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Tokina and Tamron. Why no 4/3rds support?

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It's probably because the market for 4/3 lenses is too small. 4/3 probably has about 5% DSLR marketshare, if that. (For example, the latest DSLR sales from Japan show Olympus being below 5%: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1000&message=20333617 ). And of that 5% marketshare, how many are going to be buying third-party lenses? Less than 100% of 5%. So that means the third-party lens manufacturers are looking at only a fraction of 5% of the market buying third-party 4/3 lenses, which is a very small volume indeed.

The third-party lens manufacturers go where they think they can make money, and where the money is worth their time. If there were a big enough market for 4/3 lenses, they would offer 4/3 lenses. On Tamron's site, their recent Di ("Digital") lenses are offered only in Canon, Sony/Minolta, and Nikon mounts. One of there new lenses (the AF18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 XR Di II) is also offered in a Pentax/Samsung mount. Maybe that means they anticipate higher volumes of Pentax/Samsung sales. That probably means we'll see more Pentax/Samsung lenses being offered, especially in light of the new K10D. But it doesn't they like they feel the 4/3 market is worth pursuing. And as you can see from the Japan sales graph, Pentax's sales are doing much better than Oly's-- even before the introduction of the K10D.
rander3127 said:
--Sigma does, but not the other two.
-Rich
E-1, 14-45mm, 40-150mm, OM24mmf2.8, OM35mmf2.8, OM50mmf1.4, OM50mm
macro f3.5, OM135mmf2.8, OM100-200mmf5, OM300mmf4.5, SHLD-2, FL-20.



http://www.pbase.com/andersonrm/
Click to expand...
 
The fact is, it's pretty straightforward to adapt lenses to another mount, and the 4/3 mount is no exception.

It's all about market opportunity. There's room for 1, maybe 2 3rd party lens makers. Sigma took the leap first, and they have some unique lenses that can get reasonable share in the 4/3 market, such as their 50-500 and 30mm f1.4 lenses, as well as 100mm and 150mm macros, which don't have any direct competitors from Olympus.

At this point, if Tamron or Tokina were to enter, they need to ask themselves what they bring that's different not only from Olympus, but now also from Sigma.
 
rander3127 said:
--How about European and North American market shares?
Click to expand...
I don't think the 4/3 system is much more popular in Europe and North America than they are in Japan. If anything, the benefits of smaller size supposedly offered by 4/3 would be more popular to Japanese buyers than European and North America buyers who tend to be physically larger in stature and physique than their Japanese counterparts. Besides, I'm sure Tamron and Tokina have already done the market research, and right now they obviously don't feel the need or desire to produce any 4/3 lenses.

Let's say that 4/3 has 10% sales marketshare in North America or Europe. How much of that 10% of buyers is going to buy third-party lenses? 50% of 10%? That means 5% of the market. And how many of those buyers are going to be buying a Tamron 4/3 lens vs a Sigma 4/3 lens? Let's say half. 50% of 5% is only 2.5%. So basically, Tamron would be potentially going after 2.5% of the market, if that. In actuality, it might be even less than that, like 2% or 1% of the total market sales. 1% to 2% of total market sales just doesn't add up to much. As a result, they probably decided that it's just not worth their time right now.
 
So they are not going to make lenses for the 4/3rd system. If the sensor was bigger and had less noise and was popular that would be another matter, but it is not. The way things are going I think it will be a option that in a few years will die out. It may work out for P&S's down the line.

wll
 
wll said:
So they are not going to make lenses for the 4/3rd system. If the
sensor was bigger and had less noise and was popular that would be
another matter, but it is not. The way things are going I think it
will be a option that in a few years will die out. It may work out
for P&S's down the line.

wll
Click to expand...
The reason that 4/3 has lost market share is simply that Olympus hasn't brought out a compelling camera in over a year. And that's just a function of the delay in getting a good 10 MP or better sensor for 4/3. The E-330 and Panasonic L1 are the only 4/3 cameras that have come out in the past year, and they are both very over-priced gimmicks. In reality, E-500 is the last interesting and competitve 4/3 camera that came out. The 4/3 customer base is VERY interested in the e-400, as well as the successor to the e-1. If those cameras are successful, then 4/3 will surely be around for the forseeable future. 2 months ago, Pentax was in worse shape than Olympus, with much lower market share, but they came out with two very competitive cameras since then (K100D and K10D).

