next SD9...

Rick,

There I think you are correct. It is a mixed message that leads to confusion. It only seems to work in F1, where they are marginal anyway (this coming from a lover of motorsports).

L

rick decker said:

Thaks for pointing that out. If I did notice it, I forgot!

Laurence Matson said:

L

rick decker said:

Aslo, my apologies..I thought Jerome lived up north ..so it
couldn't have been a moose or an eskimo or an elk....Probably a
monkey or something!!!

Oh yes, further apologies to all thos moosies, eskimos and elks I
offended.

rick

ChromeLight said:

rick decker said:

Was it a moose or an elk or an eskimo that told you this? They are
generally the most knowledgeable and the first to know about such
things.
Oh yes, and I don't mean bottom fishing I
mean....t....r....o....l......l......i.......n.......g and your
line is very long.
But it is a nice thought.

Click to expand...

Perhaps a troll. But Michael Reichman of the Luminous Landscape web
site, and who has many friends in the Canadian divisions of the
camera companies, reported that Foveon actually had samples of its
next generation chip produced by National Semi. (The second part of
the rumor was that Nikon had produced a prototype using this chip
just as an exploratory experiment.) Lots of people screamed at MR
when he said a friend at Fuji told him that Fuji was cancelling
their medium format rangefinders. Guess what. MR was right. Fuji
has dropped all of their MF rangefinder cameras. So he's a little
more credible than just anybody. Anyway, our Foveon chip was
released to Sigma in February of 2002. So it's been a year since
then. So who knows what the next 6-9 months will bring. Sigma is a
small company. Sure. But that still doesn't prohibit them from
being agressive.

As the saying goes: if a little is good, more is better!

Click to expand...

--

.......Feel The Power.........Sigma.....SD9..........

http://www.lightreflection.com
http://www.silveroaksranch.com
http://www.pbase.com/rickdecker
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home

Click to expand...

--
http://www.pbase.com/lmatson/sd9_images
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/root
http://www.beachbriss.com (eternal test site)

Click to expand...

--

.......Feel The Power.........Sigma.....SD9..........

http://www.lightreflection.com
http://www.silveroaksranch.com
http://www.pbase.com/rickdecker
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home

Click to expand...

--
http://www.pbase.com/lmatson/sd9_images
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/root
http://www.beachbriss.com (eternal test site)

Although I am very happy with Sigma's lenses, it would be nice to have some other options and could only help.

I am convinced, although I am obviously biased, that if the Sigma line (SD) died out, the SD9 would be a classic. It is a great landscape camera, great macro camera and great people camera and I can go on and on!

However, I must say, for landscape, I would love to see 6mp and a little larger sensor! 1.3 or 1.4 is my size of choice.

BTW: What are you doing "inching" (as catepillars do) over to the Sigma Forum..I see you hang out on the Olympus forum most of the time?

Well as a final, I will corrected again, the only question is how soon. Probably Laurence has something for me already!!!

Thanks

Rick

Caterpillar said:

rick decker said:

The third time I have been corrected today....well at least it
hasn't been by my wife!!!

Click to expand...

Don't worry, Rick. At least you are a gentleman about it, unlike
some others who don't even apologize. And you have a sense of humor
about the whole thing!

It was an honest mistake. Forget about it.

Going to one of your previous post with respect to why pour in more
money if they already didn't do well with the SD9, if anything at
all, Sigma must go on. If it didn't do well with SD9, it must
gather all the things it has learned from SD9 and move on. Correct
the mistakes. Improve on things.

One thing is certain. If there won't be an SD10, the Sigma DSLR
program is dead. That is certain. So, in spite of more
expenditures, it must do so; unless they have decided that they
cannot hope to compete. If that happens, then I weep for the foveon
sensor and for those who believed in the technology. The SD9 will
be a tombstone to remember what was once sigma's first and last
dslr. And the sad thing is it is not so much as failure in
marketing or technology, but a failure in technology implementation.

A previous post I did about a week ago on this forum, mentioned
several points on what Sigma could do. The most important of them
all, IMHO, is to open up the lens mount and not restrict it to
Sigma mount lenses. Let others use their lenses.

A lock up strategy works only if you are a leader, have a good
brand recognition, and other advantages. If you don't, it is
counterproductive, most especially if you are entering a market
that is very competitive with competitors who are bigger and more
nimble than you are.

Other suggestions included lower the price of the next offering to
U$850 or better.

And Sigma better hurry up fast. I also said in those post that the
window of opportunity is slowly closing. When the 4/3 system comes
out, the Pentax *ist, or Nikon comes out with their D200 or
whatever it will be called, the novelty of its own introduction
will be a flicker compared to these other product offerings. The
8mp sensor from Sony does not help much either as this would erase
cost advantages that Sigma might have had.

