Originally posted by mee How exactly does it work?
They make lenses for Pentax and they sell or they don't. If they sell fast enough, and fast enough is a thing because companies hate to store unsold inventory, they make more Pentax lenses. If they don't sell fast enough they don't make more Pentax lenses. If we right now buy up every Pentax lens out there left in Sigma's inventory, Sigma could still judge Pentax mount unworkable, because of the amount of time it took to sell them and of how much of their expected profit was eaten up by the cost of keeping those lenses in inventory.
SO Sigma (like Tamron) has to decide, should we make 500 lenses for Pentax mount that take 5 years to sell, or should we make another 500 lenses in Nikon mount, that require no further R&D and will be gone next year?
Which do you suppose makes them more money?
I assume the Sigma dropping Pentax was not only based on low Pentax sales, but on the likely hood of ever making a profit on Pentax K-mount lenses. Companies will gamble from time to time, but they like the odds to be in their favour.
And by the way, I have two really good Sigma lenses, the 8-16 and 70macro and my original digital purchase was a Sigma 70-300...and later I bought a Sigma 18-250. I've done my part. Sigma definitely didn't drop Pentax because of me. I miss Sigma, but it's not life threatening.
IN the end, I prefer the size and weight of the DFA 100 macro to the Sigma 70, the 8-16 isn't full frame which I use for most of my UWA these days, and the 70-300 and 18-250 just didn't turn out to be high enough IQ. In the end, Sigma was great stop gap gear, but none of it is still in use.
Not having Sigma in K mount will keep me from buying lenses like the 70-300 and 18-250 and Sigma 70 macro. They are good for what they are, but they weren't what I ultimately wanted, and in some cases I would have been much better served going to better gear right from the get go, but got lulled into thinking "it might work for me" by the lower price.