The fact is, if I had a dollar for every person who has predicted
 
All camera makers seem to settle on APS size, more or less. The 4/3 format is quite a bit smaller, enough so that focal lengths aren't really comparable anymore. So for instance, the Sigma 30/1.4 is a neat "normal" for all APS cameras, but is a bit too long for that use on an Olympus, which really would need a 22-25mm or thereabouts for the same use.

Olympus isn't the only maker left out either; Tokina for instance has stated explicitly that they won't be producing wide 35mm lenses anymore for the Canon mount; their 35mm cameras is too small a market to aim lens designs specifically for them.

So for third-party lens manufacturers, it makes sense to aim a the bulk of the market, and skip those that need too much special design considerations.

--
Japan: http://www.lucs.lu.se/people/jan.moren/log/current.html
Images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jannem/
 
and about 5% smaller in height than an APS sensor. And most of this additional 13% width is cropped out if one tries to crop to a 4/3 aspect ratio, which is common for computer monitor formats.

And in fact, this slightly smaller format results in telephoto lenses having LONGER effective reach when used on them.

So, compared to a "normal" lens, a 300mm lens will have a 6x magnification when used on 35mm film, a 9X magnification on a 1.5X crop camera, a 9.6X magnification on a 1.5 crop camera, and a 12X magnification on 4/3.

This issue actually works to the advantage of telephoto manufacturers wishing to support 4/3.

The only rational explanation relates to the market opportunity. Because the technical issues argue in favor of supporting 4/3 with all of their telephoto lenses.
 
My question is, who would recommend using lenses from those manufactures anyway? I know the price can be attractive, but my experience has taught me that the manufactures lenses are worth the price.

Something else that I have been thinking about is full-frame sensors are the future of digital photography. Cheap small lightweight glass is nice but full frame sensors can't be beat. The quality is (to me) more film like when you use a camera with a full frame sensor.
 
The obvious reason is because it is a new mount. Sigma usually leads the way among those three. Sigma is simply porting their lenses to 4/3rds, so I don't think the other two will have any technical issues doing the same.

However 4/3rds is also a unique opportunity: Unlike the other traditional mounts that have millions of lenses out there, 4/3rds only has the relatively new Digital Zuikos (and PanaLeicas), ported Sigmas and old OM-lenses with adapter and limitations. So if someone made good or unique or cheaper 4/3rds lenses they could sell more of them per one mythical DSLR compared to the traditional mounts.

I think the trigger point for Tamron/Tokina to make 4/3rds lenses is the size of the 4/3rds market. If/when it gets big enough to their satisfaction...

But let's not forget that compared to Sigma, they are much slower at producing a large variety of digital and digital-only lenses.
rander3127 said:
--Sigma does, but not the other two.
-Rich
E-1, 14-45mm, 40-150mm, OM24mmf2.8, OM35mmf2.8, OM50mmf1.4, OM50mm
macro f3.5, OM135mmf2.8, OM100-200mmf5, OM300mmf4.5, SHLD-2, FL-20.



http://www.pbase.com/andersonrm/
Click to expand...
--
Comprehensive Photokina 2006 speculation: http://photographyetc.livejournal.com
 
kvocal said:
My question is, who would recommend using lenses from those
manufactures anyway? I know the price can be attractive, but my
experience has taught me that the manufactures lenses are worth the
price.
Click to expand...
In some cases, the 3rd Party lenses are better, or often, they are unique and there is nothing available from the Manufacturer.

Some examples: Sigma's 30mm f1.4 lens is the faster and better than most OEM's lenses in the APS frame size, and FAR less costly than the OEM's FF lenses. Most 3rd Party companies make superb quality macro lenses in the 90mm to 180mm focal length range. I'd stake the quality of the Tamron 90mm Macro against any camera maker's macro. And the Sigma 300-800mm lens is simply unique, and is used by many professionals.
kvocal said:
Something else that I have been thinking about is full-frame
sensors are the future of digital photography. Cheap small
lightweight glass is nice but full frame sensors can't be beat.
The quality is (to me) more film like when you use a camera with a
full frame sensor.
Click to expand...
Why stop at 35mm FF. Those sensors most assuredly can be beaten by an even larger sensor. The exact same arguments apply. There are always tradeoffs between size of the recording medium, and the practicality and cost of supporting the larger sizes.