My other new advice to Sigma --- Hire a good Technology Manager. A
TM or MOT manager would have guided them in the process of tech &
product development and release.

--

• Caterpillar

Click to expand...

--

.......Feel The Power.........Sigma.....SD9..........

http://www.lightreflection.com
http://www.silveroaksranch.com
http://www.pbase.com/rickdecker
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home

Hey Rick, everyone makes mistakes, even pilots, that's why they put 2 people in the cockpit in most airliners.

If i may chime in, I think the SD9 is here to stay. Some of us are too young to remember (including myself) the days of horse drawn buggies. When Henry Ford introduced the mass produced automobile, I'm quite sure that some people thought he was out of his mind, and that nothing could ever compare to the horse and buggie. So much so that even as late as world war 2, some army divisions (in foreign territories) used horses to support their infantry. But if you look around today, horse drawn carriages are a thing of the past. Like wise, when the Wright brothers introduced the aeroplane. Many thought that this technology would never catch on, and 100 years later we find ourself in an age of supersonic transport, space travel, and private pilots Þ

In conclusion, Sigma is a pioneer. IMHO they are paving the way for future advances in digital imaging. 100 years from now, one would probably find bayer technology in muesums and antique shops, while Foveon like technolgoy will be worn on wrists watches, (James bond style) and cellular camera phones

rick decker said:

I am convinced, although I am obviously biased, that if the Sigma
line (SD) died out, the SD9 would be a classic. It is a great
landscape camera, great macro camera and great people camera and I
can go on and on!

However, I must say, for landscape, I would love to see 6mp and a
little larger sensor! 1.3 or 1.4 is my size of choice.

BTW: What are you doing "inching" (as catepillars do) over to the
Sigma Forum..I see you hang out on the Olympus forum most of the
time?

Well as a final, I will corrected again, the only question is how
soon. Probably Laurence has something for me already!!!

Thanks

Rick

Caterpillar said:

rick decker said:

The third time I have been corrected today....well at least it
hasn't been by my wife!!!

Click to expand...

Don't worry, Rick. At least you are a gentleman about it, unlike
some others who don't even apologize. And you have a sense of humor
about the whole thing!

It was an honest mistake. Forget about it.

Going to one of your previous post with respect to why pour in more
money if they already didn't do well with the SD9, if anything at
all, Sigma must go on. If it didn't do well with SD9, it must
gather all the things it has learned from SD9 and move on. Correct
the mistakes. Improve on things.

One thing is certain. If there won't be an SD10, the Sigma DSLR
program is dead. That is certain. So, in spite of more
expenditures, it must do so; unless they have decided that they
cannot hope to compete. If that happens, then I weep for the foveon
sensor and for those who believed in the technology. The SD9 will
be a tombstone to remember what was once sigma's first and last
dslr. And the sad thing is it is not so much as failure in
marketing or technology, but a failure in technology implementation.

A previous post I did about a week ago on this forum, mentioned
several points on what Sigma could do. The most important of them
all, IMHO, is to open up the lens mount and not restrict it to
Sigma mount lenses. Let others use their lenses.

A lock up strategy works only if you are a leader, have a good
brand recognition, and other advantages. If you don't, it is
counterproductive, most especially if you are entering a market
that is very competitive with competitors who are bigger and more
nimble than you are.

Other suggestions included lower the price of the next offering to
U$850 or better.

And Sigma better hurry up fast. I also said in those post that the
window of opportunity is slowly closing. When the 4/3 system comes
out, the Pentax *ist, or Nikon comes out with their D200 or
whatever it will be called, the novelty of its own introduction
will be a flicker compared to these other product offerings. The
8mp sensor from Sony does not help much either as this would erase
cost advantages that Sigma might have had.

My other new advice to Sigma --- Hire a good Technology Manager. A
TM or MOT manager would have guided them in the process of tech &
product development and release.

--

• Caterpillar

Click to expand...

--

.......Feel The Power.........Sigma.....SD9..........

http://www.lightreflection.com
http://www.silveroaksranch.com
http://www.pbase.com/rickdecker
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home

Click to expand...

--
Sigma SD9
24-70EX
Olympus c4040z
http://kwietone0.tripod.com
Gallery
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/kosly_joseph

I personally don't think that Sigma has thrown that much money away anywhere. The SD9 is a rebuilt SA9, they don't pay Canon or Nikon anything for usage of their mount (coz they don't use it) and Foveon is there to back them up because it's in there very interest to make there chip known.

Btw, Sigma makes more lenses then Canon and Nikon put together. I even think you might ad Minolta to that list. So it's not a small player we're talking about.

My 2 sek.

rick decker said:

I see you work in a mini digilab. I hope you are right about a
new version but I tend to doubt that Sigma can throw so much money
into Camera 2 so quickly as they are not Canon with unlimited
resources. And their profits are in their lenses which is where I
suspect their priorities are.

