[Kunzite]

Releasing a lens that fills a hole in the Pentax line up seems like a good way to ensure it sells... but maybe it still would not sell enough.

Who knows... but there was a window of opportunity there, for Sigma Art lenses - which is closing.

[blende8]

Word from one "in the know":
Official announcements come at the end of February.

[Rondec]

Sigma basically use the same communication protocol between lens and camera as Canon, so it is very little that differs on Sigma lenses designed for their own mount and for Canon. So if they have the lens designed for Canon they get their own version almost for free or vice versa.

Sigma SA-mount - Wikipedia

The issue isn't really the cost of designing the lens that keeps them from making K mount lenses. It is the cost of doing a run of lenses (however many it is) that sit on store shelves for the next ten years gathering dust. You can't tell me that that if they do a run of 10,000 SA mount lenses that they move like hot cakes. The thing is that they have to support their own camera and so even if they don't sell many lenses, they still have to make all of their lenses available for it.

[Kunzite]

Word from one "in the know":
Official announcements come at the end of February.

Say, one week before CP+?

[Fogel70]

The issue isn't really the cost of designing the lens that keeps them from making K mount lenses. It is the cost of doing a run of lenses (however many it is) that sit on store shelves for the next ten years gathering dust. You can't tell me that that if they do a run of 10,000 SA mount lenses that they move like hot cakes. The thing is that they have to support their own camera and so even if they don't sell many lenses, they still have to make all of their lenses available for it.

But that is the thing, they do not need to produce their own lenses in high volume. As long as there is high demand from Canon users, they can use a small number of a run of EF lenses for their own SA mount, as both are basically the same.

It's like 4-5 parts that differs in a Sigma lens between a EF mount and SA mount. As they run on same firmware it is very easy to convert between these mounts.

You Tube

You Tube

If Sigma is interested in investing in reverse engineering of the KAF4 mount it would be easier for them to produce K-mount lenses too, but it will require an initial investment in R&D.
And it will probably also cost them more to support Pentax, (as we seen in the past) with firmware needing updates to fully support new cameras.

[Reed]

Actually, there was very little cases of Sigma lenses that needed a firmware update compared to Nikon or Canon. Only one I can remember that was causing real problem was first generation of 70-200/2.8(the one with "mesh") that caused unpredictable behavior of autofocus paired with newer bodies(K-3,K-1),and even that was not common for every lens of this generation. With USB dock-there is almost no cost to run upgrades

[Franc]

not so long ago image-resource.com did an interview with Sigma. One of the main reasons they don't do Pentax isn't the lack of sales but the manufacturing capability. They need all their resources for nikon/canon. The link is somewhere on this site.

[biz-engineer]

For who likes Sigma or Tamron, there is always the option to put a Sigma or Tamron sticker on the Pentax lens.

[monochrome]

Hirakawa Jun isn’t managing the optical R&D Department at Sigma.

[Ascencio]

I’ve heard a few people saying that Sigma support said Ricoh was not cooperative as a reason for not making K-mount lenses. I wish someone would question them about this.

- What kind of “cooperation” do they need?
- They make lenses for Canon and Nikon, so are those companies cooperating? It sounds unlikely to me.
- Sigma used to make K-mount lenses without any issue, but now they need cooperation. Why are they suddenly unable to do that?

It doesn’t make sense. If they said it was lack of sales, I’d believe them. I think they just don’t want to tell customers to their faces that they’ve dropped support, and somehow think they can blame it on Ricoh.

Not the first time or place i heard Pentax doesn’t communicate or cooperate with third parties. Sigma still makes some lenses including a couple of art lenses for Pentax but after K-1 everyone dropped supporting Pentax im sure for reasons no one who actually knows will ever say.

[robjmitchell]

Not the first time or place i heard Pentax doesn’t communicate or cooperate with third parties. Sigma still makes some lenses including a couple of art lenses for Pentax but after K-1 everyone dropped supporting Pentax im sure for reasons no one who actually knows will ever say.

No one communicates with sigma because they are a bunch of pirates who refuse to pay to use the mount under licence. Ricoh has cleary communicated with Tamron based on the fact Tamron manufacture the HD 15-30 and 24-70 from them.
Sigma has had so much success with the art series lenses that they cant keep up with demand, why loose money making a mount that wont sell much. On the other hand it would be nice to see Tamron release their lenses which the KAF4 mount would help with ease of production.

