Pentax planning higher-end digital SLR

Pentax expects to offer an even higher-end digital SLR than its just-introduced K20D, company product manager John Carlson has confirmed. A roadmap for the electronics maker reveals that a new, higher-end camera should be enroute sometime in 2009 and will be considered the first fully professional camera from Pentax. It "would be a new category" for the company, Carlson says. Most of the company's camera line centers around point-and-shoot compact models.

Few details are available, though the camera's sensor depth is expected to slot in between the 14.6 megapixels of the K20D and the full-frame sensors of cameras such as the 21.1-megapixel Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III. This is in part connected to the physically smaller sensors Pentax prefers to use, the executive says. The unnamed DSLR should also offer at least the ISO 6400 sensitivity and hardware image stabilization of the current range leader. Pricing should sit above $1,300.

Filed under: gadgets, digital imaging
Other story tags: Pentax