Reichman: Sigma's only hope, bundle it with their least bad lenses

Finally, two professional sources call Sigma's lenses "consumer
grade." Reichman suggests as a way to justify the horrific $9700
price, bundling the body with their "best" lenses. The suggestion is
however, that if the camera can deliver the resolution claimed, most
of the Sigma lenses won't be able to deliver it and you are stuck with
the Sigma bayonet.

But can you imagine what will happen if they were to charge $9700
right off the bat, then drop the price to $2000-$2500? Bloody murder
from less sensible early adopters?

A much smaller scale example was seen here when Fuji released the S5
at nearly $2400 versus Nikon's same-bodied D200 at about $600 less.
It surely limited the Fuji sales, even if the Fuji could claim some
interesting superior attributes.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/rationalizing_the_irrational.shtml

 

finally? this isn't news.

sigma has long been known for consumer grade lenses. only recently have
they tried to price some of them higher than the equivalent nikon/canon
version and that failed.

there's no easy way out of this. sigma screwed up, big time.

assuming someone actually pays $9700.

not only are the die hard fanbois no longer interested but the usual
sigma shills are stunned at the price.

it's also what they did with the sd14 - initial street price was $1600,
cut to $1200 months later, ultimately dropping to $350 when they were
blown out on clearance and they still had trouble selling them.

fuji bought d200 shells from nikon so they had no choice but to price
it higher than a real d200. it's an entirely different scenario.

sigma makes everything in the sd1, other than using an olympus
autofocus module.

there's simply no way the manufacturing cost is anywhere near $9700.

 

Perhaps some enterprising engineering company will offer to adapt
other, superior brands of lens to the Sigma SA mount? The physical
mount is said to be identical to the Pentax K bayonet mount but with a
different lock. Consequently, you can successfully mount a Pentax K
or KA lens, but there is nothing to prevent the lens rotating in the
mount - except friction.

So it might be possible to modify Pentax K/KA lenses with the addition
of a lock fit the Sigma SA mount and lock the lens in place.

Of course the electronic interface is completely different, so
including AF and other features that are dependent on electronics
would probably not be possible.

 

there are various adapters and there's someone who modifies the
camera's mount itself to nikon, canon, sony, etc.

it's basically a k mount flange.

pentax k mount lenses fit if you cut off the aperture coupling pin, but
if you do, it will no longer work on a pentax.

just the coupling pin.

everything is manual focus & stop-down metering, except for canon
lenses.

sigma mount lenses use canon electronics, so it's possible to convert
canon ef to sigma sa by changing the mount plate and they'll work,
including autofocus. it's also possible to change the camera's mount to
canon ef. the only thing that doesn't work is stabilization.

 

YAWN!

 

Using Pentax (PK) lenses on a Sigma SA mount camera won't work.
The main reason is the the SA mount register is the same as Canon EF (or
EF-s) and so without a spacer (modified PK macro ring?) it would never
be able to focus.
Maybe a better idea would be to exchange the camera's SA mount with a EF
mount.
From what little I've bothered to research about the SA mount uses the
same electronic comms as Canon EF, but don't quote what I've written as
the final word on this (I could *gasp* be wrong about this).

 

it does work, just need to remove the aperture coupling pin because it
will hit the colour matching filter, also known as the dust protector.

it will not focus as close as it would on pentax (normally not a huge
issue) and also go past infinity (not a problem at all), but otherwise
it works fine.

also an option but that's more money and voids any warranty, which with
sigma products is desperately needed, especially with the cameras.

it does.

 

That would seem a shame, to ruin a perfectly good Pentax lens to fit it
onto a Sigma dSLR.

I don't know which is nastier: your subtle(?) jab at Sigma reliabilitly
or mine about ruining a PK lens.

I wonder why they never seem to have received a C&D letter from Canon
about that?

Surely the best "swap bits to make it work" in this case would be
exchanging the bayonet on a Canon EF lens with a Sigma SA mount.
At least then you'd have full automation.
Much better than irreversibly damaging a lens to fit a camera.

My gut instinct is that it would be wiser move to buy a Pentax dSLR to
use PK lenses with.
Heck, you could buy (at least) 10 Pentax bodies for the price of a Sigma
SD1), at full retail price.

 

Maybe for the exact same reason that Sigma haven't received a C&D
letter from Canon for reverse engineering the interface for use in
Sigma's lens range for Canon EF mount?

