| Rico’s Mayumi Uaida, Kazunobu Saiki, Shigeru and Rutaro Arratama |
“We do not want to focus only on photography results: We want people to enjoy the photography process,” says Kazunobu Siki, general manager of the Rico Camera Business Division.
We recently spoke at the CP+ Trade Show in Yokohama, Japan, where they are not focusing on the challenges of DSLR, the reaction to the film reviving, the future of the GR series and why they are not particularly focused on videos.
“We must ensure our resources to ensure that the supply makes a grip with the demand. This is the first priority as a brand”
“The total number of compact cameras has reduced to a large extent in years,” Saiki says, “but for unique products that can attract creative people, especially from the younger generation, I believe that market trend is to grow.” He is referring to the possibilities for models like WG Waterproof Series and GR APS-C compact: “GR users, globally, are growing.”
In fact, GR’s demand is so high that the company has found it difficult to build enough.
“Thanks to the increased demand for the GR series, there is a slight lack of supply worldwide. So we have to ensure our resources to ensure that the supply meets that demand. This is the first priority as a brand, we believe.”
Market for DSLRS
DSLR market is rather more challenging, Saiki says: “The sales of the new product (of DSLRS) are still in a rapid decline compared to Mirror’s vast emerging market. But we believe that DSLR is still a certain group of lovers.”
“A lot of DSLR users still exist, but they are using their current DSLR, which they bought a long time ago. Also the other hand market of DSLRS is really booming.”
“If we count only new product sales numbers, it seems that the user is disappearing rapidly, but we do not believe in that way. We believe that there is a group of DSLR lovers who still want to see real light through their lens. And DSLR also wants to enjoy the handling of shooting experience.”
“We believe that DSLR is a group of lovers who still want to see real light through their lens,”
“We know the marker of the other hand for the Pentix Interpretation lens. But one of the reasons is that some people have sold their DSLR system and have gone to Mirrorless. It has happened with all brands.”
“But we have a lot of special lenses, such as limited and star series lenses, and we appreciate that a lot of users still prefer to buy them as a new product.”
“We will carefully research the market and then listen to our users and DSLR fans,” says Saiki. “Then we will attract our business roadmap.”
Revival of the film
Saiki says that it is too early to say what lessons can be learned from Pentax 17 film camera. “I think there are two ways to evaluate it,” Saiki says: “In terms of the brand price, I think it was good to release Pentax 17, as the first new film camera camera after fifteen or twenty years after the industry stopped them.”
“We wanted to show smartphone users what is the basis of photography. In this sense, Pentax 17 played a very good role in saying what Pentax is.”
“The contribution of film cameras from the business has been smaller than the GR business. It is not the same size as GR.”
It does not control the future film model automatically, Saiki suggests: “If we can create more interest in film photography, we can consider how we can create a product group. Now it’s not time to consider this, however, because we have released the first film camera in only fifteen years. We need time to communicate with our users and what we have to do what we have to do.
Future of GR series
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Ricoh GR III was launched back in 2018, but a revival in interest in compact cameras has seen the demand out of demand. Photo: Barnabi Britain |
However, Saiki says, sometimes it can be difficult to respond to the user response; They are finding something in the process of planning the GR model in the future.
“Compactness, high image quality and accountable development along with GR brand is the origin, so everyone looks for improvement in these three areas. So we have to think how to develop from here.”
‘We have done a lot of research in many countries. A lot of research tells us that many users request built-in flash and they are using small brightness including 3 party products, as we have dropped the flash facility between GR II and GR III. So we know that a lot of people want flash, if it can be packed in a very small size of GR III. ,
“These things are in conflict, however. Because people want improvement in all three areas, plus flash. If we want to improve the quality of the image, the body can be bigger, or if we use a more powerful processor to improve speed and accountability, it will require a large battery, but the battery will also be long.”
“But we know the requests from users,” they say.
Demand for a GR mono
We ask if they believe that the monochrome GR model has any possible interest.
“K-3 Mark III Monochrome received a good response from users. To be more clear than our expectations. We knew from Leica M9 or M11 that there were some photographers who love real monochrome cameras, and K-3 Mark III probably holds this demand.”
“We know that a lot of GR users are already using monochrome filter mode on that camera. And one of the symbolic photographers using GR is Deado Moriama, which is famous for monochrome photography.”
“Our research states that a lot of GR users are waiting to release a monochrome compact camera”
“I have visited local GR fan events around the world and I have seen people many times with my GR using leika monochrome cameras or K -3 Mark III Monochrome.”
“Our research states that a lot of GR users are waiting for the release of a monochrome compact camera. Surely this dedicated number is smaller than other products. But currently there is only leika, which is very expensive. If we have released such a camera, I think we can appeal to them.”
On photography
Finally, we asked about the future of photography, at a time when it is the video features of the industry that are mostly moving forward.
“The pace of development in the video has been very early, and still the part of the industry dedicated to imaging is probably small now,” Siki says: “Sony, Canon and even Nikon are following that technology.”
“We not only give importance to the results of photography … we want to provide a pleasant process”
“But among our brands, both Rico and Pentax, we not only give importance to the results of photography or recording results: we want to provide a pleasant process to take photos. So we don’t want to join the video facilities heavy.”
“Of course, we do not ignore it, but for example, GR. Users, if they just move around the city, become sensitive to what is going on. They focus on capturing the real moment of something instead of recording all the time.