--

.......Feel The Power.........Sigma.....SD9..........

http://www.lightreflection.com
http://www.silveroaksranch.com
http://www.pbase.com/rickdecker
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home

Click to expand...

--
Carl Rytterfalk
http://www.pbase.com/rytterfalk
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/carl_rytterfalk
ICQ: 529507, Yahoo: Rytterfalk, MSN: [email protected]
Proud SD9 owner.

rick decker said:

However, I must say, for landscape, I would love to see 6mp and a
little larger sensor! 1.3 or 1.4 is my size of choice.

Click to expand...

You know your requirements, there. Yes, that would be nice. Even higher than 6mp would be better. Perhaps that new Sony 8mp would do well with your landscape photography.

rick decker said:

BTW: What are you doing "inching" (as catepillars do) over to the
Sigma Forum..I see you hang out on the Olympus forum most of the
time?

Click to expand...

I have lurked in this forum since last year. I have seen how Karl Gutag attacked the foveon sensor. I will admit now that I believe in the technology. What I didn't like was the way Sigma implemented it. It did it a lot of harm.

rick decker said:

Well as a final, I will corrected again, the only question is how
soon. Probably Laurence has something for me already!!!

Thanks

Rick

Click to expand...

--

• Caterpillar

Catepillar,

There are some good points here. However, some I think could be off.

Since this is entirely speculative, we can all join in. No one is wrong when it comes to speculation unless someone else throws it back into your face six months later. That's armchair QBing, which doesn't count.

I am not certain you are correct about the death of the Sigma DSLR. Some of the investment-related cost levels were mentioned elsewhere. This is a different situation than that at Nikon, Canon, or Fuji. In addition, Sigma has a large lens business which can go so way to carrying a bit of the load. It would be highly unusual for a Japanese company to go into this for the short-term. That is just not typical of their general business practice. Generally, they stick with it until they get it right. A big exception here, of course, is the Contax ND and Kyocera's efforts to make it work.

I also do not rate the camera as a technological failure. Unlike the Contax, the images are astounding. It has some issues, but please name one camera that has not.

I fail to see the logic speaking for the mount topic. I also fail to see the logic speaking against it. Tie score.

I don't think the DSLR market is big enough to effectively get a lock-up situation. At the moment, one would assume Canon has this. But as has been pointed out, not in the lens department. Were Leica to produce an out-of-this-world 1.2 factor Foveon technology camera tomorrow with a really clean 7 meg sensor, don't you think there would be a lot of pros rethinking their position, dedicated lens kits or not.

I do not agree on the lower price bit entirely. I would like it, sure. But the number of people moving to a DSLR would increase even more, until we really had a problem. This is what happened at the Canon forum, and they are over their heads in newbie problems that make our battery issue look like child's play.

Sigma and Foveon are moving their stuff forward, but at their own pace. The Pentax and Olydak cameras have not effected the market yet even in terms of anticipation. That chip is smaller too. The jury is still very much out on the new Sony chip. Let's see them deliver and then let's look at noise. In the meantime, engineers at Foveon are improving an already very good product.

I am also not so sure about your analysis of the novelty factor. Just review this recent thread:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1000&message=5239255

I agree with you on the technical manager, but I think they have some. There may well be some ramping up issues here though.

Your turn Rick.

Laurence

--
http://www.pbase.com/lmatson/sd9_images
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/root
http://www.beachbriss.com (eternal test site)

Jerome Co Tan said:

i have it from reliable sources that sigma is releasing a new
digital camera before the year end.

Click to expand...

You don't specify which year, so there's a good chance your prediction will come true.

--> LSN

K Joseph said:

If i may chime in, I think the SD9 is here to stay. Some of us are
too young to remember (including myself) the days of horse drawn
buggies. When Henry Ford introduced the mass produced automobile,
I'm quite sure that some people thought he was out of his mind, and
that nothing could ever compare to the horse and buggie. So much
so that even as late as world war 2, some army divisions (in
foreign territories) used horses to support their infantry. But if
you look around today, horse drawn carriages are a thing of the
past. Like wise, when the Wright brothers introduced the
aeroplane. Many thought that this technology would never catch
on, and 100 years later we find ourself in an age of supersonic
transport, space travel, and private pilots Þ

In conclusion, Sigma is a pioneer. IMHO they are paving the way for
future advances in digital imaging. 100 years from now, one would
probably find bayer technology in muesums and antique shops, while
Foveon like technolgoy will be worn on wrists watches, (James bond
style) and cellular camera phones

rick decker said:

I am convinced, although I am obviously biased, that if the Sigma
line (SD) died out, the SD9 would be a classic. It is a great
landscape camera, great macro camera and great people camera and I
can go on and on!

