Originally posted by Parallax Pentax should design their camera around their competitors' lenses?
I wouldn't name Sigma a competitor. Sigma fills some niches Pentax leaves unfilled or takes long in filling.
And the availability of a huge range of lenses is something camera buyers look out for, not brand awareness.
If we focus on one kind of "standard" zoom lens, the fast 70-200, then Pentax didn't offer anything in the last decade.
The 80-200/2.8 "power zoom" was discontinued in 2004, and the next lens in that range just came out this year.
So users
had to use 3rd-party lenses, and when you compare Tamron's offering, that still uses the outdated screwdrive AF (slow&noisy), the now infamous Sigma 70-200/2.8 II HSM was the
logical choice.
The same applies for users of ultra-wideangle lenses. On APS-C, the shortest lens offered by Pentax is the 12-24; Sigma offers a 8-16. That's a vast difference. On full-frame, the shortest rectilinear lens offered by Pentax is the rebranded Tamron 15-30, whilst Sigma used to offer a 12-24. Again, a big difference, if not as huge as between the two APS-C lenses.
Yes, Pentax doesn't exist in a vacuum or in an ivory tower; they should be aware that there are
real reasons for their customers to use 3rd-party lenses. Hence a simplistic "it's 3rd-party, we don't care" stance isn't the way to go, that would be blind and dumb arrogance.
And we've seen that Pentax, being not the largest and fastest shark in the pond, takes some time and energy to come up with new lenses. Most of these are not Pentax designs, but OEM products by other lensmakers, Tamron and apparently Tokina. So Pentax (and us Pentax users) would profit from a cooperation with Sigma. Sigma on their side would also profit from that, using licensed specifications instead of having to reengineer everything.
Regarding Tamron: As a licensed OEM lens manufacturer, they should be abled to offer more of their lens portfolio for Pentax users. Of course, direct competitors of lenses that are sold rebranded as Pentax lenses won't do, but Tamron has lots of lenses that are neither OEM'd by Pentax nor competitors to anything else Pentax has to offer - see for instance the 150-600/5-6.3.
And we Pentax users would have the chance of using longer lenses without selling our cars - the 560/5.6 may be a lens of outstanding quality, but it's plainly much to expensive, so the aforementioned Tamron lens clearly fishes in another pond. And just think about Nikon's 200-500/5.6, which costs about two thirds of what Pentax wants for the 70-200/2.8.
Well, let's hope that the K-1 blew enough fresh wind in the camera market so that we users could get more lenses and Pentax more market share.