[Kunzite]

What is "a full range of items"?
Sigma Art currently has 13 FF (DG) lenses.
- 2 already have equivalents in the rebadged D FA 15-30 and 24-70
- 1 is a macro not that different from the D FA 100mm
- 2 primes equivalents are already confirmed by Pentax (50 and 85)
- 2 primes around 35mm and 20mm are on the roadmap (yet unnamed)
So Pentax has plans making most of those Art lenses redundant (ignoring price). And to add some lenses without any Art equivalent.
What's left?
- a 24mm (or 20mm. Whatever won't be the ultra-wide from the roadmap)
- a 24-35 f/2
- a 12-24 f/4
- a 14mm
- a 135 f/1.8
- the 105mm f/1.4 monster - is anyone seriously considering buying that?

I suspect this isn't about any "full range of items" but rather a. price and b. "I want it now". "Success" and "failure" are defined as "do we get what we want, or not?".

L.E. Add the 24-105 f/4 to the series of 'Art' lenses...it was marked incorrectly on the site I was using to check.

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Last edited by Kunzite; 03-12-2018 at 04:42 AM.

[Mistral75]

(...)

Market share is down from 6.7% in 2016 to 4.8% in 2017 to 4.2% presently (..)

These are BCN Ranking figures for 2015, 2016 and 2017 (published in 2016, 2017 and 2018) collected from some Japanese retailers of electronic equipment. The Pentax brand's global market share is much lower.

[monochrome]

GeneV asked the core question. What does a brand do when it is too small to offer a full range of items created in-house. Does it say we don’t need them for what we concentrate on so there won’t be a full range of items or does it say we have arranged third-party alternatives for the things we cannot offer ourselves.

A consideration here is whether the absence of third-party alternatives causes fewer in-house items to be sold because overall customers see your offer as weaker than they would like it to be. It’s a pretty straightforward pragmatic question, I’d say.

GeneV commented on a post specifically discussing arranging for 3P lenses with Sigma, which is negative for Pentax,

I can’t get my mind around the logic where Pentax gives money it apparently doesn’t have to a 3P it doesn’t control to ‘encourage’ release of lenses it doesn’t design to create profit it doesn’t earn - to sell more cameras to people who don’t use Pentax.

[mecrox]

GeneV commented on a post specifically discussing arranging for 3P lenses with Sigma, which is negative for Pentax,

I can’t get my mind around the logic where Pentax gives money it apparently doesn’t have to a 3P it doesn’t control to ‘encourage’ release of lenses it doesn’t design to create profit it doesn’t earn - to sell more cameras to people who don’t use Pentax.

I'm not sure that's what he was getting at. It struck me as about offering customers what they want in order to attract them to the brand or keep them with it.

You can't take money from what doesn't exist, so a first party isn't losing anything to a third party if the first party was never going to produce the item in question anyway (and saying we will produce it in 2025 means never in today's world). And it isn't necessarily about a particular brand or sub-brand (Sigma, Sigma Art, e.g.). It's about making the best available offer to your customers. Sales data and feedback will soon tell you whether that's the case. What gets sourced from where is a secondary consideration. So, for example, if you determine that the absence of a 150-600mm lens is hurtng your business then you have the option of producing one yourself, arranging for one from a third party or doing neither and putting up with the consequences. it's also possible - possible, only - that the Sigma Art line is seen as some kind of totem pole by a lot of your customers and its absence is frowned upon. Only careful research could nail that one and how much it actually mattered.

To get back on message, I would like 24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 85mm equivalent f1.8 or f2 Limited prime lenses with modern motors et al, possibly also WR, for APS-C.

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Last edited by mecrox; 03-12-2018 at 05:24 AM.

[dafbp]

One thing that doesn't seem to have been talked about, just hinted, is that many people would like to have high quality lenses, but are not prepared/interested to pay for f speed, or have the bulk associated with it.
With all the advances made in sensors, and the accelerator unit Pentax is including in recent bodies, one direction they could follow is that of slow, but high Q, lenses, like the current Limiteds. But it looks like all the new ones are fast?
That would associate Pentax with quality glass for all their segments, not just FF and MF (good publicity). And partly silence the complaints about a small lens lineup [bad publicity]...
The new 11-18, even though not a Limited, is (should be) a (very?) high Q lens, but a fast lens, in a segment (APS) that is usually associated with lower prices. Even though it is a good sign for the Pentax APS line, I think they made it "too pro", f speed-wise, which increases the price and limits the sales/visibility.
I wonder what is their intention when releasing a pro(?) lens in an "amateur" segment...

