Your right and everyone would like a 645 d or d2 at under 10 grand with a large lens set that didn't give buyers remorse.
The problem is in cameraland, there is always a catch.
The Pentax, good jpegs, great screen, good viewfinder, legacy lenses. Also small buffer, limited and expensive newer lenses, doesn't really tether that well and unless you want to search out older lenses and find the right combination, at the end of the day you don't save huge with Pentax newer lenses. The biggest issue with Pentax is transparency. All of their plans seem to come at a rumor bases.
Last year I spoke to the largest specialty Pentax dealer in the East Coast and he was selling off all his 645's at a discount, saying Pentax will move to full frame 35mm. We'll so far that didn't happen and I don't think Pentax cares that much about professionals. That's kind of a shame because most people rave about the pentax aps cameras, but all of this is just a guess.
I assume they built the 645d for the Japanese market that shoots scenics and flowers and previously did so with film. For them, the 645d was perfect, but it never seemed that Pentax ever planned on making a large worldwide push.
You see this with all makers, searching out that niche that they can exploit. The new phase cmos camera seems to be a push towards wedding and event photographers. Personally I assume that shipped has sailed to high end 35mm cameras, or even the 5d2 set, but Phase is smart and that seems to be a market they found open for medium format, though at $35,000 I have to wonder.
Basically in all things in life, there really is no free lunch.
IMO
BC
J,
Yes, there have been reports that the 645D has had good domestic success; when in Japan, I was very surprised to discover to what extent the japanese are dedicated to photography as a hobby and pastime. There was also a big "marriage" market there for set-piece imagery, as in Korea; this was owned by Fuji who supplied everything from special cameras (think Fuji S5 with the sensor tailored for the highlights in the bride's dress), dyesub printers etc. I don't know who has this market now.
Now, when Phase tries to go into events, I have my doubts - I do know one or two things first hand about that side of photography, and it is all about focus, speed, batteries, card capacity, usable zoom lenses. I believe that in studio shooting -set me right- the comp won't run out of power or storage, you can stop and change lenses if you want to, but in the field after an hour or two every resource you have including your own arm strength is exhausted, every pause eg. to change cards is a lost image, hitting the buffer is a nightmare, often your assistant cannot get to you, you need to move with the crowd, so you're stuck with whatever equipment you have in your hands or hanging off your shoulders. Sure, you can say "I will switch to an SLR for anything unpredictable", but I don't many guys who are willing to pay for Phase, bring Phase to an event, and be happy having to switch to Canon because the stage lighting has cut out.
I know that when I did the fashion shows, big houses like Dior had theatre-grade lighting and choreographed photo positions, the models would strut predictably and hit their marks with the precision of Prussian military and the audience would be photographers, press and trade buyers. But my clients sent me to do the minor shows, eg. houses like Givenchy or couture specialists like Elie Saab or Martin Margiela who do their business in large part with rich individuals. And there improvised lighting, and strange buildings mixed the preparations, proceedings and wind-down into a randomly lit and often quite entertaining teenager's party.
Edmund
