Pentax K-01 16MP APS-C CMOS 3" LCD Full HD 1080p Video Compact System Camera with DA 40mm f/2.8 XS Lens Kit Bundle $596.95 + Free Shipping

Wow. Great price on a great camera. That lens is a marvel.

I'm a Pentax guy, but clueless on the K-01. Is that brand new? It's less than the K-05 and looks like a compact DSLR.

Quote from kechinbou! : I'm a Pentax guy, but clueless on the K-01. Is that brand new? It's less than the K-05 and looks like a compact DSLR.

No such thing as a K-05. Think of the K-01 as a K-5 lite. Slightly more advanced but geared towards a different market. Hence lacking some K-5 things like a mirror thus an OVF and phase detection. But in the end with IQ that can match a K-5 at a much lower price.

The lens is awesome. It's only 1 cm thick. It's like a body cap.

Some people on the pentax forums are calling bait and switch. The K-01 isn't $300 cheaper than it was before. Friday, before the rebate started, it sold for $760ish. Then the rebate hit and the price became $600. People were thinking it would be $300 off of $760 so under $500. Turns out the retailers reset the base price back to MSRP and took the $300 off of that. There's more than a K-01 rebate going on. It's for a bunch of Pentax things. The reset to MSRP before taking off the coupon has actually made some Pentax equipment more expensive then it was before the rebate.

Quote from travfar : Some people on the pentax forums are calling bait and switch. The K-01 isn't $300 cheaper than it was before. Friday, before the rebate started, it sold for $760ish. Then the rebate hit and the price became $600. People were thinking it would be $300 off of $760 so under $500. Turns out the retailers reset the base price back to MSRP and took the $300 off of that. There's more than a K-01 rebate going on. It's for a bunch of Pentax things. The reset to MSRP before taking off the coupon has actually made some Pentax equipment more expensive then it was before the rebate.

I don't know if I agree with it being a bait and switch. These large rebates come from Pentax and are based on MSRP; it's up to the camera shop to set their own street prices, and choose what they want their profit margins to be. With these rebates in effect, plus charging street prices, the camera stores decided to split the rebate with the consumer. They get to make a little more margin on their cameras instead of

All of the people calling it a bait and switch seem to me like self-entitled bozos, honestly. That 40mm is a $380 lens, but let's say that the package price of it is about $250, since they get to move inventory when bundled with a camera (and is easily what you could sell it for on Craigslist). That leaves an effective $350 for the camera body, which is untouchable by any company for anything comparable.

It's like they had a $150 rebate before and now made it $300 now.