Pentax K-01 Digital Mirrorless

ahbleza

@stonebat The $299 price is reduced to clear inventory I guess, but I would be very surprised if they include the 40mm f2.8 prime in that price. Usually that's an extra $50. I have some Pentax glass from my analog days, and might invest just for that reason.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Is it just one custom mount replacement on a Pentax body?

It is small file usage idea on existing mount :-)

Red sticker is not required, it is just for helping find proper initial position for lens. This is my understanding.

stoney

Wait a sec. Is it just one custom mount replacement on a Pentax body?

http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/members/51826-gnarelsek/albums/5948-2million/picture51783.jpg

Plus a red plastic sticker on each lens?

Vitaliy_Kiselev

It sounds cool, but not cheap.

What is not cheap?

stoney

It sounds cool, but not cheap.

http://www.pentaxforums.com/news/pentax-k-plus-multi-mount.html

Anything custom made in small scale is $$$.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Btw, you can also do this cool thing with K-01

Vitaliy_Kiselev

K01 40mm $299

If it existed, only briefly, I got mine for $314 :-)

I have no idea how camera makers other than Fuji are making money nowadays.

Most people do not buy things on deals prices :-)

stoney

It was one of those crazy deals.

K01 40mm $299

Gf3 PZ X 14-42mm $279

DP1x $250

EPM2 14-42 40-150 $499

I have no idea how camera makers other than Fuji are making money nowadays.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@stonebat

In fact, most of my lenses are for Pentax mount, hence I intent to use all them on K-01 instead :-)

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@ahbleza

Thanks, Pentax managment are idiots and motherfuckers. It was widely known for long.

Btw it is $299 still http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/842488-REG/Pentax_15322_K_01_Digital_Camera_Yellow_.html

Original pricing was 749.95 (body) and $899.95 for 40mm kit :-) As it has alu frame and sensor based stab, mic input, 1080p30 recording, for me it is enough.

stoney

The 40mm pancake can be used on GH2, right? :)

ahbleza

This looks like an official source:

http://www.pentax.jp/english/products/others.html

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@ahbleza

So the K-01 has now been discontinued.

Did you see official annoucment?

K-01 is most understated camera of last year.

And I have yellow one coming to me soon :-)

ahbleza

So the K-01 has now been discontinued.

I stole this from Reddit:

This is what transpired at Pentax HQ 2 years ago:

CEO - After our last debacle with the Q system we need to come back strong with a killer product. pin drop silence

CEO - Did we fire the idiot who thought it would be a good idea to call our optics 'toy lenses'? silence continues

CEO - Well, I've just about had it with you suits. You are all out of touch with what the market needs. We need some fresh inspired thinking! Someone who can think "digital". Where's that intern we hired from that Hippie School of Design?

intern is led into the board room bewildered and weary

CEO - Turn around and show me the label on your jeans. examines label

CEO - "Seven for all mankind", never heard of it. You'll do. What do you think you designer jeans wearing types would want in a camera?

Intern - Ummmm... uh... dunno.

CEO - For god's sake man, think! Apply yourself!

Intern - Well... it'd be cool if Lady Gaga designed it. I'd buy it. No wait! Marc Newson. He's a cool chap, you should totally get him to design a camera.

CEO - Who's Marc Newson?

Intern (gushing) - He's like the most awesome designer ever, man! He like, makes these cool furniture and bicycles and shit.

CEO - Has he ever designed a camera before? Intern - Man, he can design anything! He's done aircrafts and shit man. He even has his stuff in MOMA dude.

CEO - What's a moma?

Intern - Museum of Moh-dun art dude! Like totally rad.

CEO (suitably impressed) - Go call Marc Newson... and stop calling me dude.

Intern (perking up) - Awesome dude... I mean, man, sir.. right away.

Three months later at Marc's first presentation, the suits are not happy. The camera looks like a colourful bar of soap with buttons and strange protrusions.

Marc - I have this vision of the world, where everything is 'designified' by adding primary colours to boxes.

CEO (glancing at intern to make sure the denim crowd is suitably impressed) - Right, right.

Marc - One button needs to be red, and the other green... hmmm... we need yellow to complete the set and make it look like a traffic signal... Hey, I know what! Let's make the camera body yellow!

CEO - For God's sake Marc! Don't be ridiculous we can't have a serious photographic tool that looks like a something an African bee will try mating with when shooting outdoors!

Marc - Ok ok. Maybe you're right, hmm... lets just have ONE variant in yellow then, and all the people who agree with my world view will buy that. Just you wait and see. It'll outsell the other variants.

CEO - Marc, how about adding a viewfinder?

Marc - Never use it.

CEO - But ummm... people do... you know...

Marc - Pah! It ruins the fluid lines of the ridge. No viewfinder.

CEO - It's also kind of umm... big.

Marc - This is precisely why we need to develop the right shade of yellow for the camera body! Distract the users from figuring out that its the same size as the K5.

CEO (still stealing sideways glances at the ecstatic intern standing at the back of the room) - You might be right. We'll highlight the yellow camera in all our press shots.

Meeting ends with congratulations all around. Everyone leaves the board room but for the CEO and his Chief Engineer Yamamoto.

Eng. Yamamoto (coughs discreetly) - CEO-san, I have humble idea as backup plan.

CEO - What is it?

Eng. Yamamoto - CEO-san We should make sure this new camera can use our entire back catalogue of lenses. Just in case the yellow is not as big a distraction as we think it'll be.

CEO - Hmmm...

camera launches

In the meanwhile, the intern has already quit Pentax in anticipation of his next job as a core team member at Apple's ideation team, now that he has a beefed up resume and has proved his chops by recommending Marc to Pentax he's sure he's snagged it.

Unfortunately for him, Apple has seen what the camera looks like.

ntsan

Has anyone tried K-01 battery on GH3? I heard from some forum that it can power up GH3, though you have to charge the battery using pentax charger though.

K01

I guess this was a misunderstanding as I thought I read your wrote you got yours in another thread. Thanks for the reply/update! From what it looks right now (to me), the D5200 (due to its articulating screen, continuous autofocus, HDMI out and a few other things) is the better option anyways - unfortunately it's almost twice as expensive as the K-01.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@K01

What do you mean? I still did not get my K-01. May be will never get, as Amazon did not shipped orders.

K01

Nobody cares? At least a "currently no one is working on it" was some helpful information.

K01

This could be the perfect cam for my needs: The ability to shoot videos with full manual control and having the features I like a photo camera to have. The only things missing are: Continuous auto focus while filming, a pivoted screen and higher Bitrate along with 1080p60. So that's why I'm writing here. Someone posted a shot of a K-01 showing "hacked" on it's screen somewher - so to me it seems the cams firmware is hackable. Also I know you @Vitaliy_Kiselev are owning a K-01 (read it somewhere).

So what I'd like to know is: Is someone currently doing something with the firmware? Are you Vitaliy? If only the cam could do higher mbps and 60fps it was great. Is this even possible? I'd do it myself but I have no experience in reverse engineering software. ANY update on the subject is highly appreciated!