However, I must say, for landscape, I would love to see 6mp and a
little larger sensor! 1.3 or 1.4 is my size of choice.

BTW: What are you doing "inching" (as catepillars do) over to the
Sigma Forum..I see you hang out on the Olympus forum most of the
time?

Well as a final, I will corrected again, the only question is how
soon. Probably Laurence has something for me already!!!

Thanks

Rick

Caterpillar said:

rick decker said:

The third time I have been corrected today....well at least it
hasn't been by my wife!!!

Click to expand...

Don't worry, Rick. At least you are a gentleman about it, unlike
some others who don't even apologize. And you have a sense of humor
about the whole thing!

It was an honest mistake. Forget about it.

Going to one of your previous post with respect to why pour in more
money if they already didn't do well with the SD9, if anything at
all, Sigma must go on. If it didn't do well with SD9, it must
gather all the things it has learned from SD9 and move on. Correct
the mistakes. Improve on things.

One thing is certain. If there won't be an SD10, the Sigma DSLR
program is dead. That is certain. So, in spite of more
expenditures, it must do so; unless they have decided that they
cannot hope to compete. If that happens, then I weep for the foveon
sensor and for those who believed in the technology. The SD9 will
be a tombstone to remember what was once sigma's first and last
dslr. And the sad thing is it is not so much as failure in
marketing or technology, but a failure in technology implementation.

A previous post I did about a week ago on this forum, mentioned
several points on what Sigma could do. The most important of them
all, IMHO, is to open up the lens mount and not restrict it to
Sigma mount lenses. Let others use their lenses.

A lock up strategy works only if you are a leader, have a good
brand recognition, and other advantages. If you don't, it is
counterproductive, most especially if you are entering a market
that is very competitive with competitors who are bigger and more
nimble than you are.

Other suggestions included lower the price of the next offering to
U$850 or better.

And Sigma better hurry up fast. I also said in those post that the
window of opportunity is slowly closing. When the 4/3 system comes
out, the Pentax *ist, or Nikon comes out with their D200 or
whatever it will be called, the novelty of its own introduction
will be a flicker compared to these other product offerings. The
8mp sensor from Sony does not help much either as this would erase
cost advantages that Sigma might have had.

My other new advice to Sigma --- Hire a good Technology Manager. A
TM or MOT manager would have guided them in the process of tech &
product development and release.

--

• Caterpillar

Click to expand...

--

.......Feel The Power.........Sigma.....SD9..........

http://www.lightreflection.com
http://www.silveroaksranch.com
http://www.pbase.com/rickdecker
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home

Click to expand...

--
Sigma SD9
24-70EX
Olympus c4040z
http://kwietone0.tripod.com
Gallery
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/kosly_joseph

Click to expand...

--

.......Feel The Power.........Sigma.....SD9..........

http://www.lightreflection.com
http://www.silveroaksranch.com
http://www.pbase.com/rickdecker
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home

I think Jerome has a good point here regardless of his "source" at Sigma. I am just such a consumer. Many people are leary of being an early adopter of new technology. We rely on you fine people to do the beta testing while we sit back and watch the technology mature (ie Foveon2 or whatever it gets called) before dropping the cash on something new. My type of consumer probably out-numbers the early adopters 2:1 but God love you, you buy so that the company will make enough money to decide it is worth pursuing. Capitalism needs you. Keep on keepin' on;-)

Jeff

Jerome Co Tan said:

so i think it's not good for sigma to wait for sd9 to be profitable
before producing a new camera.

rick decker said:

How often can a company of Sigma's size pour money into a new
camera, especially when the current model is not profitable yet.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Jerome Co Tan said:

hi there,

i have it from reliable sources that sigma is releasing a new
digital camera before the year end. they are deciding whether to
use "SD9 Foveon 2" or "SD10" as the name of the new digital camera.

Click to expand...

Remember, SD-9 gets it's name from the film camera SA-9. If there were an SD-10, there would also be an SA-10.

SA-10
SA-TEN

The Japanese have a tradition of changing product names to make them "luckier", i.e. Toyoda became Toyota.

Besides, Sigma only uses odd numbers, SA-5, SA-7, SA-9.

--
Ciao!

Joe

But there have been foupas (sp?). Sea & Sea's early english version of theire web site had a woodpecker as their web symbol and he would guide through their site. It is supposes to be true (who knows) that their slogan on their home page was "Let your pecker be your guide as you navigate through the web"

Joseph S. Wisniewski said:

Jerome Co Tan said:

hi there,

i have it from reliable sources that sigma is releasing a new
digital camera before the year end. they are deciding whether to
use "SD9 Foveon 2" or "SD10" as the name of the new digital camera.

Click to expand...

Remember, SD-9 gets it's name from the film camera SA-9. If there
were an SD-10, there would also be an SA-10.

