On Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:17:03 -0400, nospam wrote:
: In article , Robert Coe
: wrote:
:
: : : : Doesn't say much about problems with QC. You two 'lucked out'
: : : : and got a good copy. Noone says Sigma cannot build good lenses
: : : : --- only that they don't do that consistently enough for comfort.
: : :
: : : How many Sigma lenses have you ever owned, Wolfgang? How good
: : : were they?
: : :
: : : I shall refer you to lensrentals.com, who have owned *many* dozen.
: : :
: : : Another 1 or 3 or 10 lenses from me doesn't make a difference
: : : to statistics. Just as one lottery winner doesn't mean every
: : : ticket wins the main price.
: :
: : In other words, none. I thought as much.
: :
: : Since I suppose you'll ask, or assume, my wife and I own four of them. Are
: : they the best lenses we own? No. But all have been a very good value for
: : the money.
: :
: : four lenses is nothing.
:
: No, zero (the number of Sigma lenses Wolfgang has owned) is nothing.
:
: that's an assumption on your part since he gave no number on how many
: he's owned. it could be zero or it could be many. not that it matters.
:
: how many he or anyone else personally owns is not significant. you've
: owned four, but four lenses out of the millions that sigma makes, is
: *nothing*. it's meaningless.
:
: lensrentals has purchased *thousands* of sigma lenses, as well as
: thousands of lenses from other companies, including nikon, canon,
: tokina, tamron and others. they are in the *best* position to comment
: on sigma's quality (or lack thereof).
:
: other lens rental companies could comment as well, as could repair
: shops on which lenses frequently come in for repair.
:
: it's well known that sigma lenses have a huge quality control problem.
: some even say the name sigma stands for significant malfunction. there
: are countless threads on dpreview where people have had to go through
: several copies to get one that works. many people will not consider
: sigma because they've been burned before, often more than just once.
:
: : lensrentals has *hundreds* of sigma lenses. dozens *each* of nearly
: : every model sigma lens made.
: :
: : well they used to, until they found out that sigma lenses had horrific
: : failure rates, as high as 90% (really). many of them failed out of the
: : box, before they were even rented to anyone. worse, sigma gave the a
: : runaround to get them fixed, blaming lensrentals for breaking them.
: : there was a lengthy blog on their website about it.
:
: I've read it. I have no way of knowing how accurate it is. (And I haven't read
: Sigma's rebuttal, if any.)
:
: sigma's rebuttal was to force lensrentals to pull their sigma saga
: page, where they described the runaround that sigma gave them about
: repairing lenses that were doa. sigma blamed lensrentals for damage,
: which is absolute nonsense since the lenses were *new*, dead out of the
: box, never rented to anyone. sigma didn't want the truth to be known so
: forced the issue.
:
: All I can say is that our experience, gained over
: several years, doesn't support Lensrentals' conclusions.
:
: you are either extremely lucky or aren't fussy. buy a lottery ticket.
:
: : now they only carry sigma lenses if there's no alternative from another
: : manufacturer.
:
: So what's been your first-hand experience with Sigma lenses, "Nospam"?
:
: once again, personal experience for me or anyone else makes no
: difference in the grand scheme of things. sigma makes millions of
: lenses. buying a couple of lenses is *not* significant. it means
: nothing.
:
: what *is* significant are things such as lensrental's repair rates.
: also, sigma reusing lens id chips, which means that if you put a
: particular lens on your camera, the *wrong* lens id is written to the
: exif. or that nikon sued sigma for stealing nikon's intellectual
: property on image stabilization. they totally ripped off canon for
: their own sigma mount lenses. and if that's not enough, sigma used to
: make lenses that were held together with cellophane tape, which not
: surprisingly, failed and lens elements fell out.

Translation of the above: "Nospam", like Wolfgang, has never owned any Sigma
lenses.

Bob