[photoptimist]

I'm not sure that's what he was getting at. It struck me as about offering customers what they want in order to attract them to the brand or keep them with it.

You can't take money from what doesn't exist, so a first party isn't losing anything to a third party if the first party was never going to produce the item in question anyway (and saying we will produce it in 2025 means never in today's world). And it isn't necessarily about a particular brand or sub-brand (Sigma, Sigma Art, e.g.). It's about making the best available offer to your customers. Sales data and feedback will soon tell you whether that's the case. What gets sourced from where is a secondary consideration. So, for example, if you determine that the absence of a 150-600mm lens is hurtng your business then you have the option of producing one yourself, arranging for one from a third party or doing neither and putting up with the consequences. it's also possible - possible, only - that the Sigma Art line is seen as some kind of totem pole by a lot of your customers and its absence is frowned upon. Only careful research could nail that one and how much it actually mattered.

There's no doubt that offering customers what they want is a good thing. But to be viable, it must entice said customers to give Pentax what it wants. To stay in business, Pentax needs to get enough money from customers to design, make, and market these Pentax products. What monochrome so succinctly said was that giving customers what they want does not give Pentax that it wants if the customers are giving their money to Sigma instead of Pentax. As you correctly note, there's a complex trade-off here and only someone with good data (and knowledge of exactly how big a bribe Sigma needs from Pentax) can determine whether the added bodies sold to Sigma-lovers offsets the loss of Pentax lens sales and pay for the Sigma bribe.

To get back on message, I would like 24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 85mm equivalent f1.8 or f2 Limited prime lenses with modern motors et al, possibly also WR, for APS-C.

Can anyone see Sigma designing "Limited" lenses? A quick glance at the 39 lenses in the Sigma-for-Canon catalog shows nothing small even in the crop-lens line. And worse than that is the fact that if Sigma lenses were available for Pentax, they would cut into potential sales of Pentax Limiteds. Because some percentage of 35 mm lens buyers, for example, would opt for Sigma's huge 35 f/1.4 over Pentax's 35 f/1.8 Limited, total sales of Pentax Limiteds would be lower. Sigma's "support" for Pentax actually reduces the chance that Pentax would ever create new Limited lenses.

[Bophoto]

I think now there will be 3 types of lens for FF, high end lenses as 150-450 and star, normal class DFA28-105 which might also be the 70-200 / 4, or it will be high end.
Later comes the limited series (or some). Upcoming "Ultra wide" can be a limited 20mm, if limited,it will be a update optically in addition to DC and WR.
Otherwise, I think we'll have to wait a long time for limiteds, Myself, I would be interested in a DFA135 / 3.5 limited, but it probably will not come, even a limited of FA20-35.
A Pentax / Tamron 150-600 would attract some customers to K1.
As I see it, more lenses provide more buyers to the Pentax system and if Pentax would lower the price of the DA560 to 2000-2500 €, I think it gives so many buyers that it will be a profit. And more interesting to buy the K1, although 2000 € from the beginning for the DA560 would have make the APS system more attractive.

[monochrome]

I wonder what the capital cost of Pentax’s (or Sigma’s) current and planned lens inventory is? How many lenses are made in a batch? What is the capital cost per lens and what is the cost of carry? I honestly don’t think the problem is designing lenses - it is producing and carrying an inventory of lenses. Pentax possibly has the same problem everyone else does - the economics of building and carrying a batch of K-mount lenses is prohibitive for Sigma at the current sales pace. It is probably less so for Pentax, but maybe still a challenge.

[thibs]

This definitely the way to go - if Pentax were to compete product for product with Canon (apart from going bankrupt very quickly) they'd essentially just be Canon products (but with better sensors).