Camera manufacturers would obviously prefer to sell their own branded
lenses to owners of their DSLRs. However, the availability of
inexpensive third party lenses from Sigma, Tamron, Tokina etc. helps
sell cameras to people who have limited funds - if only the more
expensive camera brand lenses were available, people would have less
money to spend on cameras.

You need to ask yourself whether going to such lengths would be
worthwhile. If the camera lives up to Sigma's claims for its
performance, there is still the issue of its extremely high cost.

From a reseller's point of view, I would much rather sell ten Pentax
DSLRs than one Sigma SD-1. As a reseller of Sigma lenses and
accessories, we may come under pressure to stock the camera. If so,
experience with the Sony A900 and A850 suggests that we may well be
left with a very expensive paperweight. :-(

 

Well, that's just how Sigma rolls. It's in line with their creative
math.

The sting of low quality remains long after the sweetness of low price
is forgotten.

 

Noble sentiment, but when it comes to making money, it cuts no ice.

 

very true.

it wasn't meant as a jab. it was meant as a dose of reality. there are
a *lot* of posts on dpreview about how unreliable sigma products are,
and to be fixed they sometimes have to be sent to japan for a few
months, sometimes coming back not any better. the bizarre thing is
people put up with it and go back for more.

when lensrentals.com started tracking how reliable the lenses they rent
were, sigma held the first *five* spots with the #1 contender having a
90% failure rate:

probably because sigma doesn't sell enough cameras or sigma mount
lenses for canon to care.

on the other hand, nikon just sued sigma this morning over image
stabilization:

<http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/05/25/nikon-idINL3E7GP11H20110525>

May 25 (Reuters) - Nikon Corp said on Wednesday it has filed a patent
infringement suit against Japan's Sigma Corp in Tokyo district court
over the manufacture and sale of interchangeable lenses with
vibration reduction for single lens reflex cameras.

you have to irreversibly 'damage' either the lens or the camera, and
since a canon lens is going to hold value a *lot* better than a sigma
camera, it might as well be the camera.

another option i've seen is take a pair of 1.4x teleconverters and swap
the plates on those, leaving the lenses and cameras alone. that way,
you can use a unmodified canon lens on a sigma camera using the hybrid
teleconverter and vice versa. the only downside is you have to use a
1.4x teleconverter, which may not be desirable in all situations.

very wise.

if the sd1 is anything like their previous cameras, it's going to be a
mass of problems, and with a $9700 price tag, it's going to have some
*very* pissed off buyers.

 

Why should they? It's an interface. They're not breaking
copyright (it's a re-implementation based on observation, not a
copy of the code), they presumably don't break patents (can you
even patent such a thing?), and it's not look&feel either.

And they already offer lenses with Canon's EF signal stuff
built in.

-Wolfgang

 

Just swapping the mount on the lens should be reversible, if you kept
all the parts and didn't machine anything to fit.

That would be my source of EF bayonets if _had_ to do it, but it seems a
bit pointless when a 24x36 sensor Canon dSLR cost less than half (at
full RRP) than a Sigma SD1 (at RRP).

I completely agree.

 

That's why I think it's a bit strange that one of the core (and quite
distinctive) technologies in the Canon EF system could be copied with no
comeback from Canon.

That might be a distinct possibility and would explain the lack of
apparent action from Canon.

 

Or maybe it's just a Japanese thing that we gaijin would have to
struggle to understand.

 

I understand the mount is different.
I understand Canon has not published the specifications, so
the ordinary non-expert cannot look at it and compare it.

Not all 'copying' is forbidden. Clean room reimplementation.

Sigma doesn't have the specs, much less the code, so they
cannot copy it. They must reverse engineer the format.

-Wolfgang

 

Which is perfectly legal (unless it's patented).

I also don't see how that would be immoral.

If it weren't for copying, people would independently find out or
even outright copy how to splinter stones for blades and whittling
all-wooden spears and using caves to protect themselves from the
weather and learning to tend fire (not to make fire, that's too
advanced) and others like you would declaim them as robbing the
inventors of their just dues.

Instead we have e.g. you, using the fruits of NNTP and all
that *that* builds upon. Of course, all that knowledge was
copied ...

-Wolfgang

 

Do you really think that there is, or is going to be, a _single_ early
adopter.

 

i've seen a couple of posts on dpreview from people who said they are
already on a waiting list for it. hopefully for their sake, wherever
they bought it from accepts returns.