The Digital Pentax I Wish Ricoh Would Build: My Concept

The Digital Pentax I Wish Ricoh Would Build: My Concept

October 2026, Carl Garrard

Ricoh recently announced that they are discontinuing all current K mount DSLRs and heading into a new direction with design. We'll see if they come through on that promise. Meanwhile, I have had a concept of what Ricoh should build in my head for at least couple of years now. A fully manual focus, digital SLR concept camera that would be a sort of Leica M equivalent with an SLR design instead. I have been asking/proposing/noting this on my blog for quite some time now, on Pentaxforums.com, DPReview.com, and other places in the forums hoping for that needle in a haystack chance that Ricoh would listen to my design concept. When they later announced they are discontinuing production on all K mount DSLR's, and going to do a completely new concept, my ears perked up. Recently I decided to get on my chatgpt account and make a visual concept of what I have in my head.

There is a camera designer in me. Always has been, deep down in there somewhere. It's the same place in my brain that constructively critiques every camera design I have ever held in my hands. 

I've been conjuring up designs in my head for years, and secretly hoping that camera companies would read my mind and make something as I've envisioned. I even tried making wood mock ups (failure) to bring those visions to life. The closest that any camera company has come to making something I thought of in my head was Fujifilm when they announced the first X100 years ago. Execution aside, the looks of it were pretty much spot on to the concept- a digicam that acted and looked like a rangefinder. 

I admire simplicity in design. Functional design cues that also look beautiful, elegant, but effective. I appreciate symmetry highly, and believe that visual symmetry adds to the pleasure of experience in a design- of anything. 

A simple effective tool is the best of both worlds, beautiful and functional, and both rarely exist at the same time. But they have existed. I find beauty in simplicity, free of distractions, free of marketing, free of clutter. A camera is a tool, and for still photographers I believe camera designs have only got worse over the years in terms of complexity. They almost have designed the photographer out of the camera, and turned them into computers with a camera shape. 

No thank you. Photography should remain a challenge, it should remain something that the photographer decides to do. The tool should be as minimal as possible while being capable enough to fulfill a photographers needs. No more, no less than that.  And since there are so many needs, there are plenty of opportunities to design different still cameras for different genre's of photography. 

One such genre, is candid/street photography. A walk around, EDC companion that requires full engagement of the photographer to make photographs with. 

This latest concept in my head, a manual focus only digital SLR, is my most recent and one that has not faded over time- it kept coming back to me. I think this may very well may be my best idea to date. I've been a little obsessive about it over the years, almost like how Richard Dreyfus obsessed about the monolith mountain in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

So, I finally decided to get serious about it, and use AI to create what I have in my head. This is very close to the concept I have been envisioning, its not perfect, but it is very close.

Here's the basic concept:

• Large pentaprism viewfinder, at least .82x in full frame terms with interchangeable focus screens- i.e. split prism, etc.
• Available magnifying eyecup accessory bringing the view to a 1.0x magnification (same as the eye view at 50mm focal length) 
• No autofocus at all
• Manual shutter recock lever (not for looks, actually necessary and functional)
• No image review on camera
• Small LCD on back to make menu changes
• Dial to switch from off (red), on (green), menu (white)
• Shutter speed dial with A setting for aperture priority
• ISO dial with Auto setting (programmable auto ISO min shutter speed)
• Compatible with older manual focus/auto focus Pentax K mount lenses that have an aperture ring, and open to new Pentax brand and third party lens designs
• Raw only image setting to simulate film negatives
• Setting in menu allowing you to delay use of the camera for 15min to 24hrs after exposing 36 images
• Top shutter speed of  90 seconds to a minimum of 1/8000th of a second
• Mechanical shutter, engineered for an exquisite sound
• Multiple exposure mode
• Timer mode
• Completely metal body and dials 
• Exquisite handling attributes and design
• Weather sealed to an IP53 rating
• Designed and executed to be extraordinarily pleasurable to use and own
• Three color schemes all of them the same price, and an ode to the past K1000
• Shutter release can be unscrewed and replaced with different size/color options available along with a cable release option version
• 20-24mp full frame sensor, maximum. No AA filter. 
• Monochrome only version available in the future.
• Last but not least, no idiotic camera strap post lugs or d rings The camera strap locations are on the bottom of the camera built into the body *(how Canon does it), letting the camera hang in a natural to the hand position to grab and shoot. This protects the back of the camera from scratches, and no posts to dig into the shooting hand or clutter the look of the design.
  
  

Started off with this visual concept, simple, clean, no logo, no name of the camera model on the camera etc... all self evident from the front. This is kind of how it looked in my head, I can't draw this well, so yeah this is extensive use of AI 

This project took hours. To come up with all the images you see in this article was a pain in the you-know-what, tons and tons of minor revisions were necessary as AI is definitely imperfect. But we got there, almost perfect I like to say.

Front concept. Simple, clean. Has an MX vibe about it.

Rear concept. Programmable button on the left, on/off/menu dial, small LCD screen, AEL lock button, mechanical shutter recock lever, big viewfinder, thumb support. Clean clean clean. Simple, symmetrical, beautiful.

With that concept in mind, I ran with it. Here is a diagram of the basics. Nothing fancy, everything necessary. 

Diagram front

Diagram rear. Have to pat myself on the back for the lcd inside the rear dial concept. 

I came up with several renderings of colors that I think that would look stellar. The silver version is an ode to the K1000.  I like them all. I'd probably buy all three colors and use different lenses on each. Matching 35mm/40mm/50mm prime lenses available as a kit.

All black front view.

All black rear view.

Gunmetal front view.

Gunmetal rear view

K1000 Silver front view

Now all Ricoh needs to do is make it. Nobody makes anything like this. 

It's a complete 180 from the current market and I see demand everywhere for something like this. Leaving out one vital component such as weather sealing or making it too techy would be deal breakers for many. Stick to the core idea and concept and make it the best kind of tool for that concept as possible. Trying to appeal to too many types ruins the design. It needs integrity Ricoh. If you can't do it, then I call on other makers to have the gonads to design and sell something like it. 

Without the complexities of autofocus, video, or a complicated menu, its a relatively easy and inexpensive to design and produce.

Do it. Name it what you want Ricoh, but put the name/logo of the camera on the bottom. Nobody needs to see that. 

It's a photographers tool, not an advert.

Stay focused,

Carl Garrard

*All images and concept ideas of this design are trademark of Carl Garrard and Photographic-Central.blogspot.com.