SA-10
SA-TEN

The Japanese have a tradition of changing product names to make
them "luckier", i.e. Toyoda became Toyota.

Besides, Sigma only uses odd numbers, SA-5, SA-7, SA-9.

--
Ciao!

Joe

Click to expand...

--

.......Feel The Power.........Sigma.....SD9..........

http://www.lightreflection.com
http://www.silveroaksranch.com
http://www.pbase.com/rickdecker
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home

Is an SD-9 with a Minolta mount technically feasible with reasonable costs? Since Minolta [users] need a DSLR, this may be a good way for Minolta to re-enter the DSLR market?

Rytterfalk said:

Btw, Sigma makes more lenses then Canon and Nikon put together. I
even think you might ad Minolta to that list. So it's not a small
player we're talking about.

My 2 sek.

rick decker said:

I see you work in a mini digilab. I hope you are right about a
new version but I tend to doubt that Sigma can throw so much money
into Camera 2 so quickly as they are not Canon with unlimited
resources. And their profits are in their lenses which is where I
suspect their priorities are.

--

.......Feel The Power.........Sigma.....SD9..........

http://www.lightreflection.com
http://www.silveroaksranch.com
http://www.pbase.com/rickdecker
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home

Click to expand...

--
Carl Rytterfalk
http://www.pbase.com/rytterfalk
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/carl_rytterfalk
ICQ: 529507, Yahoo: Rytterfalk, MSN: [email protected]
Proud SD9 owner.

Click to expand...

Laurence,

It is nice to have a discussion with people like you, Rick, and on other forums people like Ulysess, etc. They don't have an ego or chip on their shoulders and respect each others position. We may disagree on povs but we are civil about the whole thing. Let me now respond to your comments.

Laurence Matson said:

Catepillar,

There are some good points here. However, some I think could be off.
Since this is entirely speculative, we can all join in. No one is
wrong when it comes to speculation unless someone else throws it
back into your face six months later. That's armchair QBing, which
doesn't count.

Click to expand...

I don't mind somebody throwing it at me 6 months later and proving me wrong, speculative or not. That is how I learn from my mistakes. I do not mind being proven wrong. At school we were taught technology forecasting and assessment. We do this for a living, one way or the other, even without the formal titles.

Rick Decke or a Mr. Matson has no monopoly on being a gentleman, or being intellectually honest. I would like to strive for that standard and be among that select group.

Laurence Matson said:

I am not certain you are correct about the death of the Sigma DSLR.
Some of the investment-related cost levels were mentioned
elsewhere. This is a different situation than that at Nikon, Canon,
or Fuji. In addition, Sigma has a large lens business which can go
so way to carrying a bit of the load. It would be highly unusual
for a Japanese company to go into this for the short-term. That is
just not typical of their general business practice. Generally,
they stick with it until they get it right. A big exception here,
of course, is the Contax ND and Kyocera's efforts to make it work.

Click to expand...

i didn't exactly say it is dead. I said, it will die if no product is introduced next. I said that it must proceed with an SD10 or whatever they want to call it if sigma is to survive.

And yes, I agree, it is not typical for a Jap companies to give up on the first try. I would be surprised if sigma quits at all!

Laurence Matson said:

I also do not rate the camera as a technological failure. Unlike
the Contax, the images are astounding. It has some issues, but
please name one camera that has not.

Click to expand...

I did not say that the camera per se is a technological failure. I said the implementation of the technology is the cause of failure. And I agree, like in my oly post with regards to the E10/20 and the 4/3 system, all companies have skeletons in their closets.

I point the finger at Sigma, not at Foveon. I make that distinction clear. If the Ford Lynx' body rattles, I blame that on Ford, not Mazda who might be the one making the engine.

Laurence Matson said:

I don't think the DSLR market is big enough to effectively get a
lock-up situation. At the moment, one would assume Canon has this.
But as has been pointed out, not in the lens department. Were Leica
to produce an out-of-this-world 1.2 factor Foveon technology camera
tomorrow with a really clean 7 meg sensor, don't you think there
would be a lot of pros rethinking their position, dedicated lens
kits or not.

Click to expand...

The lock up is not tied up to the market size. A lockup is one of the many strategies to gain or maintain competitive advantage.o As I said, if you are a small player compared to your competitors, your brand recognition is weak or low, you are introducing a new technology, and/or if you are a new entrant with no or little experience in digicams in a smaller and highly competitive segment, and which you do not even possess a fraction of market share (in digicams), you do not implement a lockup.

Laurence Matson said:

I do not agree on the lower price bit entirely. I would like it,
sure. But the number of people moving to a DSLR would increase even
more, until we really had a problem. This is what happened at the
Canon forum, and they are over their heads in newbie problems that
make our battery issue look like child's play.

Click to expand...