[Gedeon]

Let's talking of Zeiss now 😶

[Rondec]

Not the first time or place i heard Pentax doesn’t communicate or cooperate with third parties. Sigma still makes some lenses including a couple of art lenses for Pentax but after K-1 everyone dropped supporting Pentax im sure for reasons no one who actually knows will ever say.

Sigma doesn't pay anyone to make lenses in their mounts. Everything they do is backward engineered which means that it can end up needing updates when new cameras are released. It keeps their costs down but does mean that their performance may not be as good from an auto focus standpoint as an OEM lens.

As far as I know, they don't pay Canon/Nikon/Sony for the use of their mounts and get no cooperation from them either. They just sell enough copies that it is worth their while to make the lenses.

[dstar]

not so long ago image-resource.com did an interview with Sigma. One of the main reasons they don't do Pentax isn't the lack of sales but the manufacturing capability. They need all their resources for nikon/canon. The link is somewhere on this site.

Y: Yes, they don't make it more difficult on purpose by themselves; I don't believe so.

DE: That's interesting, your comment about the engineers. It makes sense: Engineers just want to optimize their own designs, not consciously make things more difficult for third parties.

One of our readers asked why you offer so few of your lenses with the Pentax mount, and he also asked about longer telephotos, in particular. If the mounts are fairly simple -- if it's really just a matter of changing out the mount, shouldn't it be possible to make more Pentax lenses? Or is it still just a cost issue, even for a relatively small investment?

[Note, this section has been edited 4/12/14, as I had misunderstood what Yamaki san was saying, see the editorial note following this exchange]

KY: Pentax still uses mechanical parts to control the aperture. So, mechanically, it's totally different from other mounts, even though it uses the same optics. Making a Pentax mount means we have to use special parts just for Pentax mounts.


DE: It's a whole different aperture mechanism that you have to use. Ah, that's very interesting.

KY: Yes. So, we'd like to make as many lenses for Pentax as possible, but with very small demand we cannot make them frequently. For such a lens, the long back-order times are a big problem for us. So we cannot make too wide a product line for Pentax. For example, a 300mm f/2.8 -- maybe we can produce this for Pentax once every few months; but some people may need a 300mm f/2.8 now. We cannot make it so often.

DE: Ah -- you can't afford to carry a large inventory given the small sales volume, but you also have a minimum production run that's economically viable. So you end up having long lead times, sometimes. I see, that makes sense, very interesting.

[Ed. Note: I'd originally misinterpreted Yamaki san's comments here, so he clarified what he was saying in a further email exchange I had with him. I had thought he was saying that Pentax lenses were different simply because they used a mechanical aperture coupling, vs an electronic one. As several astute readers pointed out, they do, but so do lenses from Nikon and Sony.

Yamaki san's point is that lenses with mechanical aperture mechanisms require separate production runs to produce each type, vs an electronic system that would just need a different arrangement of contacts and reprogramming of the lens's CPU.

The problem for Pentaxians is that there just aren't enough of them, so demand for Pentax-mount lenses is small to the point that it's economically difficult to produce them, or at least to do so in a way that would keep Pentax users happy.

The issue is that the smaller a production run, the more costly each individual unit is, due to inefficiencies associated with switching the production line from one lens to another. As the run length becomes smaller, that fixed switchover cost become a bigger and bigger part of the cost of each unit. From a practical standpoint, there's a lower limit on run length, below which it's just not profitable for them to produce a product.

For popular lens models, the minimum production run isn't too big a problem for Pentax users, as there's enough demand that Sigma can produce a batch of lenses often enough to more or less keep them in stock in the retail channel. As you get into slightly more obscure, specialized, or perhaps more expensive glass with less demand, though, the minimum affordable production run for a given model might amount to 6 months, a year, or even a couple of years' worth of demand on the Pentax mount.

As Yamaki san explained to me, it wouldn't be viable for him to produce and market a lens that might be unavailable in the market for 6 months or a year at a time - Potential customers would become very unhappy with Sigma over the poor availability. (And, adding my own interpretation here, how could they efficiently let people know "hey, remember that cool lens we said we were making for the Pentax mount that hasn't been available for the last year? It's available now, so get out your wallets!")

At first thought, you might say "well, what's the problem, they can just build a batch of them, and warehouse them until that batch runs out, then do another run." The problem is, doing so would again increase costs, because holding large quantities of lenses in inventory would tie up Sigma's capital, meaning it wasn't available for other things that would give a much higher return. Even if Sigma were able to borrow additional money to use to hold that inventory, they'd be paying interest on it, which would again increase costs.

