[Kunzite]

Doesn't Sigma have much better customer service, and they should've been exempted from doing anything about this particular issue because it's just a scratch? OTOH Pentax couldn't even keep compatibility with products which were "conforming" despite ignoring basic physical specs?

I'm not going to give you buying advises, I'm merely noticing how you don't have a single Pentax lens in your signature. Not saying that it's bad, either. The products owned might change one's perspective, though...

[Winder]

You Tube

You Tube

[D1N0]

Lens works fine but here's your scratch.

[Edgar_in_Indy]

Lens works fine but here's your scratch.

The horror!

Sigma is doooooomed!

[shuttles12000]

I have emailed Sigma Australia to get the details on how to send my lens to them
I will post their reply here when I get it so others can take up the free "fix"

---------- Post added 05-29-16 at 01:38 PM ----------

My two cents worth for Sigma users - I like silent lenses in KAF-3 mount - Pentax until now have not supplied a silent 70-200 F2.8 lens - and now they have, it's was priced at THREE times what I paid for my new Sigma.
I know it isn't weather proof - but THREE times - DAMN
I can buy the Pentax FF camera or I can buy the Pentax lens, but not both - so a free fix from Sigma is a blessing - especially since they didn't have to do it at all

[Class A]

The fact is, I don't have a dog in this hunt.

Really? You are using some strong language, considering you "don't have a dog in this hunt".

They steal from Pentax and Sony and Canon and Nikon and sell for less money, and the buyer thinks there's value.

They "steal"?

Really? Most of the K-mount specification has been in the public domain for a long time now and on top of that reverse engineering is apparently actually legal, according to US law. Also, you haven't answered Edgar's question whether licensing would be available at all to Sigma. But why not accuse someone of "stealing" in the absence of any facts?

BTW, you are also insulting all Sigma customers by stating that the "buyer thinks there's value. But there isn't. ". So Sigma customers are easily fooled according to your view, are they? My Sigma lenses -- I own a lot of Pentax lenses too, including all FA Ltds, and FA* lenses -- have been of great value to me, so your statement is at best a very crude over-generalisation.

I said it is wrong to expect Pentax to violate its own published specifications to accommodate a poorly crafted third-party legacy (and apparently contemporary) list of lenses' oversized spacer.

1. "Pentax to violate its own published specifications... ": Why would Pentax need to "violate" its specification, if they just left a bit more clearance? Are you serious? A bit more clearance would also be welcome to allow for a bit of imprecision during lens mounting that may occur in the heat of the moment when one is changing lenses during a wedding, or similarly fast-paced event.
2. "poorly crafted": What is your inside information that allows you to make such an assertion? With all previous Pentax DSLR there was no need to obey very specific mount constraints. Sigma produces its lenses for many mounts and that's actually an advantage for Pentaxians because Sigma passes on the economy of mass production to its customers. Before the K-1 arrived, it was a 100% OK for Sigma to offer their lenses with their respective dimensions, i.e., not make special concessions to a mount that offers so few sales that many third-party lens manufacturers had withdrawn their support a long time ago. It made economical sense for Sigma to not adapt the lenses to K-mount specifically and not achieve tight tolerances for a part where it did not matter whether it was 0.5mm larger or not. With your use of "sloppy" you unwillingly or not imply that Sigma is not a responsible manufacturer. However, it is clear that a company cannot produce lenses as optically advanced as the Sigma "Art" lenses are, unless it knows how to achieve tight tolerances where it matters.

People have had advantage taken of them by Sigma.

Pardon?
How can you possibly defend such a statement?

You do realise that your statement follows a very forthcoming response by Sigma offering to fix all lenses and even cameras?

...perhaps the host organism is gradually evolving to protect itself.

Are you suggesting that Ricoh deliberately made the clearance unnecessarily small in order to hurt Sigma?

That wouldn't be very nice of Ricoh, would it?

Surely, Ricoh can design their cameras any which way they like, but from a customer's perspective this not about "who is in the right", but about whether incompatibilities can be justified or not. I don't think anyone would have minded if the K-1 had been 2mm taller (in case there is really no other way to avoid the tight overhang). But a lot of Sigma customers would have appreciated it. So if it had been my decision, I would have avoided the scratching problem. Of course there will always be brand apologists who will defend Ricoh about adhering to the specification, but now we have a situation where

• some people say they won't get a K-1 if they can't continue to use their Sigma glass with it,
• Sigma is looking good by stepping up and offering a comprehensive fix,
• Ricoh is looking like they need to make petty moves in order to protect themselves and/or don't care about the subset of their customers who found good reasons to choose Sigma in the past.

