried mirrorless twice (the tiny-sensor Pentax Q system and the awkward Ok-mount Ok-01), watched each fail, and now they’re simply type of letting Pentax do its factor. So long as it does not lose an excessive amount of cash, so long as it maintains some model worth, Ricoh appears content material to let the digital camera division pursue no matter bizarre technique it needs.
Which brings us again to that 2019 quote about photographers returning to DSLRs. That is the place all the things will get uncomfortable. Pentax genuinely believed folks would come again. They thought mirrorless was a brief fascination, a shiny new toy that might lose its attraction as soon as photographers realized what they had been giving up. So why make investments $500 million or extra in growing a brand new mirrorless mount? Why construct out a complete new lens lineup? Why compete in an area the place Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, Panasonic, and OM System are already entrenched? Simply wait it out. Let the fad move. Be prepared when photographers bear in mind why they beloved DSLRs.
Besides that vindication by no means got here. Photographers did not miss optical viewfinders. They did not come crawling again to the “pleasure” of SLR capturing. Mirrorless saved getting higher. EVFs acquired sharper, sooner, extra responsive. Face detection turned dependable. Eye autofocus turned customary. Battery life improved. The scale benefit remained. Yearly that handed made the hole wider, not narrower. And Pentax simply saved ready.
By the point it turned clear they had been improper, it was too late. They’d already dedicated publicly to the DSLR future. They’d already informed their remaining clients that Ok mount was the suitable alternative. Now they’re trapped. They can not abandon Ok-mount customers, as a result of that is all they’ve left. However they cannot compete in mirrorless with out basically admitting the final six years had been a mistake. If you say mirrorless is short-term and DSLRs will bounce again, and then you definately’re confirmed catastrophically improper, you possibly can’t all of a sudden announce a mirrorless system and count on anybody to take you significantly. They painted themselves right into a nook with their very own rhetoric.
The Ok mount faces important technological challenges going ahead, whilst Pentax continues growing new lenses for it. With out main sensor and processing developments that might require substantial funding, the hole between DSLR and mirrorless capabilities will solely widen. Coming into the mirrorless market now would require funding Ricoh cannot justify for a digital camera division that hardly strikes the needle financially. So what’s left? They’re managing decline, not planning development. The DSLR dedication is not imaginative and prescient anymore. It is the one possibility they’ve.
Nonetheless Right here, Nonetheless Unsuitable
So what’s Pentax in 2025? It is not a digital camera firm with a future. It is a digital camera firm with a previous and a gift. The DSLR wager wasn’t courageous. It was cussed. They confused their private desire for market actuality. They make genuinely good cameras that genuinely do not matter to most photographers anymore.
There are three attainable futures, none of them nice. Greatest case: they limp alongside for one more 5 to 10 years promoting DSLRs to the shrinking pool of holdouts and GR cameras to road photographers. They proceed firmware updates and repair assist for current cameras. The Movie Undertaking delivers possibly yet one more digital camera. Elements suppliers hold making DSLR parts only for them. Ricoh tolerates the low-volume operation as a result of the model nonetheless has worth. That is survival, but it surely’s not thriving.
Center case: Ricoh decides the digital camera division is not price sustaining and sells it off. Somebody buys the Pentax identify, possibly pivots to mirrorless underneath new possession, tries to salvage the Ok-mount ecosystem or begins recent. Suppose OM Digital Options taking on Olympus. The model continues in some kind, most likely smaller, presumably higher managed. Possibly there is a path ahead underneath totally different management with out the luggage of these 2019 predictions.
Worst case: elements suppliers cease making DSLR parts. Sensor know-how accessible for DSLRs falls too far behind. Ricoh may quietly announce they’re “restructuring” the digital camera division. Ok mount turns into an orphaned system. The Movie Undertaking stops mid-stream. Pentax turns into a model identify on rebadged merchandise or disappears fully.
Pentax resides proof that you could be nice at making cameras and horrible at studying the room. They’re going to be remembered not for unhealthy merchandise, however for the improper wager. For believing photographers would return to DSLRs when everybody else noticed the reality. For staying loyal to a know-how the world deserted. For considering optical viewfinders and the “pleasure” of SLR capturing would matter greater than computational pictures, silent shutters, face detection, and ideal publicity previews.
In 2019, Hiroki Sugahara expressed his perception that photographers would come again to DSLRs in a single or two years. It was optimistic hypothesis, not market evaluation. Six years later, they have not. The DSLR market did not stabilize. It collapsed. Mirrorless did not fade. It gained fully. And Pentax continues to be right here, nonetheless making DSLRs, nonetheless believing.
That is both essentially the most admirable dedication within the digital camera business or the most costly act of denial. Most likely each. They selected a hill to die on, they usually’re dying on it with dignity, making wonderful cameras few need. There’s one thing nearly noble about being that improper with that a lot conviction. However the Aristocracy does not pay the payments, and conviction does not ship models. Pentax wager all the things on photographers caring about the identical issues they cared about. The market stated no. And now they’re out of strikes.
Pentax most likely has 5 to 10 extra years of inertia. The query is whether or not that counts as survival or only a very sluggish ending, or, in the event that they pull off a miracle. It doesn’t matter what, they will go down in historical past as the corporate that believed so exhausting in DSLRs that they could not see the world altering round them. Generally being good at making cameras is not sufficient. Generally it’s a must to make the cameras folks really need to purchase.