Pentax need to follow their own path, but I think recently a lot of people have a problem with that path appearing to be the same as that from canon, Nikon, Sony and Sigma - huge expensive lenses which aren't unique in any way other than having a K mount. I can definitely understand that as such lenses don't interest me at all. I also think that this is precisely the reason that the idea of more limited lenses interests a lot of people - Pentax really should capitalise more on these unique lenses.

The same path as Canon?
Where does Canon or Nikon provide such prime lenses you are refering to?
Zeiss/Sigma certainly do. But Canon/Nikon?

Then, the first DFA* prime not even out and tested we don't even really how it renders. I personally expect it do render less harsh than the Sigma does.
Those new lenses are needed for current and future sensors anyway...

This doesn't mean that big very bright lenses are the only kind of lenses they need to design. But those are the first that need to be. If this is no priority for someone, older F/FA lenses are just fine so what's the problem?

[normhead]

Pentax needs the new big heavy lenses because they are higher resolution etc.
But there is absolutely nothing to substantiate the notion that redesigned light weight lenses would be any better than the current primes and limiteds.

The current focus on big heavy lenses, IMHO is because what they have in light weight portables is great. Given the limitations of lenses like the FA* 24, or any Pentax FF lens under 25mm, maybe big heavy is just what you have to do to get quality glass at those focal lengths.

Where does Canon or Nikon provide such prime lenses you are refering to?

You just have to look. Compare this to the Pentax FA*24mm
http://www.opticallimits.com/pentax/121-pentax-smc-fa-24mm-f2-al-if-review--...report?start=1





At 24 MP Nikkor AF-S 24mm f/1.4 G ED = 3704 lw/ph (tested on the D7200) Nikkor AF-S 24mm f/1.8 G ED (DX) - Review / Test Report - Analysis

Higher resolution on a D7200 than you can get on a Pentax with a K-1. That's what Pentax are going for. "Modern lenses for moderns sensors."

The whole spiel here.
DFA*50 1.4 coming - Page 206 - PentaxForums.com

[mecrox]

There's no doubt that offering customers what they want is a good thing. But to be viable, it must entice said customers to give Pentax what it wants. To stay in business, Pentax needs to get enough money from customers to design, make, and market these Pentax products. What monochrome so succinctly said was that giving customers what they want does not give Pentax that it wants if the customers are giving their money to Sigma instead of Pentax. As you correctly note, there's a complex trade-off here and only someone with good data (and knowledge of exactly how big a bribe Sigma needs from Pentax) can determine whether the added bodies sold to Sigma-lovers offsets the loss of Pentax lens sales and pay for the Sigma bribe.

Can anyone see Sigma designing "Limited" lenses? A quick glance at the 39 lenses in the Sigma-for-Canon catalog shows nothing small even in the crop-lens line. And worse than that is the fact that if Sigma lenses were available for Pentax, they would cut into potential sales of Pentax Limiteds. Because some percentage of 35 mm lens buyers, for example, would opt for Sigma's huge 35 f/1.4 over Pentax's 35 f/1.8 Limited, total sales of Pentax Limiteds would be lower. Sigma's "support" for Pentax actually reduces the chance that Pentax would ever create new Limited lenses.

You're missing two important points.

First, third parties fill the gaps caused by Ricoh being unable or unwilling to produce something. The customer isn't giving something to the third party they could have given to Ricoh instead, because Ricoh has nothing similar the customer wants to buy. There's nothing unreasonable about this. No small camera company can cover everything. I can see no reason why bringing on board a Tamron 150-600mm, say, would necessarily also mean bringing on board a Sigma Art 50mm. I don't see why this always has to be presented as all or nothing. It isn't, or it shouldn't be anyway. Be selective. Don't bring on board copycat lenses but the ones you don't have.

Second, if the only way of keeping the brand alive is to open it up to third party sales, then that too would have to be considered. I'm not saying this is the case, I'm just saying it would be a consideration.

Notional profits in hypothetical situations some years down the road aren't real. It's better to ask why Pentax appears to be getting smaller and smaller with every year and then ask what if anything can be done about that. The two things which crop up every time are lack of lens choice and autofocus performance. There is an area of unreality on here, tbh. However fine it would be if Pentax were able to do everything themselves, it's perfectly clear that they can't. No problem - call in the folks who can help.