Are you also suggesting that there was not real technological need to change the flash protocol on the K-1?
That Ricoh just did some gratuitous changes in order to hurt Metz and other third-party flash manufacturers?
You might be excused to think that, because to the best of my knowledge nothing has been added to P-TTL that would justify developing a changed flash protocol. It seems, it would have been more economical and, first and foremost, customer-friendly, to not change the flash protocol.

Are you furthermore suggesting that the freezing that occurs with some Sigma lenses on the K-1 is also a deliberate attempt and a sign that the "host organism is gradually evolving to protect itself"?
Again, that wouldn't be very customer-friendly of Ricoh, and seems unlikely given the various other kinds of freezes that have been reported in conjunction with the K-1. Seems just like Ricoh has to do a bit more work in terms of the firmware robustness and that posters claiming that "this is what people had coming for them when buying third-party lenses" are pointing the finger in the wrong direction.

Sigma lenses are clearly not a beneficial part of the K-mount ecosystem. Tamron lenses, for instance, have a symbiotic relationship with the Pentax system.

You seem to take -- for whatever reason -- a company perspective. Undeniably, for customers Sigma has been of value, otherwise Sigma wouldn't be one of the largest third-party lens manufacturers. At a time when Pentax introduced mostly small and slow lenses many of them optically compromised and (since MAP) not very attractively priced, Sigma provided a very welcome alternative to Pentaxians with their fast and FF-future-proof lenses. Not to mention the holes they have been filling in the Pentax line-up.

Tamron, on the other hand, has a deal with Pentax that allows Pentax to sell a re-badged Tamron lens to customers at higher prices than what they would have paid if they could purchase the lens as a third-party product from Tamron. How is that better for the customer?

I understand that companies must be profitable and need to take measures accordingly but the Pentax / Sigma relationship is clearly not one where Sigma is threatening Pentax's existence. On the contrary, one could say that in combination with other third-party offerings, they have helped the K-mount to stay afloat in difficult times.

I recommended Pentax many a times to fellow photographers but I would not have done it during the time when the two standard zooms in the Pentax line-up -- the 16-50/2.8 and the 50-135/2.8 -- were so likely to suffer from SDM failures that one could not recommend them with a good conscience to a friend. Luckily, third-party alternatives still made Pentax cameras a good choice during these times.

[noelpolar]

I have emailed Sigma Australia to get the details on how to send my lens to them
I will post their reply here when I get it so others can take up the free "fix"

Cool... thanks

[Kunzite]

[*]"poorly crafted": What is your inside information that allows you to make such an assertion? With all previous Pentax DSLR there was no need to obey very specific mount constraints. Sigma produces its lenses for many mounts and that's actually an advantage for Pentaxians because Sigma passes on the economy of mass production to its customers. Before the K-1 arrived, it was a 100% OK for Sigma to offer their lenses with their respective dimensions, i.e., not make special concessions to a mount that offers so few sales that many third-party lens manufacturers had withdrawn their support a long time ago. It made economical sense for Sigma to not adapt the lenses to K-mount specifically and not achieve tight tolerances for a part where it did not matter whether it was 0.5mm larger or not. With your use of "sloppy" you unwillingly or not imply that Sigma is not a responsible manufacturer. However, it is clear that a company cannot produce lenses as optically advanced as the Sigma "Art" lenses are, unless it knows how to achieve tight tolerances where it matters. [/LIST]

You know, you're first doubting the assertion but then you're explaining why it makes sens for Sigma to make poorly crafted products. I'm afraid you'd have to choose one of those contradictory positions
The argument that it's 100% OK for Sigma to stretch the limits with non-conforming designs is a weak one. This thread is about what could happen because of that

As for monochrome's parasitic vs symbiotic analogy, IMO that's a poor one; though I somehow understand what he's trying to say. Obviously, not that Pentax made a deliberate change (it's silly to believe that). No, Pentax evolved on their own, disregarding the Sigma "mutation"... the slope is there for technical reasons and nothing else. While the Sigma "mutation" is nothing else than a risk Sigma deliberately took.