So, that's the full story: In my latest email with him, Yamaki san expressed what I believe was very genuine regret that he isn't able to bring more of their lenses to the Pentax mount, but can only do so for the most popular models, that will generate enough demand to be produced sustainably.

---------- Post added 08-03-16 at 05:09 AM ----------

This abstract interview 2014 with CEO Sigma

---------- Post added 01-31-18 at 05:02 PM ----------

not so long ago image-resource.com did an interview with Sigma. One of the main reasons they don't do Pentax isn't the lack of sales but the manufacturing capability. They need all their resources for nikon/canon. The link is somewhere on this site.

Y: Yes, they don't make it more difficult on purpose by themselves; I don't believe so.

DE: That's interesting, your comment about the engineers. It makes sense: Engineers just want to optimize their own designs, not consciously make things more difficult for third parties.

One of our readers asked why you offer so few of your lenses with the Pentax mount, and he also asked about longer telephotos, in particular. If the mounts are fairly simple -- if it's really just a matter of changing out the mount, shouldn't it be possible to make more Pentax lenses? Or is it still just a cost issue, even for a relatively small investment?

[Note, this section has been edited 4/12/14, as I had misunderstood what Yamaki san was saying, see the editorial note following this exchange]

KY: Pentax still uses mechanical parts to control the aperture. So, mechanically, it's totally different from other mounts, even though it uses the same optics. Making a Pentax mount means we have to use special parts just for Pentax mounts.


DE: It's a whole different aperture mechanism that you have to use. Ah, that's very interesting.

KY: Yes. So, we'd like to make as many lenses for Pentax as possible, but with very small demand we cannot make them frequently. For such a lens, the long back-order times are a big problem for us. So we cannot make too wide a product line for Pentax. For example, a 300mm f/2.8 -- maybe we can produce this for Pentax once every few months; but some people may need a 300mm f/2.8 now. We cannot make it so often.

DE: Ah -- you can't afford to carry a large inventory given the small sales volume, but you also have a minimum production run that's economically viable. So you end up having long lead times, sometimes. I see, that makes sense, very interesting.

[Ed. Note: I'd originally misinterpreted Yamaki san's comments here, so he clarified what he was saying in a further email exchange I had with him. I had thought he was saying that Pentax lenses were different simply because they used a mechanical aperture coupling, vs an electronic one. As several astute readers pointed out, they do, but so do lenses from Nikon and Sony.

Yamaki san's point is that lenses with mechanical aperture mechanisms require separate production runs to produce each type, vs an electronic system that would just need a different arrangement of contacts and reprogramming of the lens's CPU.

The problem for Pentaxians is that there just aren't enough of them, so demand for Pentax-mount lenses is small to the point that it's economically difficult to produce them, or at least to do so in a way that would keep Pentax users happy.

The issue is that the smaller a production run, the more costly each individual unit is, due to inefficiencies associated with switching the production line from one lens to another. As the run length becomes smaller, that fixed switchover cost become a bigger and bigger part of the cost of each unit. From a practical standpoint, there's a lower limit on run length, below which it's just not profitable for them to produce a product.

For popular lens models, the minimum production run isn't too big a problem for Pentax users, as there's enough demand that Sigma can produce a batch of lenses often enough to more or less keep them in stock in the retail channel. As you get into slightly more obscure, specialized, or perhaps more expensive glass with less demand, though, the minimum affordable production run for a given model might amount to 6 months, a year, or even a couple of years' worth of demand on the Pentax mount.

As Yamaki san explained to me, it wouldn't be viable for him to produce and market a lens that might be unavailable in the market for 6 months or a year at a time - Potential customers would become very unhappy with Sigma over the poor availability. (And, adding my own interpretation here, how could they efficiently let people know "hey, remember that cool lens we said we were making for the Pentax mount that hasn't been available for the last year? It's available now, so get out your wallets!")

At first thought, you might say "well, what's the problem, they can just build a batch of them, and warehouse them until that batch runs out, then do another run." The problem is, doing so would again increase costs, because holding large quantities of lenses in inventory would tie up Sigma's capital, meaning it wasn't available for other things that would give a much higher return. Even if Sigma were able to borrow additional money to use to hold that inventory, they'd be paying interest on it, which would again increase costs.

So, that's the full story: In my latest email with him, Yamaki san expressed what I believe was very genuine regret that he isn't able to bring more of their lenses to the Pentax mount, but can only do so for the most popular models, that will generate enough demand to be produced sustainably.

