Originally posted by Class A Two comments and then I can hopefully stay away from this discussion:
- One has to distinguish between the old Sigma which released pretty terrible lenses at very low prices and the new Sigma which is competing with OEMs and sometimes even surpasses them. There is no Sigma 100mm macro (perhaps you meant the 105mm) so I don't know what lens you are talking about. The fact that you had to repair one does not say a lot either. Lenses develop faults, it happens. Even FA Limiteds can fall apart in a user's hand due to inappropriate thread-locking of screws. It happened. More than once.
- Some corner cutting is normal. It is called engineering. The problem starts when people jump at a manufacturer with preconceived ideas and unproven hypotheses. All my Sigma lenses have been exemplary in their reliability and performance. The SDM (Sudden Death Motor) issue, on the other hand, is a Pentax phenomenon, not a Sigma phenomenon.
I'm not ruling out the possibility that Sigma settled for "good enough" with the implementation of the firmware for the 70-200, having had no reason to believe that it would become a camera freezer one day in the future. The fact that Sigma could have done more pre-emptively or may have even dropped the ball to some extent does not prove that Sigma is a shoddy company or that any buyer choosing third-party equipment ought to expect this kind of stuff to happen.
None of us know whether the change in behaviour of the K-1 compared to previous Pentax DSLR with respect to the Sigma 70-200/2.8 was really warranted due to the need to support new functionality. I don't think we have heard of respective improvements to the AF system and many people frequently overstate the role of a lens in AF or even freezing a camera. The lens does not contain any "AF algorithms", nor does it assume any kind of control. I'm not saying Pentax gratuitously changed the protocol a bit to try and break some third-party lenses and I'm not saying Sigma did everything they could have done to avoid the problem at hand. None of us should be jumping to conclusions.
What everyone should be agreeing on is that the camera should not freeze, no matter what (excluding entirely unreasonable power drains, which we can probably exclude in this case). Perhaps someday a genuine Pentax lens develops an intermittent contact problem, leading to a similar communication problem. That should not freeze the camera either.
You're making a mountain out of a molehill by reading into things that are not there and then responding in book form supporting your claims.
Who said Sigma was a shoddy company? dc said they cut corners.. I'm pretty sure they do. That doesn't mean the company is shoddy nor do I discern he is saying that from his statements. He seems to make effort to avoid the response you provided.
We are all agreeing the camera should not freeze. However, with a third party lens, the ball is in the third party's court to make it work since they reverse engineer them to function with Pentax (and every other brand). Pentax has no obligation to make it work.
Lens purchases are the big item for DSLR manufacturers.. the body is the loss leader to get you in the system to buy the pricey lenses. Do you really think they are going to work hard to cut their noses off by spending resources to get 3rd party lenses to function better? No no.. this is a Sigma issue and Sigma needs to address it.
In short, When you buy any third party item, there is NO guarantee of support from the 1st party with the use of the 3rd party item in conjunction with 1st party items. IF they are gracious enough to look at 3rd party functionality, then GREAT. But there is no requirement for them to do so.
If you want that level of support, buy 1st party lenses for the 1st party body. (That is, buy Pentax branded lenses)