By the way, I don't believe for a second that people asking why oh why didn't Pentax test with 3rd-party products would be happy if the K-1 was still delayed in order to perform extensive tests with 3rd-party lenses and accessories, redesigning parts of the camera, reverse engineering reverse engineered protocols then attempting workarounds, etc.
Even just going through Sigma's lens range to find out exactly what's the maximum diameter of the lens mount is an effort, and one I wouldn't be willing to pay for (both as additional waiting time, and a higher price).

The Pentax-Tamron deal is better for us because otherwise Tamron wouldn't make their lenses for K-mount.

[Class A]

You know, you're first doubting the assertion but then you're explaining why it makes sens for Sigma to make poorly crafted products.

Not using the utmost precision for a part that does not need tight tolerances would be uneconomical over-engineering. There is absolutely no relationship to "poorly crafted products".

Would you pay 10x the cost for a rubber focusing ring just because it has been ensured that all the little dimples on it are within 0.1mm tolerance of the specified height? Of course you wouldn't, because such small deviations are inconsequential. Before the K-1 there was no need for Sigma to use the same high-precision part because all previous Pentax DSLRs provided enough clearance. I wouldn't be surprised if we were talking about different parts being used as they were available, rather than a single part with higher manufacturing tolerances. But even in the latter case, one would be very much mistaken to deduce poor workmanship.

The Pentax-Tamron deal is better for us because otherwise Tamron wouldn't make their lenses for K-mount.

And how do you know that?

Tamron have been offering the 70-200/2.8 and other lenses in K-mount without any need for re-branding.

[Kunzite]

For Pete's sake, we're not talking about "the utmost precision" here, the difference can easily be seen with your eyes.

I know that because the last Tamron lens with a K-mount version was the 70-200 f/2.8, in 2008. They abandoned the K-mount.

[Kerrowdown]

of the deliberate rebate Pentax engineered into the housing

I hadn't even noticed that until I read it here and then went and looked.

Luckily for me I don't have any third party lenses, but I can see both sides of this situation for those folk that do.

[Class A]

For Pete's sake, we're not talking about "the utmost precision" here, the difference can easily be seen with your eyes.

Do you not get that the difference never mattered until recently?
Why achieve any kind of precision, if it does not benefit anything, other than preventing an illogical argument to be made?

I know that because the last Tamron lens with a K-mount version was the 70-200 f/2.8, in 2008.

One can still buy this lens new, like a number of other Tamron lenses in K-mount.

So, no, you did not provide evidence for your claim that without rebadging we wouldn't be able to use Tamron lenses on our Pentax DSLRs.

Just in case you are talking about new Tamron designs like the 24-70/2.8, I doubt you can provide evidence that Tamron wouldn't have offered it (and similar ones) for K-mount after the introduction of the K-1.

[Edgar_in_Indy]

You know, you're first doubting the assertion but then you're explaining why it makes sens for Sigma to make poorly crafted products. I'm afraid you'd have to choose one of those contradictory positions

I don't think having a mount plate that is a couple mm larger is analogous with "poorly crafted". Sigma makes a lot of lenses that are larger and heavier than the average lens, so for all we know it could have been a conscious design decision that use a mount plate that was slightly beefier, to put less stress on the small flanges for lenses such as the 50-500mm. And since there had always been plenty of allowance around the mount in the past, even on the vast majority of the old film cameras, then why not?

And despite all the talk of official "published" specs, nobody so far has been able to provide proof of such a thing, so at this point I have to assume that those people are talking out of their you-know-whats.

If you want to complain about a company cutting corners on the mount plate to save a few cents, then lets look at which company has made a large number of lenses with plastic mounts. I've never owned a Sigma lens with a plastic mount, not even the budget lenses I have come across.

[D1N0]

Just keep at it until everybody agrees will you?

[beholder3]

Sigma still produces poor quality controlled mediocre lenses, that does include the "Art" thingies, which are no better than the older ones (only now they make the less brainy customers pay for repair tools for faulty Sigma lenses such as the USB dock).

Now it has turned out a whole bunch of them have even more been poorly designed (poor design quality comes to poor production quality ), even though it really is only a small Sigma error this time.

Now they try to control damage they have caused, which is the absolute minimum they need to do if they want to stay in the game. Sigma lenses damaging customers main gear is not a good sign.

Good for them, but nothing to really rave about, unless you are die hard Sigma fanboy (and there are enough of them around).

These quality issues are the very reason their lenses have to be priced -40% below OEM equipment and why even then nobody would buy it without a 50% extra warranty period.