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Sigma bails on Olympus 4/3rds
On Sun, 4 Mar 2012 08:23:46 -0800 (PST), RichA
wrote: Not a surprise I guess, given they only have one camera and it will likely be cancelled soon anyway. http://four-thirds.org/en/fourthirds/lens_chart.html No surprise here. But Sigma has not bailed on micro 4/3, which is where all the 4/3 action is now anyway. "old" 4/3 is dead. |
#2
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Sigma bails on Olympus 4/3rds
Bowser wrote in
news On Sun, 4 Mar 2012 08:23:46 -0800 (PST), RichA wrote: Not a surprise I guess, given they only have one camera and it will likely be cancelled soon anyway. http://four-thirds.org/en/fourthirds/lens_chart.html No surprise here. But Sigma has not bailed on micro 4/3, which is where all the 4/3 action is now anyway. "old" 4/3 is dead. Jury is still out on 4/3, but there is no reason not to kill it. |
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Sigma bails on Olympus 4/3rds
On Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:51:07 +0000, Bruce
wrote: Rich wrote: Bowser wrote in news On Sun, 4 Mar 2012 08:23:46 -0800 (PST), RichA wrote: Not a surprise I guess, given they only have one camera and it will likely be cancelled soon anyway. http://four-thirds.org/en/fourthirds/lens_chart.html No surprise here. But Sigma has not bailed on micro 4/3, which is where all the 4/3 action is now anyway. "old" 4/3 is dead. Jury is still out on 4/3, but there is no reason not to kill it. There's a very good reason not to kill it: Olympus has tens of thousands (probably hundreds of thousands) of unsold 4/3 lenses that it needs to get rid of. That's why there will be another E-System DSLR. But Sigma's withdrawal from the market isn't a surprise. The Sigma 4/3 lenses were lenses designed for APS-C cameras, minimally altered by providing a 4/3 mount and interface. Sigma never took 4/3 at all seriously. That's OK. Most of us rarely take Sigma seriously. Except for the occasional good lens, most of their stuff is crap. |
#4
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Sigma bails on Olympus 4/3rds
"Bruce" wrote in message
... [] I would like to see Sigma take m4/3 seriously, but that would mean making lenses with focal lengths that were suited to the target market rather than just sticking an m4/3 mount on lenses for APS-C. ... although optically preferable to sticking an APS-C mount on a 4/3 or micro-4/3 lens! G David |
#5
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Sigma bails on Olympus 4/3rds
Bowser writes:
That's OK. Most of us rarely take Sigma seriously. Except for the occasional good lens, most of their stuff is crap. Sigma is one of the most aggressive lens companies lately, and has made some outstandingly good lenses. I've never had a bad lens from them. (Then again, I've chosen all my lenses, from them and others, after considerable research.) (Happy owner of Sigma 105/2.8 macro, 12-24/4.5 full-frame, 120-400/4.5-5.6). -- David Dyer-Bennet, ; http://dd-b.net/ Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/ Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/ Dragaera: http://dragaera.info |
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Sigma bails on Olympus 4/3rds
In article , David Dyer-Bennet
wrote: That's OK. Most of us rarely take Sigma seriously. Except for the occasional good lens, most of their stuff is crap. Sigma is one of the most aggressive lens companies lately, and has made some outstandingly good lenses. I've never had a bad lens from them. (Then again, I've chosen all my lenses, from them and others, after considerable research.) you must be incredibly lucky. most people need to go through 3 or 4 copies of a sigma lens to get one that actually works properly and is not decentered or has other problems. as for aggressive, i suppose you could call it aggressive when they stole nikon's stabilization patents to use it for their own lenses. unfortunately for sigma, they're being sued by nikon. they also stole canon's ef protocol for their own sigma mount lenses. nice honest folks. not. http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1306345284.html (Happy owner of Sigma 105/2.8 macro, 12-24/4.5 full-frame, 120-400/4.5-5.6). sigma macros are mostly ok, however, the 12-24 is not that great. the 120-400 is junk, as is its almost identical twin, the 150-500. lensrentals ceased carrying most sigma lenses because of constant problems. the 120-400 and the 150-500 had a nearly 50% failure rate, but at least you didn't get the 120-300 with its very impressive 90% failure rate. http://www.lensrentals.com/news/2008.09.20/lens-repair-data-10 |
#7
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Sigma bails on Olympus 4/3rds
