Ricoh buys Pentax from Hoya?

Pentax will be part of Ricoh by October… Huh? While not unexpected, it is a little abrupt.

Ritax? Pencoh? Nope…

Here is Ricoh’s full press release in PDF format.

“On completion of the Acquisition, Ricoh will begin to use the PENTAX brand name for some of its digital camera products, and HOYA will continue to use the PENTAX brand name for their endoscopes and other products. Furthermore, with the Acquisition, both companies will cooperate with each other to increase the value of the PENTAX brand.”

So it looks like they will use the Pentax name at least. I’ll assume that means the 35mm, 645D, and Q-mount will stay Pentax.

The Ricoh release is pretty positive from my point of view (unlike the useless Hoya one). It sounds like they respect Pentax’s history and want to really improve and grow the interchangeable systems. Maybe that will mean full-frame Pentax in the future and some interesting glass? It’s also interesting how much they mention the 645D system, so I suspect that was a big part of their interest in Pentax as well.

Aspects Pentax and Ricoh have in common:
– DNG RAW format (very glad about this one!)
– Their history goes back a long time. Ricoh film SLRs used the Pentax K-mount.
– Compact yet fully featured cameras will exceptional build quality.

Check out that release PDF for more information on Ricoh’s strategic objectives moving forward. It sounds pretty promising that more quality tools should come out from the Pentax name. Hopefully even better than what is currently offered.

– They will continue to use the Pentax name.
– They bought Pentax to further Pentax’s interchangeable systems lineup. Specifically saying they want to enhance and expand the lineup.
– They want to become a big player in the camera market (consumer meaning not big business).
– Use Pentax technologies to enter other markets. 645D image archiving business will need full featured tethering…

I’m pretty happy so far from what I’ve read. The CEO of Ricoh sounds smart and has an engineering background, which should be good for overall camera/lens quality.

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