---------- Post added 08-03-16 at 05:09 AM ----------

This abstract interview 2014 with CEO Sigma

---------- Post added 01-31-18 at 05:02 PM ----------

not so long ago image-resource.com did an interview with Sigma. One of the main reasons they don't do Pentax isn't the lack of sales but the manufacturing capability. They need all their resources for nikon/canon. The link is somewhere on this site.

Y: Yes, they don't make it more difficult on purpose by themselves; I don't believe so.

DE: That's interesting, your comment about the engineers. It makes sense: Engineers just want to optimize their own designs, not consciously make things more difficult for third parties.

One of our readers asked why you offer so few of your lenses with the Pentax mount, and he also asked about longer telephotos, in particular. If the mounts are fairly simple -- if it's really just a matter of changing out the mount, shouldn't it be possible to make more Pentax lenses? Or is it still just a cost issue, even for a relatively small investment?

[Note, this section has been edited 4/12/14, as I had misunderstood what Yamaki san was saying, see the editorial note following this exchange]

KY: Pentax still uses mechanical parts to control the aperture. So, mechanically, it's totally different from other mounts, even though it uses the same optics. Making a Pentax mount means we have to use special parts just for Pentax mounts.


DE: It's a whole different aperture mechanism that you have to use. Ah, that's very interesting.

KY: Yes. So, we'd like to make as many lenses for Pentax as possible, but with very small demand we cannot make them frequently. For such a lens, the long back-order times are a big problem for us. So we cannot make too wide a product line for Pentax. For example, a 300mm f/2.8 -- maybe we can produce this for Pentax once every few months; but some people may need a 300mm f/2.8 now. We cannot make it so often.

DE: Ah -- you can't afford to carry a large inventory given the small sales volume, but you also have a minimum production run that's economically viable. So you end up having long lead times, sometimes. I see, that makes sense, very interesting.

[Ed. Note: I'd originally misinterpreted Yamaki san's comments here, so he clarified what he was saying in a further email exchange I had with him. I had thought he was saying that Pentax lenses were different simply because they used a mechanical aperture coupling, vs an electronic one. As several astute readers pointed out, they do, but so do lenses from Nikon and Sony.

Yamaki san's point is that lenses with mechanical aperture mechanisms require separate production runs to produce each type, vs an electronic system that would just need a different arrangement of contacts and reprogramming of the lens's CPU.

The problem for Pentaxians is that there just aren't enough of them, so demand for Pentax-mount lenses is small to the point that it's economically difficult to produce them, or at least to do so in a way that would keep Pentax users happy.

The issue is that the smaller a production run, the more costly each individual unit is, due to inefficiencies associated with switching the production line from one lens to another. As the run length becomes smaller, that fixed switchover cost become a bigger and bigger part of the cost of each unit. From a practical standpoint, there's a lower limit on run length, below which it's just not profitable for them to produce a product.

For popular lens models, the minimum production run isn't too big a problem for Pentax users, as there's enough demand that Sigma can produce a batch of lenses often enough to more or less keep them in stock in the retail channel. As you get into slightly more obscure, specialized, or perhaps more expensive glass with less demand, though, the minimum affordable production run for a given model might amount to 6 months, a year, or even a couple of years' worth of demand on the Pentax mount.

As Yamaki san explained to me, it wouldn't be viable for him to produce and market a lens that might be unavailable in the market for 6 months or a year at a time - Potential customers would become very unhappy with Sigma over the poor availability. (And, adding my own interpretation here, how could they efficiently let people know "hey, remember that cool lens we said we were making for the Pentax mount that hasn't been available for the last year? It's available now, so get out your wallets!")

At first thought, you might say "well, what's the problem, they can just build a batch of them, and warehouse them until that batch runs out, then do another run." The problem is, doing so would again increase costs, because holding large quantities of lenses in inventory would tie up Sigma's capital, meaning it wasn't available for other things that would give a much higher return. Even if Sigma were able to borrow additional money to use to hold that inventory, they'd be paying interest on it, which would again increase costs.

So, that's the full story: In my latest email with him, Yamaki san expressed what I believe was very genuine regret that he isn't able to bring more of their lenses to the Pentax mount, but can only do so for the most popular models, that will generate enough demand to be produced sustainably.

