I was a through and through Minolta fan for a very, very long time.
I had plenty of Minolta cameras from the SRT-303, XK Motor, XE-1, XD-7, XD-5, XG-9, X-700, X-500, CLE, 7000, 9000, 700si. I also used Nikon and when it was time to junk the two problematic D70 cameras I had, I was an inch of getting the Sony A100. Thank god I didn't and it wasn't because of the price but because the images above ISO 400 were noisy. In hindsight not buying into a Sony system was a blessing because the price for Sony lenses were ridiculously high. Case in point I sold a mint Minolta 100f/2.8 AF Macro for $750. That same excellent lens when rebadged as a Sony is selling for $1299. :bigeyes:
As much as I have an affinity for the Minolta heritage, I won't be buying any Sony camera because they roll out too many models with little feature differentiation (like mobile phones today) and their lenses still cost way too much.
For Pentax, good things are coming out because Hoya has been it's saviour. The old Pentax management is the root cause why the company was lagging behind with unimaginative products that didn't sell well. With the K-7, Hoya has given Pentax the opportunity to regain back some of it's former glory. The problem with the value for money argument is that Pentax still has a large pool of legacy users who still hark back to the bygone days of 35mm film and are resistant to new technology (like video). It is this segment of users that potentially can boost Pentax marketshare if they can overcome their old way of thinking and aversion to pay for new lenses and cameras that Pentax rolls out. To me this segment is unreliable at best and it is good that Pentax is looking at new target segments like the youth and women. That's why the new "Be Interesting" slogan is appropriate. Unfortunately many Pentax traditionalists are anything but that.