I'll leave it there. I'd still like like 24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 85mm equivalent f1.8 or f2 Limited prime lenses with modern motors et al, possibly also WR, for APS-C.

[normhead]

I can see no reason why bringing on board a Tamron 150-600mm, say, would necessarily also mean bringing on board a Sigma Art 50mm.

Unfortunately Sigma can't see their way clear to bring the 150-600 for K-mount. And in any case, I've never seen a chart that suggests the 150-600s produce more line widths per picture height than the DFA 150-450 at full reach. The question has been asked many times. There's never been a definitive answer.

The fact that an image is taken with a longer lens in no way predicts that the image will be sharper than the same image taken with a shorter lens if it's a better lens. Lw/ph is related to a combination of lens quality and sensor quality. I'd venture that my Tamron 300 2.8 gets me better resolution than my A-400 5.6, on the same camera and same distance.

Sometimes people get fooled. They think they are getting something better for cheaper because of more MP or a longer focal length. It isn't always true. Third party manufacturers have in the past been skilled at undercutting price by undercutting specs and build quality. It's only recently companies like Tamron and Sigma have started turning the engineers loose. And when you look at the DFA 70-200 where production was held up by a year while Pentax got it right, and the focusing issues on the Sigma 18-35 etc. I still think the third party companies are less likely to keep going until they get it right for Pentax. We've seen Pentax delay a lens for almost a year while they got it right. Sigma and tamron can just get it right for Canon and Nikon and leave Pentax users to fend for themselves, like they did with the 18-35.

They design a lens, it's selling on Canon and Nikon, there is no way when they get around to the Pentax mount if it doesn't quite work they are going to go back and change the lens design so it's optimized for Pentax. They are going to try and make the same design that worked on Canon and Nikon work on K-mount, whether it works or doesn't. Just slap the mount on and that's it. It doesn't matter how much Pentax users note there are problems. They won't be addressed. The Sigma 18-35 proved that. But Pentax will keep going until they get it right for K-mount.

I'm unclear why folks would even suspect that a lens designed to fit multiple systems (of which K-mount was probably the smallest) would be better than a lens designed from the ground up for that system.

When guys like digitalis test a lens like he did with the Sigma 18-35 and says "there's a problem with this lens." , there's not chance in the world Sigma doesn't know that. They don't care. They don't make lenses for Pentax, they make lenses for Canon and Nikon and then try to adapt them for Pentax. At least they used to. Apparently with the electronics in modern lenses that's a losing strategy. Amazing how many people seem to blame that on Pentax.

I like my Sigma 70 macro, it's great lens and it's screw drive, and I actually paid less in real money for my DFA 100 macro, which is just as good, lighter smaller and WR,. But these days, the 55-300 is better than my Sigma 70-300 faster and more accurate focussing, and it's about the same price adjusted for inflation. Every time some one comes on and says something like 'The Sigma 30 Art is better than the 31 ltd, someone with more knowledge comes on and says "no it isn't" and posts images to show why. Now there's a song and dance I'm really tired of. If Sigma didn't exist as a company looking for shortcuts that make their lenses cheaper than OEM lenses, it would make more sense.

IMHO the only reason for buying a sigma lens is you're giving up on something that's on the equivalent Pentax, and saving the money that Pentax advantage is worth. That's not readily apparent. My Sigma 70-300 died when components failed during ordinary use. I have much older Pentax lenses that hasn't happened to. Sometimes they are immediately apparent, like the difference in IQ between 70-300 type lenses and the Pentax 55-300. There just is no free lunch.

[cfraz]

It's better to ask why Pentax appears to be getting smaller and smaller with every year and then ask what if anything can be done about that.

There was a time when 3rd party lens makers produced many K-mount lenses not available from Pentax. The result? Pentax got smaller and smaller.

[mecrox]

There was a time when 3rd party lens makers produced many K-mount lenses not available from Pentax. The result? Pentax got smaller and smaller.

And there is now a time when third party lensmakers don't produce many K-mount lenses. The result? Pentax gets smaller and smaller.

So if this has nothing at all to do with lens choice (which I don't believe, in fact), what would you suggest?

[photoptimist]

You're missing two important points.