---------- Post added 08-03-16 at 05:09 AM ----------

This abstract interview 2014 with CEO Sigma

---------- Post added 01-31-18 at 05:02 PM ----------

not so long ago image-resource.com did an interview with Sigma. One of the main reasons they don't do Pentax isn't the lack of sales but the manufacturing capability. They need all their resources for nikon/canon. The link is somewhere on this site.

Y: Yes, they don't make it more difficult on purpose by themselves; I don't believe so.

DE: That's interesting, your comment about the engineers. It makes sense: Engineers just want to optimize their own designs, not consciously make things more difficult for third parties.

One of our readers asked why you offer so few of your lenses with the Pentax mount, and he also asked about longer telephotos, in particular. If the mounts are fairly simple -- if it's really just a matter of changing out the mount, shouldn't it be possible to make more Pentax lenses? Or is it still just a cost issue, even for a relatively small investment?

[Note, this section has been edited 4/12/14, as I had misunderstood what Yamaki san was saying, see the editorial note following this exchange]

KY: Pentax still uses mechanical parts to control the aperture. So, mechanically, it's totally different from other mounts, even though it uses the same optics. Making a Pentax mount means we have to use special parts just for Pentax mounts.


DE: It's a whole different aperture mechanism that you have to use. Ah, that's very interesting.

KY: Yes. So, we'd like to make as many lenses for Pentax as possible, but with very small demand we cannot make them frequently. For such a lens, the long back-order times are a big problem for us. So we cannot make too wide a product line for Pentax. For example, a 300mm f/2.8 -- maybe we can produce this for Pentax once every few months; but some people may need a 300mm f/2.8 now. We cannot make it so often.

DE: Ah -- you can't afford to carry a large inventory given the small sales volume, but you also have a minimum production run that's economically viable. So you end up having long lead times, sometimes. I see, that makes sense, very interesting.

[Ed. Note: I'd originally misinterpreted Yamaki san's comments here, so he clarified what he was saying in a further email exchange I had with him. I had thought he was saying that Pentax lenses were different simply because they used a mechanical aperture coupling, vs an electronic one. As several astute readers pointed out, they do, but so do lenses from Nikon and Sony.

Yamaki san's point is that lenses with mechanical aperture mechanisms require separate production runs to produce each type, vs an electronic system that would just need a different arrangement of contacts and reprogramming of the lens's CPU.

The problem for Pentaxians is that there just aren't enough of them, so demand for Pentax-mount lenses is small to the point that it's economically difficult to produce them, or at least to do so in a way that would keep Pentax users happy.

The issue is that the smaller a production run, the more costly each individual unit is, due to inefficiencies associated with switching the production line from one lens to another. As the run length becomes smaller, that fixed switchover cost become a bigger and bigger part of the cost of each unit. From a practical standpoint, there's a lower limit on run length, below which it's just not profitable for them to produce a product.

For popular lens models, the minimum production run isn't too big a problem for Pentax users, as there's enough demand that Sigma can produce a batch of lenses often enough to more or less keep them in stock in the retail channel. As you get into slightly more obscure, specialized, or perhaps more expensive glass with less demand, though, the minimum affordable production run for a given model might amount to 6 months, a year, or even a couple of years' worth of demand on the Pentax mount.

As Yamaki san explained to me, it wouldn't be viable for him to produce and market a lens that might be unavailable in the market for 6 months or a year at a time - Potential customers would become very unhappy with Sigma over the poor availability. (And, adding my own interpretation here, how could they efficiently let people know "hey, remember that cool lens we said we were making for the Pentax mount that hasn't been available for the last year? It's available now, so get out your wallets!")

At first thought, you might say "well, what's the problem, they can just build a batch of them, and warehouse them until that batch runs out, then do another run." The problem is, doing so would again increase costs, because holding large quantities of lenses in inventory would tie up Sigma's capital, meaning it wasn't available for other things that would give a much higher return. Even if Sigma were able to borrow additional money to use to hold that inventory, they'd be paying interest on it, which would again increase costs.

So, that's the full story: In my latest email with him, Yamaki san expressed what I believe was very genuine regret that he isn't able to bring more of their lenses to the Pentax mount, but can only do so for the most popular models, that will generate enough demand to be produced sustainably.

---------- Post added 08-03-16 at 05:09 AM ----------

This abstract interview 2014 with CEO Sigma

[credos4u]

Pardon me, but isn't this thread actually about the possibility of another Full Frame or "just" a K-1 Mark II that is rumoured to hit the market (or at least to be announced)this year?
... Just sayin...