[Guest]

The old FF "project" was not canceled due to the sensor. Contax was the 1st one to come with a FF sensor DSLR, actually, announced in 2000 and came to market in 2002 using a Philips 6mp sensor. The really old Pentax FF project which was based on the same sensor was canceled on 2001. That was even before Canon came with its 1st FF sensor DSLR.

 

But Pentax has been showing FF mock up "prototypes" all through the FF DSLR height (or hype?) last 1.5 decade. So, a bit odd to only mention their very first flirtations with FF.

 

Sony now has some very impressive lenses (counting Zeiss, and other 3rd party offerings), just no good body. All hampered with bad ergonomics, tiny badly layed out controls, poor battery life and bad RAW format.

 

So, now you have the choice of a impressively specced Pentax K1 for everything except fast tracking photography, with a lens line up which leaves some to be desired, and on the Sony side a plethora of small and not too attractive to use FF bodies with some very impressive lenses. 

And then you have Nikon and Canon with their much bigger following, with mostly well thought out DSLR bodies and pretty full range of lenses.

 

Indeed, going mirrorless will not solve anything. You probably will end up with yet another small, not so ergonomic camera, with bad battery life, all the downsides that come with EVF, and no lens line up.

 

I do hope that the K1 will find buyers in big enough numbers.

 

AFAIK the old FF project was indeed canceled due to the sensor (though I'm not 100% sure if it was because of subpar image quality, outrageous price or both). The Contax did it, and died; it was such a glorious suicide!

 

No, Pentax has not been showing FF mock up "prototypes" last 1.5 decade; what on Earth are you talking about?

And they never promised to make a FF DSLR (after the 2001 project), right until the end of 2012.

 

Sony has 16 FE lenses, 3 years after the first A7-series camera - an impressive effort; but they started with 5 in 2013. Pentax is starting with 15 official FF-compatible lenses (though those are including 2 old "regular" FA lenses, and the 3 FA Limiteds), and there are many others which are not on the official list.

While the primes scheduled for 2017 or later are badly needed, one can't say that Pentax has few lenses without admitting Sony FEs are fewer. And especially without admitting that making a new, mirrorless system means that you'd count the lenses on the fingers of one hand.

 

As for sales, the K-1 was never meant to sell in huge numbers - the initial production volume being a mere 7000 units per month (or about 1% of the total DSLRs produced). Sure, the initial production volume is absolutely insufficient to cope with the demand, so one could conclude that it indeed found buyers "in big enough numbers".