Sunday, January 18, 2009

If only six letters were changed on the K20D, how popular do you think it would be?

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Hi Pentaxian friends.

According to DPReview, which probably receives more hits everyday than all the other photographic websites combined, shows the brand popularity for the past five days as follow:

Which one of the following DSLR would be selling the most?




Canon and Nikon, as we all know, dominate the DSLR market and their marketing budget is many time that of the Pentax's budget. More people know about the top brands and therefore more people purchase their DSLRs. Are they better cameras? No they are not. They do however make some of the Professional models selling for many thousands of dollars. Consequently, more Professional Photographers, you know the photographers that dominate the articles published by the photographic magazines, use these top of the line models. Really, many of the Professionals doing weddings, sports, photojournalism also need these very expensive DSLRs.

What do you think the sales of a K20D, or K10D manufactured by Nikon or Canon would have meant? I am 100% sure that the camera would have been introduced as a breakthrough camera. They would have promoted the in-camera shake reduction (SR), the Sv (Sensitivity Priority) as the best thing since sliced bread, the Dust and Humidity Resistance as revolutionary at that price range, etc.

The reality, Canon and Nikon wouldn' t have introduced the K20D at the price range it was introduced by Pentax. It would have been announced at twice the price and people would have flocked in camera stores to get one. Unfortunately my friends, I think that this shows the power of marketing. It's a vicious circle as the more you sell, the more you advertise and the more you advertise, the more you sell. It's the old saying of what came first - the chicken or the egg? How does Pentax get in?

Luckily for us, the owners of the K20D or any Pentax DSLR, we get to use a DSLR that is unmatched by any other brand for the price. We, Pentaxians, know that very well. We're even a little cocky about it, but that's understandable. We are an unusual bunch of photograhers. We don't care about friends or strangers boasting about their Nikon or Canon cameras. We know they're wrong and sometimes we even feel sorry for them.

Maybe in time, they will come to their senses. I'm not saying that the K20D is equivalent or better than the D3x or the EOS-1Ds Mark III, but it's certainly a lot more camera for the price. Besides, what picture could these DSLRs take that the K20D couldn't?

Aren't we fortunate!

Thank you for reading,

Yvon Bourque

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Come on tell the truth, your greedy dishonest past is catching up on you. I am fed up having my mails ignored and have made a formal complaint here. http://ag.ca.gov/contact/complaint_form.php?cmplt=CL

©mderome said...

"The few, the proud, the Pentaxians" couls some this up very well.Salutation de Mtl.

Kamaraju said...

I agree with you 100%

Anonymous said...

Yvon, you are quite right that Pentax makes the best value-for-money cameras. I hope nobody will disagree with this.

But you forgot to mention my favourite shooting mode available in the K10/20D: TAv! Shooting indoors in low light is made so much easier by TAv. I love it!

Anonymous said...

Well - 1. You're right, if C. or N. would have a DSLR like Pentax with it's goodies it would be announced as 'revolution' and twice as expensive.
2. We're lucky to have Pentax at the price we have, without paying for commercials and such.
3. It's kinda like racism - "mine is best, rest is shit" what often people having Canon or Nikon do. I think, we have to love all our brothers in photography - no matter what camera logo do they have.

Anonymous said...

Not surprising at all; it really comes down to marketing dollars that sells the (sometimes) inferior product at the same price range.

Having said that, wouldn't trade my K20D for anything at this point!

street_vision said...

This is one of the better articles I have read of late. So true.

Bruce Robbins said...

I don't think there's much doubt that Pentax make the second best value cameras (Samsung?) but there are still plenty of valid reasons for choosing Canon and Nikon. The K20D's three frames per second puts you at a disadvantage when shooting fast moving sports, particularly motor sport. Some other cameras have superior high ISO capabilities and are much better at some types of low light work, such as available light documentary, as a result.

The K20D's autofocus isn't as fast as some of the Nikon and Canon models and the viewfinder is neither as big nor as bright as the full frame DSLR finders. There are other areas where other cameras have an advantage over the K20D. For the price, the K20D is a great buy but it would be wrong to suggest that it has all the capabilities of more expensive cameras or that it can tackle everything they can. Pros are a hard-nosed bunch and there are very good reasons why they choose the cameras they do.

Unknown said...

Folks,

I am not suggesting that the K20D is better than all of the Canon or Nikon cameras. I am simply stating that, at the time of the introduction of the K20D, If it would have been nmanufactured by Nikon or Canon, it would have been perceived as a revolutionary camera and since the two top companies have a much bigger advertizing budgets, it would have sold like hot cakes.