Accepted, but disagree. Again, you are a new entrant, you are using new technology, etc. What are the 3 basic/generic basis of competition? 1) Low cost, 2) Differentiation, 3)Focus.

Now, your competitors are going to enter into the market at the end of this year with the st, the 4/3, and maybe Nikon will announce a D200. Olympus already said they will sell the body at around U$850. Unless they change their tune this June 24, I would base my conjecture on that price. Question: What is the basis of Sigma's Competitive Advantage then?

All these approaches are explained in detail if you read works by Michael Porter on "Competitive Advantage," "Competitive Strategy," and his other seminal books.

Laurence Matson said:

Sigma and Foveon are moving their stuff forward, but at their own
pace.

Click to expand...

Yes. agreed. I just hope that once the other players finally delivers, Sigma can turn on a dime and adjust accordingly.

(c0ntinued on part-2)

--

• Caterpillar

Laurence Matson said:

The Pentax and Olydak cameras have not effected the market
yet even in terms of anticipation.

Click to expand...

Ahhh. Sometimes, it does. At times, you do not have to have a product already out to affect the market. Any student of marketing knows. This. Look at the angst and the sudden delay of purchases of people when a firm of significant stature in the market announces something. I don't have to mention examples. Look at how people, hem and haw. I see people in the Oly forum alone delaying their purchases waiting for the c-750.

On the other hand, it could go the other way around too. It could force people to buy the competitor's product if delays are given and are not justifiable. Either way, it is not correct that technology/product announcements do not affect the market. Otherwise, why do these companies announce them? As I said, any Marketing 101 subject teaches this.

Laurence Matson said:

That chip is smaller too. The
jury is still very much out on the new Sony chip. Let's see them
deliver and then let's look at noise.

Click to expand...

Agreed. In another forum, I mentioned about bahaviour-based analysis. And based on Sony's past record, and the confidence of the different users of Sony's chips and I can only assume the best.

Laurence Matson said:

In the meantime, engineers at
Foveon are improving an already very good product.

Click to expand...

That is good and I am glad they are going to the next step. But I believe, and this is an expert opinion, that the failure of Sigma so far, I repeat "so far," is its implementation of the technology and product. I still maintain that the lens lock-up and not opening it to competing standards is its single obstacle to diffusion, not just of the foveon tehcnology, but of its product. The sooner it opens this, the better for Sigma.

Look at it this way, Laurence, how would it hurt Sigma if they offer a Nikon mount? Lesser sales on it's Sigma mounted bodies? It's already low now and even if it were a hot ticket item, as long as they bought Sigma bodies regardless of lens mount, it's plus "pogi" points for them in revenues and market perception. It helps Sigma's bottom line, and it helps establish foveon as a viable technology. Win-win.

Laurence Matson said:

I am also not so sure about your analysis of the novelty factor.
Just review this recent thread:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1000&message=5239255

I agree with you on the technical manager, but I think they have
some. There may well be some ramping up issues here though.

Click to expand...

I am sure they have one. But in another thread somewhere, which I should noted, there is a link to a site (c/net news I think) that says that the quality of technology mgrs or MOT managers are not high.

In Asia, I know of only my country and maybe Australia that has a course in Technology Management. This is abundant in the USA and some countries in Europe.

Laurence Matson said:

Your turn Rick.

Click to expand...

Yes, your turn, Rick

--

• Caterpillar

Laurence,

In my lengthy response to your post, I forgot to discuss the critical issue of market pull (MP) vs technology push (TP). Neither is better than the other, and at times it could be a mix of the two.

In TM, the classic MP vs TP is a common theme. MP is when the market demands dictate a firms actions. In TP, it is technology that pushes the market to adopt the technology and thus gain market presence, and eventually dominance (if all the right things are done in and in time).

Sigma is a classic T-Pusher. You have a radical technology, a different way of doing things. It has not previous experience within the same segment it hopes to compete, and everything is from scratch (well almost everything, but I am talking about the digital part here). You introduce this technolgy in the hopes that it will catch on and gets momentum, and becomes a standard itself. A classic Technology S-curve.

Any TMer worth his salt will tell you that when you are a new entrant, trying to establish foothold in a market you do not have a control or influence, with limited resources, not even have a tiny, itsi-bitsi percent of participation prior to it, with no mass market brand recognition, fierce competition from bigger players, and whose market size is small and still changing, and margins are getting lower due to worldwide recession, risk is high, a lock-up of a standard is counterproductive.

For Sigma, to base your competitive advantage solely on technology alone, is bad, if not weak strategy. You do not create beachhead for your technology or product to flourish. You have created, instead an island, based on lens mount. Diffusion and eventual adoption is very, very difficult.

IF, Sigma is going to compete solely on technology push (it has to. Demand is very, very low), it must do so and do so convincingly by creating allies not isolation. The lens mount is issue is an isolationist policy. It is not a question of technological difficulty (it may be of patent, but not.