First, third parties fill the gaps caused by Ricoh being unable or unwilling to produce something. The customer isn't giving something to the third party they could have given to Ricoh instead, because Ricoh has nothing similar the customer wants to buy. There's nothing unreasonable about this. No small camera company can cover everything. I can see no reason why bringing on board a Tamron 150-600mm, say, would necessarily also mean bringing on board a Sigma Art 50mm. I don't see why is always has to be presented as all or nothing. It isn't, or it shouldn't be anyway. Be selective. Don't bring on board copycat lenses but the ones you don't have.

Second, if the only way of keeping the brand alive is to open it up to third party sales, then that too would have to be considered. I'm not saying this is the case, I'm just saying it would be a consideration.

Notional profits in hypothetical situations some years down the road aren't real. It's better to ask why Pentax appears to be getting smaller and smaller with every year and then ask what if anything can be done about that. The two things which crop up every time are limited lens choice and autofocus performance. There is an area of unreality on here, tbh. However fine it would be if Pentax were able to do everything themselves, it's perfectly clear that they can't. No problem - call in the folks who can help.

I'll leave it there. I'd still like like 24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 85mm equivalent f1.8 or f2 Limited prime lenses with modern motors et al, possibly also WR, for APS-C.

OK, lets take the Tamron 150-600mm as a specific example and imagine Pentax paid Tamron to design and make this lens.

The first (beneficial) effect of this change is that some people who really need a 150-600 will consider buying a Pentax body. There is no gaurantee that they will buy a Pentax body because they can get the 150-600 on Canikony but at least Pentax is not knocked out of consideration. But will the number of added sales be every large? Adding that one lens does not provide any other Tamron, Sigma, Zeiss, etc. third party lens. Pentax pessimists can still say that Pentax has bad 3rd party support. But it does sell a few more bodies so that's good.

But the second (detrimental) effect will be cannibalization of Pentax 150-450 sales. Every existing Pentax owner (not just the new body buyers) who are considering buying a long zoom will suddenly have two choices: the Pentax 150-450 or the Tamron 150-600. The Tamron is both longer and cheaper than the Pentax (although slower and perhaps lower IQ). Surely Pentax would lose a very large percentage of 150-450 sales to Tamron (including all the people who bought a Pentax body to get a Tamron lens). Personally, I'm skeptical that the boost in body sales (to Tamron lovers) would be enough to cover both the payment to Tamron and the loss of 150-450 sales (to all Pentax users looking at long zooms).

The deeper issue is that the gaps in Pentax's current line-up are much smaller than they seem.

An image created by a given focal length lens can be replicated by almost any other lens of nearby focal length through some combination of cropping, zooming with the feet, or panoramic tiling. A 28 mm lens can stand in for a 35 mm lens. And at the level of functionality, the overlap is even larger. There are people doing portraiture with everything from 31mm to 200mm and no consensus that only specific lens X can do portraits (and Pentax does not have that lens).

Sure, extremely picky buyers might insist they will only buy f/1.4 lenses or very compact lenses or lenses designed for APS-C or an extremely specific focal length. Picky buyers do see gaps that only a specific 3rd party lens might fill. But most buyers less picky and they see the overlaps. They may want to buy a wide angle lens and be considering both primes and zooms in any of a range of wide focal lengths. For function-seeking buyers, the Pentax lineup is good and they are bound to find a lens. In that context, the 3rd party lens that fills a gap for the picky buyer dilutes sales among all the non-picky buyers who would never have insisted on the 3rd party lens but if it's available, it's now competing with Pentax.

Finally, all of this "missing lens" discussion ignores what a small percentage of buyers really care. Most camera buyers never by a second lens -- they get the kit lens and that's it. Probably less than half buy a second lens. Probably less than a quarter buy a third lens. Probably less than an eighth buy a fourth lens. Etc. (The actual body-to-lens sales figures suggest that my estimates are too optimistic.) Sure, we all know lots of photographers with LBA (mostly because we all find each other on PF) but in the wider world of the 10 million annual ILC buyers, they are rare beasts indeed. With Pentax, you can cover 15 to 450 in just four high-quality lenses. The percentage of photographers who really face a missing lens issue is much smaller than it appears (although they are vocal!)