The famous RED DOT design award has been won by Marc Newson designed Pentax K-01! Even if I don’t like the design I am happy that Pentax won it. It’s nice to see companies trying new ways of thinking a camera. Here is the official motivation:
“This year, the PENTAX K-01 was selected from 4,515 applications submitted from 58 countries as one of the Product Design winners.
The PENTAX K-01 is a lens-interchangeable digital camera with super-high-resolution image quality supported by approximately 16.28 effective megapixels, a top sensitivity of ISO 25600, and full HD video recording capability. Designed by world-famous industrial designer Marc Newson, its clean, geometric body signifies a bold move by PENTAX to create a truly original and innovative design. By incorporating the K mount — a lens mount extremely popular from the days of film cameras — PENTAX allows the user to mount any one of 214 lenses (as of April 2, 2012) onto the K-01 camera body, assuring endless possibilities in visual expression and creativity.“
Source: Photoxels.
23 Responses
First I’ve heard of that award. I’m so out of touch. But “super-high-resolution”? What would they say about current 24MP and 36MP cameras then? Super-duper-high and extra-super-duper-high resolution? And it would surely take some super-high creativity to describe current medium format MP sizes.
Doesn’t change the fact it’s still an ugly camera. 😉
No mother thinks their baby is ugly. 😉 Could it be it’s so ugly it’s cute?
touché
The golden tomato he will get from me for this ugly brick.
A camera with a chimney and traffic lights!!! Who would have said!
My idea of a “new way of thinking a camera” is (sorry) a little bit different than just removing a mirror and a viewfinder to a DSLR camera and add a fisher price style…
Wait, does this mean I can put a red dot on the front of my K-01?
It already has a red dot on top. A video record (or custom) button.
LOL, good point. The green dot is a bonus.
doesn’t have **x appeal.. 😀
The Green button should mean ‘Make good photo’s, go’
The Red button should mean ‘Make good photo’s, stop’
“no mother could hate her child” is right…
Designers are mothers of this camera… Only logical that moms association will award its baby ant its most famous mom… LOL!
The award puts the K-01 in the same league as the Leica. Good for the designer! 😉
The choice of picture for this post is interesting, because from a flat 2D front view this camera looks a fresh interesting design. But design is very much a 3D affair and this camera is a design/ergonomic nightmare, and much of that must be the designers fault.
It seems to me that those making the award are completely out of touch with camera design. Surely they look at an actual model rather than just a photograph of the camera and its printed blurb?
The other possibility that consumer camera design is out of line with the needs of photographers is even more scary.
The statement boasts about the ability “to mount any of 214 (Pentax) lenses…”. The fact is that all other mirrorless system cameras can also use Pentax lenses, with an adaptor.
The decision of Pentax to have a long flange back distance so that K mount lenses can be used without an adaptor, is a double edged sword. It prevents the use of a wide range of legacy lenses made for 35mm rangefinder cameras and will also prevent the use of what may be a growing range of 3rd party lenses for CDAF mirrorless cameras.
The target audience seems to be people who already have Pentax dslr’s, which seems to be a minority.
I used Pentax 35mm film cameras and lenses for many years. Since the digital era began, I have not found the slightest hint of method in their madness, with their lens range with lots of optics for 35mm image circle (despite having never made a dslr with 35mm sensor) and peculiar focal lengths. Now they have the K-01 which, with its long flange back distance, seems to be specifically designed not to try to compete with the other mirrorless systems.
Im usually extremely opened minded.. but this justs makes me wanna throw up.. its so freaking ugly!
It reminds me of a song..
“Mr personality, Mr Personality,
You make the childrens scream, and babies cry, they can’t fall asleep cause youre their walking nightmaaaare!”
Mr Personality, Mr Personality”
Well, it won the Red Dot Award…great, now let’s see anybody with this camera on the street… It’s an award winning design which nobody will buy.
Sure it will sell. See that Tampax ad on the right (if it’s still there)? That is more the intended audience not the macho camera nerd.
red dot doesn’t make it Leica
The camera needs to lose some size, it’s just too fat.
I have one on order after using one for two days it is actually quite a usable camera. people don’t like the new and deferent that is why people think it ugly.
i do want to pentax to release a ff DSLR but if you like the sony aps c mirrorless cameras you will have vignetting with longer focal length lenses. so i choose the k-01.
I actually like the design. It took me a while to wrap my head around it though. Camera nerds constantly harp about wanting something different, and they get it, and they blast it with criticism. What’s so funny is reading the forums and comments on the net and then seeing the reactions in person about this camera. They couldn’t be any more night and day.
If Pentax had a decent ad campaign to go with this camera on television, I’m willing to be it would have sold quite a bit more than it has. People in the EU and US need adverts. Pentax simply didn’t have the budget to do so at the time. I wonder now under Ricoh if they will for future cameras.