Having said all these things, let's move on to the positive things Sigma can do. We were taught that the hallmark of a good analyst is not merely critizing and finding faults. It is finding faults, finding strengths, and coming up with viable solutions.

So what could Sigma do?

First and foremost -- Open up the lens mount to other brands. Making a lens mount for Minolta alone can be a tour-d-force (did I spell that correctly?). Imagine the pent-up demand from frustrated and anxious Minolta users!

Would you now wait till Minolta comes up with their own DSLR? So with Olympus, Pentax, etc? If they did this last year, they would have established a significant beachhead where the even these firms come up with their own switching cost may delay if not prevent others from easily migrating back. At least you will still have stolen some of their market that should have remained theirs of stolen by another competitor. Look at those Sony and Minolta posts saying that they are forced to get the 10D. At least, Sigma would have gotten some of them.

2nd- Offer incentive to other 3rd party firms to adopt their products. Encourage them to make accessories (flash, underwater housing, batteries, etc).

3rd- Lower price initially. If and when you are established, you can price it a bit higher.

4th - Address the technological issues of foveon. Try to get at least a clean ISO 800. Solve the battery issues. Try to get a jpg straight out of the camera. I won't go into the raw vs jpg debate. It has nothing to do with the merit of raw vs jpg. IF YOU WANT TO BE ACCEPTED IN THE MARKETPLACE, YOU MUST TRY AT LEAST TO BE AS MOST AS YOU CAN TO AS MANY PEOPLE. You are trying to break into and gain support. So, you cannot alienate the others who are clamoring for it. Don't use jpg if you don't like it.

But as I said earlier, the window of opportunity is slowly closing. Sigma must move fast and decisively. It cannot rely on foveon's novelty anymore. It must parlay's Sigma's/foveon's strength and argue not in the basis of technology alone, but in terms of usability, ease of use, or whatever advantage it can muster. Remember Michael Porter's 3 generic strategy and position itself accordingly.

Sigma must also try not to project itself as me-against-the-world. It gives itself an elitist twinge. You can't convince many of the pros, you can't convince some of the prosumer, but maybe, you can attract the consumer only if you project the camera as something that can give any amateur amazing pro.Show me the pictures! Don't show me arguments in terms of technological wonder.

This means that Sigma must re-define the SD series target market. If it still wishes to compete in the pro level, well, they already know why they weren't taken seriously, so address those if it can. If it can't address all issues, it pays to attract other segments who are not so picky or would not care so much of the lack of ISO 800. It must reposition itself.

In the end, Sigma's success depends on its ability to be flexible and hitting the correct balance of technology, marketing, and strategy.

I think I am going on a 3 day vacation now

--

• Caterpillar

Caterpillar:

Your posts have been long and detailed and I am a "skim" reader with limited attention span. What do you mean by "failure of its implementation of the product and techology".

The opening up of the camera body to Nikon and/or Canon and/or Minolta and/or etc. could be costly could it not? Or maybe it wouldn't as I have no idea what Fuji has paid Nikon. I do think it would be a great move by Sigma as far as sales of camera bodies go. I have to believe there are a lot of "closet cases" over on the Canon forum - people who would love to add a SD9 to their repertoire (sp?) and have the bucks to do so. Sigma would probably double camera sales. Their fear might be the loss of lens sales but given the number of recent "star performers" (if I can use that term) they have had lately, I am sure they would hold their own. Think of all those Canon owners who would say "Yes, I really like my 10D (D60) but my SD9 produces much better images". Then all the newbies would go right to the SD9 and buy Sigma lenses to boot! Hmmm.....maybe Sigma should hire me as a marketing consultant!!!

Sigma has to have high r&d costs lately - look at all the new lenses they have recenty released. Adding the SD9 just makes it worse.

OK, I haven't been proven wrong or corrected yet today! Go to it!!!

Rick
--

.......Feel The Power.........Sigma.....SD9..........

http://www.lightreflection.com
http://www.silveroaksranch.com
http://www.pbase.com/rickdecker
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home

caterpillar said:

A previous post I did about a week ago on this forum, mentioned
several points on what Sigma could do. The most important of them
all, IMHO, is to open up the lens mount and not restrict it to
Sigma mount lenses. Let others use their lenses.

A lock up strategy works only if you are a leader, have a good
brand recognition, and other advantages. If you don't, it is
counterproductive, most especially if you are entering a market
that is very competitive with competitors who are bigger and more
nimble than you are.

Other suggestions included lower the price of the next offering to
U$850 or better.

Click to expand...

Us consumers are already demanding an even lower price like your $850 ball park with the SD9, offering Nikon/Canon mounts will mean we users will have to also cover the lic fee as additional cost and Sigma may not even sell enough DSLRs to recover those additional fees.

