[mtgmansf]

A complete lack of 3rd party support for K-mount is in no way a good thing for Pentax, but we have to live with it.

My experience with Sigma lenses has been excellent. The 35 mm f/1.4 Art is a very fine lens. My son owned a 50-500 K-mount Bigma before switching to Nikon, and it too was very good. I also have their P-TTL ring flash; no complaints. I for one am very sorry to see them go.

There is still Laowa and Irix in K mount. Macro and Ultra-wides.

[monochrome]

The decision was made long ago, they simply didn't confirm earlier to avoid obliterate sales from inventory. Same as what Ricoh does with Pentax right now (no new product, but still selling Pentax products).

Has Pentax shuttered the Cebu and Vietnam plants or are they still actually manufacturing cameras and lenses to sell?

Ouch!

[monochrome]

I share your position and don't feel it is that unusual. Despite having no firm data to base it on, my general observation has been that buyers of K-mount cameras tend to flesh out their kit at time of purchase or within a year or so afterward. The prominent exception are those that make a hobby of sampling vintage offerings for less-used focal lengths or simply in the interest in variety of rendering. I dabble in that space and am sort of embarrassed to admit that I have three 1:1 macro lenses as well as bellows and extension tubes, two 70-210mm 1980s-vintage zooms, two fisheyes, and a whole flock of legacy 28mm and 50mm primes. I could well have purchased new a Sigma 70-200/2.8, Sigma 70/2.8 Macro, and a Sigma 15/2.8 Fisheye with a Sigma 35/1.4 | A on the side just for kicks and giggles, but that would have been silly given the money involved.

I might also add that similar reasoning resulted in my last new Pentax lens purchase being the DA 50/1.8 that came bundled with my K-3.

I guess that makes me part of the problem.


Steve

Don’t worry. I offset you.

[Rondec]

I haven't purchased a new Pentax lens for quite awhile. The reason is mainly that they haven't released new (better) full frame lenses for the focal lengths that I would like. Those would specifically be primes in the 85mm, 20mm range, along with a variable aperture 70-300 zoom.

So, I continue to shoot FA limiteds, and DFA zooms and am pretty happy. Certainly I wasn't ever dissatisfied enough to want to sell them and purchase a Sigma. I would say one other thing, which is that Pentax actually prices their lenses pretty aggressively. Their DFA *50 is currently priced at 996 on B and H, while the Sigma 50mm f1.4 Art is priced at 949. The FA 77 is 700 dollars, while the Sigma 85mm art is 1200. Sigma's 24-70 f2.8 Art is 1080, while the Pentax DFA 24-70 f2.8 is 1146. Sigma is no longer the brand of "cheap" lenses, just "slightly cheaper" lenses with good optical bench results.

Pentaxians often would rather pay a little bit more and get a Pentax brand lens then buy a Sigma, even if the Sigma is the same with regard to sharpness. Obviously choice is good, however what we can say with certainty is that not enough Pentaxians made a choice for Sigma in order for them continue to making K mount lenses.

[kevinWE]

For me this is the case, I never bought a single Sigma lens, for me the quality of Sigma lenses was worse than Tamron, imagine the worse quality of third party glass, knowing that third party glass makers already compromise the materials their use to offer lenses cheaper than OEM lenses.

Read more at: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/16-pentax-news-rumors/392405-finally-con...#ixzz5zDGTkmMx





For me, this is not the case. I own two recent product Sigma lenses and quality, initial and otherwise, has not been an issue on either. As for third-party cutting corners on glass to cut prices, that may well be, except that recent product Sigma are not particularly cheap and several offerings never have been.


Steve

I would like to see the data gathered to prove this statement. Do third-party companies cut corners to keep prices down, or are the companies structured in such a way were they only focus on the process of lenses and it save them money? I'm not sure cutting corners is the case, I think the business model has more to do with it but if you have the data please post a link, I would like to read that information.

[bladerunner6]

Has Pentax shuttered the Cebu and Vietnam plants or are they still actually manufacturing cameras and lenses to sell?

Where do you think those fish eye lens are coming from or where the 85mm will come from.

And don’t forget about the special edition KP.

[beholder3]

Sigma is no longer the brand of "cheap" lenses, just "slightly cheaper" lenses with good optical bench results.

Sigma product quality is today still as crappy as it always was, the Art lenses are no different to the cheapo lenses from 10 years ago. Actual product quality is something different from spec sheets and manufacturer selected copy tests.

If you look at lens rentals copy variation charts you see it as well. Sigma is an expensive lottery even if you for some reason like their glass.

[reh321]

I would like to see the data gathered to prove this statement. Do third-party companies cut corners to keep prices down, or are the companies structured in such a way were they only focus on the process of lenses and it save them money? I'm not sure cutting corners is the case, I think the business model has more to do with it but if you have the data please post a link, I would like to read that information.

Sigma doesn’t have to cut corners. I have a Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 for my KP; I also have an EF-mount Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 dating back to when I was a Canon user. As nearly as I can tell, the front ends of the two lenses are the same - only the mount differs. If Sigma is able to batch-produce just the optical parts - same for all mounts, and then “batch” advertising and distribution - they may be able to save enough money that they can sell for less without resorting to cheap manufacturing methods.

[ChristianRock]

Sigma product quality is today still as crappy as it always was, the Art lenses are no different to the cheapo lenses from 10 years ago. Actual product quality is something different from spec sheets and manufacturer selected copy tests.