Bruce writes:
David Dyer-Bennet wrote: Bowser writes: That's OK. Most of us rarely take Sigma seriously. Except for the occasional good lens, most of their stuff is crap. Sigma is one of the most aggressive lens companies lately, and has made some outstandingly good lenses. I've never had a bad lens from them. (Then again, I've chosen all my lenses, from them and others, after considerable research.) (Happy owner of Sigma 105/2.8 macro, 12-24/4.5 full-frame, 120-400/4.5-5.6). The first two are excellent lenses. I have never used the 120-400mm so cannot comment. It's pretty good. Not as good as the Nikon 200-400/4, but I got it for 1/5 the price, that Nikon wasn't on the list. I haven't owned both, but many reviews say it's better than the Nikon 80-400. I have a friend with that one, but we haven't done a side-by-side test. But all Sigma lenses, no matter how good they are optically, are afflicted by poor build quality. The use of double sided adhesive tape to hold components in place is unforgivable. The frequent lack of proper collimation means that even very good lens designs and well made lens elements fail to realise the potential of the designs, except of course in the case of magazine review samples which are always supremely well built. Yes, build quality is one of the things that the way photo products are "tested" gets us no information at all about. The lensrentals.com report on their attempt to rent out high-bucks Sigma lenses is rather depressing, due to a very high level of issues such as you describe. The 105mm macro and 12-24mm DG lenses appear well designed and reasonably well made, at least outwardly. I will take your word for it that the 120-400mm is too. It is just a pity that those standards do not extend to the whole Sigma range. I got stuck losing both my short and my long lenses when I found myself unexpectedlly going to full-frame after a couple of DX DSLRs (the D700 was more aggressively priced than I had anticipated any time soon, and had more of the D3 goodness than I had anticipated). Had to do something fairly drastic, and hadn't budgeted for it. Hence the 12-24 and the 120-400; the 105 macro I got for film back around 1999. -- David Dyer-Bennet, ; http://dd-b.net/ Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/ Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/ Dragaera: http://dragaera.info |
#8
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Sigma bails on Olympus 4/3rds
nospam writes:
In article , David Dyer-Bennet wrote: That's OK. Most of us rarely take Sigma seriously. Except for the occasional good lens, most of their stuff is crap. Sigma is one of the most aggressive lens companies lately, and has made some outstandingly good lenses. I've never had a bad lens from them. (Then again, I've chosen all my lenses, from them and others, after considerable research.) you must be incredibly lucky. most people need to go through 3 or 4 copies of a sigma lens to get one that actually works properly and is not decentered or has other problems. I've never heard anybody claim it's *that* bad, and none of the other Sigma owners I know have had bad problems. as for aggressive, i suppose you could call it aggressive when they stole nikon's stabilization patents to use it for their own lenses. unfortunately for sigma, they're being sued by nikon. they also stole canon's ef protocol for their own sigma mount lenses. nice honest folks. not. http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1306345284.html I'm really against the ability to patent lens mount interfaces anyway. (Happy owner of Sigma 105/2.8 macro, 12-24/4.5 full-frame, 120-400/4.5-5.6). sigma macros are mostly ok, however, the 12-24 is not that great. the 120-400 is junk, as is its almost identical twin, the 150-500. The 120-400 routinely gets better marks than the Nikon 80-400, which was the other primary candidate. And was several hundred dollars cheaper. It's not of course as good as the Nikon 200-400, say -- but my budget doesn't go anywhere near that neighborhood. My main lenses are the Nikon 24-70/2.8 and the Nikon 70-200/2.8 (VRI, though), but when I went back to full-frame somewhat unexpectedly I lost both my long end (70-200 no longer had 300mm FOV) and my short end (the Tokina 12-24 was DX), and I desperately needed to do something. lensrentals ceased carrying most sigma lenses because of constant problems. the 120-400 and the 150-500 had a nearly 50% failure rate, but at least you didn't get the 120-300 with its very impressive 90% failure rate. http://www.lensrentals.com/news/2008.09.20/lens-repair-data-10 Yep, I just mentioned that (without the link, thanks for being more specific) in another message. I'm not working them professionally. In the past I've had excellent results with Soligor, Vivitar, Tamron, and Tokina lenses. -- David Dyer-Bennet, ; http://dd-b.net/ Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/ Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/ Dragaera: http://dragaera.info |