While I do see the point of allowing other mounts to allow the SD-X to gain better general acceptability, I do not see it being worthwhile for Sigma to do so, as I believe it may cost more and hike up the body's price ...

--
jc
Sony F707
http://www.reeftec.com/gallery

Besides the fact that the one technical improvement he points to is higher ISO sensitivity, boy that takes a real leap to guess that both Sigma and Foveon will add that to the next camera.

My guess for the future is the same as what most point out alread, JPG mode, for lazy people like me. small xfactor, although with the Sigma 15 to 30 this is not a big deal right now. And just the standard tweaks you see in any second generation product.

I expect it will be pretty powerful when it comes.

Ed

rick decker said:

Aslo, my apologies..I thought Jerome lived up north ..so it
couldn't have been a moose or an eskimo or an elk....Probably a
monkey or something!!!

Oh yes, further apologies to all thos moosies, eskimos and elks I
offended.

rick

ChromeLight said:

rick decker said:

Was it a moose or an elk or an eskimo that told you this? They are
generally the most knowledgeable and the first to know about such
things.
Oh yes, and I don't mean bottom fishing I
mean....t....r....o....l......l......i.......n.......g and your
line is very long.
But it is a nice thought.

Click to expand...

Perhaps a troll. But Michael Reichman of the Luminous Landscape web
site, and who has many friends in the Canadian divisions of the
camera companies, reported that Foveon actually had samples of its
next generation chip produced by National Semi. (The second part of
the rumor was that Nikon had produced a prototype using this chip
just as an exploratory experiment.) Lots of people screamed at MR
when he said a friend at Fuji told him that Fuji was cancelling
their medium format rangefinders. Guess what. MR was right. Fuji
has dropped all of their MF rangefinder cameras. So he's a little
more credible than just anybody. Anyway, our Foveon chip was
released to Sigma in February of 2002. So it's been a year since
then. So who knows what the next 6-9 months will bring. Sigma is a
small company. Sure. But that still doesn't prohibit them from
being agressive.

As the saying goes: if a little is good, more is better!

Click to expand...

--

.......Feel The Power.........Sigma.....SD9..........

http://www.lightreflection.com
http://www.silveroaksranch.com
http://www.pbase.com/rickdecker
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home

Click to expand...

--
Ed
http://www.cbrycelea.com/photos/Index.html Old Pictures

Speculation follows:

Perhaps this is part of Sigma's long term plan.

So they released the 1st version with just their own mount only.

Maybe the next generation is planned with multiple mount options. I do not know how costly this would be and if technically feasible. There are obviously many parameters here.

But for the sake of discussion:

Minolta users are dying for a DSLR for their lenses. Minolta should seriously consider paying someone to provide a DSLR for their mount, if they will not. So that is one good candidate iff Minolta is not planning their own DSLRs anytime soon.

I'm sure some Nikon and Canon pro/advanced users are closeted Foveon-curious. A body with those mounts at a relatively low price (

Jimmy Chen said:

Jimmy Chen said:

A previous post I did about a week ago on this forum, mentioned
several points on what Sigma could do. The most important of them
all, IMHO, is to open up the lens mount and not restrict it to
Sigma mount lenses. Let others use their lenses.

A lock up strategy works only if you are a leader, have a good
brand recognition, and other advantages. If you don't, it is
counterproductive, most especially if you are entering a market
that is very competitive with competitors who are bigger and more
nimble than you are.

Other suggestions included lower the price of the next offering to
U$850 or better.

Click to expand...

Us consumers are already demanding an even lower price like your
$850 ball park with the SD9, offering Nikon/Canon mounts will mean
we users will have to also cover the lic fee as additional cost and
Sigma may not even sell enough DSLRs to recover those additional
fees.

While I do see the point of allowing other mounts to allow the SD-X
to gain better general acceptability, I do not see it being
worthwhile for Sigma to do so, as I believe it may cost more and
hike up the body's price ...

--
jc
Sony F707
http://www.reeftec.com/gallery

Click to expand...

digital_ray_of_light said:

Maybe the next generation is planned with multiple mount options. I
do not know how costly this would be and if technically feasible.
There are obviously many parameters here.

But for the sake of discussion:

Click to expand...

We know there are plenty of exist non-Sigma lenses owners that would love to try the SD9, but the SA mount is holding them back ...

But I still believe this may run into lic issues ... I'll then post a question here as a different approach and wonder how many users are welling to accept this as a solution ...

Instead of Sigma coming out with new bodies with different mounts, how many users are instead welling to go with a mount adaptor? IE: SD9 -> Brand X Adpator -> Brand X lenses.

What are the technical issues here compared to new bodies?

--
jc
Sony F707
http://www.reeftec.com/gallery