Travel Photography - Ricoh purchases Pentax digital camera assets from Hoya

Ricoh, which has a fairly respectable existing digital camera lineup, has purchased the digital camera assets of Pentax from Hoya (which will concentrate on medical and scientific imaging).

More info here (http://bit.ly/ihfrKJ).

Overall, this should be good news. Ricoh has the resources to develop the Pentax brand and it also seems to have the desire to do so. What will be interesting is how they manage the two brands and also the different technologies – after the acquisition, they have three different lines of interchangeable lens cameras (Pentax 4/3 DSLRs, Pentax Q, and Ricoh GXR).

Cheers,
T.

N.B. The original text is incorrect in one place: Pentax DSLR's are not Four Thirds.

This has caused a lot of discussion and no small amount of speculation in the Pentax forums. In general, I think we pretty much agree that an infusion of cash and advertising effort can only help Pentax, which has suffered from neglect under Hoya. The fear is that the Pentax label might be diluted into Ricoh, which would NOT sit well with us Pentaxians. There has been no indication that may be planned but we have to have something to obsess over. :D

A correction. Pentax DSLRs are not 4/3. They are standard 1.5x crop sensor and the 645D medium format.

I think that means the end of the road for the 1.5x crop dSLR for Pentax, and development or releases of future K-mount lenses.