10-02-2006, 03:22 AM
I think the comparison of Pentax and Apple market shares is fairly valid, as long as you're not talking about iPods! Pentax does not need to sell as many cameras as Canon or Nikon in order to succeed.
Pentax marketing is much more visible now than it was a year or so ago. I forget which city it is, but in one with light rail in the U.S. Pentax has bought advertising on trains, the kind where the entire train becomes a rolling ad, for example. This is for the K100D, which is selling well based on my unscientific poll of each camera store I go into. E.g. "sold three yesterday..." ect. The marketing director for Pentax USA is a regular visitor to the dpreview.com Pentax forum, and it's very clear that he pays close attention to what the forum folks are saying. A lot of that is reflected in the K10D.
It's worth noting that 11 of the 20 top cameras in the dpreview "click meter" are not DSLRs. The Canon G7 for example is #2 so it has been getting a lot of hits but has also been taking a beating in the forums due to poor image quality and lack of RAW. So a lot of clicks doesn't necessarily translate into popularity.
Pentax marketing is much more visible now than it was a year or so ago. I forget which city it is, but in one with light rail in the U.S. Pentax has bought advertising on trains, the kind where the entire train becomes a rolling ad, for example. This is for the K100D, which is selling well based on my unscientific poll of each camera store I go into. E.g. "sold three yesterday..." ect. The marketing director for Pentax USA is a regular visitor to the dpreview.com Pentax forum, and it's very clear that he pays close attention to what the forum folks are saying. A lot of that is reflected in the K10D.
It's worth noting that 11 of the 20 top cameras in the dpreview "click meter" are not DSLRs. The Canon G7 for example is #2 so it has been getting a lot of hits but has also been taking a beating in the forums due to poor image quality and lack of RAW. So a lot of clicks doesn't necessarily translate into popularity.