It's only a small percentage of people to whom it's worth several thousand dollars to get a full frame sensor and the larger image circles of the lenses that support them. And many of those might find medium format to be worth even more investment for even more quality.
 
--

The greatest of mankind's criminals are those who delude themselves into thinking they have done 'the right thing.'
  • Rayna Butler
 
wll said:
So they are not going to make lenses for the 4/3rd system. If the
sensor was bigger and had less noise and was popular that would be
another matter, but it is not. The way things are going I think it
will be a option that in a few years will die out. It may work out
for P&S's down the line.

wll
Click to expand...
--That is a possibility, but in reality, the 2/3rds sensor was more than good enough for P&S and allowed them to keep the cameras somewhat smaller. The move back to 1/1.8 was a huge mistake, IMO.
-Rich

E-1, 14-45mm, 40-150mm, OM24mmf2.8, OM35mmf2.8, OM50mmf1.4, OM50mm macro f3.5, OM135mmf2.8, OM100-200mmf5, OM300mmf4.5, SHLD-2, FL-20.



http://www.pbase.com/andersonrm/
 
rander3127 said:
--That is a possibility, but in reality, the 2/3rds sensor was more
Click to expand...
Hi Rich.

You keep posting after the double dash "--" that separates your post from your signature. The dpReview search engine doesn't check anything below the double dash...

--
Normally, a signature this small can't open its own jumpgate.

Ciao! Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
this whole "crop factor gives extra magnification" is as phony as "digital zoom"

Why not crop out all but the 4 center pixels?? A 1500x zoom??
 
8 Megapixels are inside the crop factor. So the information of 8 megapixels remains, after the crop. An 8 Megapixel 4/3 sensor results in LONGER reach with telephoto than an 8 megapixel APS sensor, so long as the lens can resolve the pixels.

And good prime lenses certainly CAN. So the added reach from the greater crop factor is in fact real.
 
That said, it still is a CROP factor, not a magnification factor. Fitting a 50mm lens to a camera with a sensor 1/2 the intended size (lets say 8MP 4/3rds) of 35mm film doesn't magnify anything or yield the same picture as a 100mm lens on a film camera (check the DOF.) It only produces an 8MP picture identical to a film 50mm shot with a huge area removed all around the sides. Make that sensor film-size (by scaling up size and MP accordingly) and the image doesn't shrink, you just see a larger area.

At best, 4/3 (and APS) cameras are like permanent 2x and 1.5-6 "digital zoom" factors.

Yes, I own a DSLR, but I don't kid myself abound its characteristics.
 
digital_ray_of_light said:
However 4/3rds is also a unique opportunity: Unlike the other
traditional mounts that have millions of lenses out there, 4/3rds
only has the relatively new Digital Zuikos (and PanaLeicas), ported
Sigmas and old OM-lenses with adapter and limitations. So if
someone made good or unique or cheaper 4/3rds lenses they could
sell more of them per one mythical DSLR compared to the traditional
mounts.
Click to expand...
But that's no different from other lens mounts. If the third-party manufacturers make good or unique or cheaper Canon EF lenses, Nikon F lenses, etc., then people will buy them. And there are a LOT more people using those lens mounts than there are for the 4/3 mount. So in the end, it's not a "unique opportunity" that is unique to the 4/3 mount, and you're dealing with a much smaller user pool. Making a "good or unique or cheaper" lens for any of the more popular mounts means they the third-party lens manufacturers stand to get a much higher return on their investment than making a "good or unique or cheapr" 4/3 lens. It would only truly be a "unique opportunity" if there were only one third-party lens manufacturer in the fray, and the 4/3 system suddenly exploded in popularity. But if the 4/3 system exploded in popularity, then other third-party manufacturers would jump in, and the "unique opportunity" would no longer be unique anymore.
digital_ray_of_light said:
I think the trigger point for Tamron/Tokina to make 4/3rds lenses
is the size of the 4/3rds market. If/when it gets big enough to
their satisfaction...
Click to expand...
Yes, I think that's the driving reason for Tamron/Tokina not currently offering 4/3 lenses. The market is just too small. And splitting an already small market amongst Oly, Leica, Sigma, Tamron and Tokina 4/3 lenses would mean even less to go around.
 
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