#9
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Sigma bails on Olympus 4/3rds
In article , David Dyer-Bennet
wrote: That's OK. Most of us rarely take Sigma seriously. Except for the occasional good lens, most of their stuff is crap. Sigma is one of the most aggressive lens companies lately, and has made some outstandingly good lenses. I've never had a bad lens from them. (Then again, I've chosen all my lenses, from them and others, after considerable research.) you must be incredibly lucky. most people need to go through 3 or 4 copies of a sigma lens to get one that actually works properly and is not decentered or has other problems. I've never heard anybody claim it's *that* bad, and none of the other Sigma owners I know have had bad problems. they're either very lucky or blind to the defects. as for aggressive, i suppose you could call it aggressive when they stole nikon's stabilization patents to use it for their own lenses. unfortunately for sigma, they're being sued by nikon. they also stole canon's ef protocol for their own sigma mount lenses. nice honest folks. not. http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1306345284.html I'm really against the ability to patent lens mount interfaces anyway. the lens mount patents have long expired. sigma mount lenses are nothing more than sigma's canon mount lenses with a slightly modified pentax mount plate. a lot of sigma camera owners modify canon lenses or the camera itself so they're not stuck with only sigma lenses. on the other hand, infringing nikon's stabilization patents is a whole 'nuther ball game. minolta did something similar by infringing autofocus patents and paid a hefty sum. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/08/bu...t-must-pay-hon eywell.html?pagewanted=all (Happy owner of Sigma 105/2.8 macro, 12-24/4.5 full-frame, 120-400/4.5-5.6). sigma macros are mostly ok, however, the 12-24 is not that great. the 120-400 is junk, as is its almost identical twin, the 150-500. The 120-400 routinely gets better marks than the Nikon 80-400, which was the other primary candidate. And was several hundred dollars cheaper. It's not of course as good as the Nikon 200-400, say -- but my budget doesn't go anywhere near that neighborhood. the nikon 80-400 is old and not particularly good. it's *long* overdue for replacement. the nikon 70-300 vr is as good or better in the common ranges and it's autofocus is much faster too. the downside is it only goes to 300 but that's not a big deal since the 80-400 was soft by 400. the nikon 200-400, on the other hand, is in a class to itself. it's an outstanding lens, and expensive too. fi you can get a working sigma 120-400 then it might suffice but the chances are very high it will fail. My main lenses are the Nikon 24-70/2.8 and the Nikon 70-200/2.8 (VRI, though), but when I went back to full-frame somewhat unexpectedly I lost both my long end (70-200 no longer had 300mm FOV) and my short end (the Tokina 12-24 was DX), and I desperately needed to do something. those are all very good lenses, including the tokina. have you considered the nikon 14-24? that is also an outstanding lens. lensrentals ceased carrying most sigma lenses because of constant problems. the 120-400 and the 150-500 had a nearly 50% failure rate, but at least you didn't get the 120-300 with its very impressive 90% failure rate. http://www.lensrentals.com/news/2008.09.20/lens-repair-data-10 Yep, I just mentioned that (without the link, thanks for being more specific) in another message. I'm not working them professionally. In the past I've had excellent results with Soligor, Vivitar, Tamron, and Tokina lenses. except that lensrentals had failures out of the box. worse, sigma refused to repair them, citing 'user damage.' rather amusing for a lens that never saw any users. |
#10
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Sigma bails on Olympus 4/3rds
nospam writes:
In article , David Dyer-Bennet wrote: That's OK. Most of us rarely take Sigma seriously. Except for the occasional good lens, most of their stuff is crap. Sigma is one of the most aggressive lens companies lately, and has made some outstandingly good lenses. I've never had a bad lens from them. (Then again, I've chosen all my lenses, from them and others, after considerable research.) you must be incredibly lucky. most people need to go through 3 or 4 copies of a sigma lens to get one that actually works properly and is not decentered or has other problems. I've never heard anybody claim it's *that* bad, and none of the other Sigma owners I know have had bad problems. they're either very lucky or blind to the defects. Always possible, of course. I alternate between thinking that might include me, and thinking that many of the people who rhapsodize about how exotic lenses render images are smoking something. as for aggressive, i suppose you could call it aggressive when they stole nikon's stabilization patents to use it for their own lenses. unfortunately for sigma, they're being sued by nikon. they also stole canon's ef protocol for their own sigma mount lenses. nice honest folks. not. http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1306345284.html I'm really against the ability to patent lens mount interfaces anyway. the lens mount patents have long expired. sigma mount lenses are nothing more than sigma's canon mount lenses with a slightly modified pentax mount plate. a lot of sigma camera owners modify canon lenses or the camera itself so they're not stuck with only sigma lenses. on the other hand, infringing nikon's stabilization patents is a whole 'nuther ball game. minolta did something similar by infringing autofocus patents and paid a hefty sum. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/08/bu...t-must-pay-hon eywell.html?pagewanted=all Yeah, that represents more of a real invention (and more recently). If they've infringed, well, the courts will sort it out. (Happy owner of Sigma 105/2.8 macro, 12-24/4.5 full-frame, 120-400/4.5-5.6). sigma macros are mostly ok, however, the 12-24 is not that great. the 120-400 is junk, as is its almost identical twin, the 150-500. The 120-400 routinely gets better marks than the Nikon 80-400, which was the other primary candidate. And was several hundred dollars cheaper. It's not of course as good as the Nikon 200-400, say -- but my budget doesn't go anywhere near that neighborhood. the nikon 80-400 is old and not particularly good. it's *long* overdue for replacement. the nikon 70-300 vr is as good or better in the common ranges and it's autofocus is much faster too. the downside is it only goes to 300 but that's not a big deal since the 80-400 was soft by 400. Well, getting the 1.4x converter gives me nearly 300mm, at a full f/4, and pretty good images. My real stupidity, probably, was not just getting the 2x converter as well. That's considerably cheaper than the Sigma, also lighter to carry around, and leaves me exactly the same 400mm f/5.6 max end result, and probably (I tested the 1.7x but not the 2x) equal optics. the nikon 200-400, on the other hand, is in a class to itself. it's an outstanding lens, and expensive too. Heavy, as well. If I won the lottery, either it or the 400/2.8 would be on the same B&H order as the D4 and the D800, but short of that, I think I'll keep shooting my D700 and Sigma 120-400 for a while yet. fi you can get a working sigma 120-400 then it might suffice but the chances are very high it will fail. I've had it something like 3 years now, shot quite a lot with it, often past 300mm (I've got the TC14E when I don't need past 280mm). My main lenses are the Nikon 24-70/2.8 and the Nikon 70-200/2.8 (VRI, though), but when I went back to full-frame somewhat unexpectedly I lost both my long end (70-200 no longer had 300mm FOV) and my short end (the Tokina 12-24 was DX), and I desperately needed to do something. those are all very good lenses, including the tokina. have you considered the nikon 14-24? that is also an outstanding lens. Yes, somewhat longingly. It's also rather more expensive. (I'd played with a friend's Sigma 12-24 full-frame a few years previously, so I had some first-hand experience when I bought mine.) lensrentals ceased carrying most sigma lenses because of constant problems. the 120-400 and the 150-500 had a nearly 50% failure rate, but at least you didn't get the 120-300 with its very impressive 90% failure rate. http://www.lensrentals.com/news/2008.09.20/lens-repair-data-10 Yep, I just mentioned that (without the link, thanks for being more specific) in another message. I'm not working them professionally. In the past I've had excellent results with Soligor, Vivitar, Tamron, and Tokina lenses. except that lensrentals had failures out of the box. worse, sigma refused to repair them, citing 'user damage.' rather amusing for a lens that never saw any users. Yes, and they're paying the price for that now as people read lensrentals.com's articles. -- David Dyer-Bennet, ; http://dd-b.net/ Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/ Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/ Dragaera: http://dragaera.info |
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