If you look at lens rentals copy variation charts you see it as well. Sigma is an expensive lottery even if you for some reason like their glass.

Do you own any of these lenses? I'm happy with my Sigma 30 1.4 Art in terms of optics and I seem to read about plenty of people here happy with them, particularly the 35 1.4 Art and the 17-70 C. A lot of fans of the 17-50 2.8 in here as well.

I think it's a loss but if I didn't have my 30 1.4 Art I'd be using my DA 35 2.4 more and be more than happy. Though it's nice to have f1.4 to play with, which is the reason why I bought it and the reason I use a lens that feels 10x heavier than my Plastic Fantastic...

K-1 owners have the HD FA 35mm f2 and the DFA*50 1.4 as alternatives to the Sigma 35 1.4 and 50 1.4 Art lenses.

[normhead]

Sigma doesn’t have to cut corners. I have a Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 for my KP; I also have an EF-mount Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 dating back to when I was a Canon user. As nearly as I can tell, the front ends of the two lenses are the same - only the mount differs. If Sigma is able to batch-produce just the optical parts - same for all mounts, and then “batch” advertising and distribution - they may be able to save enough money that they can sell for less without resorting to cheap manufacturing methods.

Or, that may be a complete myth. Lets not get carried away in what might be. Around my house Sigma has a 50% failure rate. If I include the cost of those lenses my Sigma lenses are by far my most expensive, despite not being WR, so having much less technical value. As far as I can tell, the failure of my Sigma 70-300 has been repeated by other forum users lenses many times over.

10 years on, our Pentax and Tamron lenses have fared better.

I bought four Sigma lenses, two are still functional. Of 13 Pentax lenses, all are still functional and my FA 35-80 and FAJ 18-35 are older than the aforementioned Sigma lenses and feel flimsy. I bought 3 Tamron lenses, all are still functional, and one is exceptional. Maybe your sample size is just too small.

I'm not sure what anyone can say that can change those kinds of basic observations of facts.

As noted above, I still like my Sigma 8-16 and 70 macro, they are excellent lenses, but Sigma as a company, based on my purchase of 20 lenses, is a crap shoot compared to Tamron and Pentax.

Buying any lens is a gamble based on sample variation etc. but if I were advising newbies, I'd definitely point out that in my experience Sigma's are more of a gamble. You may get a great lens for a good price, but some luck will be involved. Do you feel lucky?

Based on my experience, I'd say Sigma dumping Pentax is a good thing. If they'd done it sooner, I'd have two more operational lenses. The Tamron rebadged DA 18-270 may have been more expensive than the Sigma 18-250, but I'd still have a functional lens. And at this point, with the Sigma failing after 3 years, it would have been cheaper per year of use, despite the higher original cost.

The best thing I can say about Sigma is the failure of my 70-300 led to the purchase of my 55-300 PLM, a much superior lens. If the Sigma was better quality I don't know that that ever would have happened.

[UlrichSchiegg]

Usually, it costs almost the same to have designers design a new camera model or do nothing in the office. [...] Not releasing a new camera model every 18 months means there is no camera design team assigned to a camera project. You could send the staff to do other works inside the group and have them come back to design a new camera model two year later, but usually they lost some skills for cameras or aren't up to date with camera tech anymore, or aren't interested to come back to the camera division after two years of absence. The only plausible reason why we haven't seen a new DSLR recently is that Ricoh dissolved some of the teams working on Pentax product lines (645z,K1,KP), and assigned the GRIII team to design a new Pentax DSLR, which means no new DSLR model before mid 2020, assuming GRIII designers are skilled to design high performance DSLR which I doubt because a D500 like camera has design challenges completely different from a GRIII compact camera, hence there could be further delay added to the average camera design cycle time.

The R&D resource cost contribution to the release of a new product is usually the smallest part in the cost structure of a new product.

I assume you have never worked in an R&D environment, have you?

[luftfluss]

Since 50% of my Sigma product has failed this is hardly disappointing news to me. Their QC made me decide to not buy Sigma again long before Sigma made their announcement. I suspect my decision and the same decision made by others influenced this announcement. It's kind of like the old "You're fired." "No I quit" thing.

My own experience is the opposite of yours. I've had a much higher rate of failure from Pentax gear than Sigma (or Tamron). IME Pentax QC on lenses has been dreadful.

I persist, though, because I know a good copy of a Pentax lens delivers the results I prefer.

[Chris Mak]

SIGMA announces the FF Classic Prime Line of CINE lenses | Canon Rumors

[normhead]

How many failures are we taking about? Maybe you can break that down for me?

---------- Post added 09-11-19 at 10:43 AM ----------

SIGMA announces the FF Classic Prime Line of CINE lenses | Canon Rumors

In Pentax land, already gone.

[DeadJohn]

My experience with Sigma (sample size 1, the 50-500 OS HSM) service was so good that I wanted to buy more of their lenses but they had already discontinued or never made the models I wanted. The 50-500 lens is well made but it was in the service department where Sigma truly shined.


My 50-500 was offered a minor tweak when the K-1 came out. They issued an announcement that the K-1 body could be scratched by the lens and were replacing mounts for free. Sigma immediately answered emails and phone calls. They arranged for me to stop by their service center when I was in the area, and they completed the work in 30 minutes while I waited. Yes, they made an error in the original mount, but the way they handled it was in my opinion flawless. It's the best customer service experience I have ever had.