One trick pony Locked

DMillier wrote:

I find it interesting that with the insiders we have in this forum, more isn't known about Sigma's strategy.

From the outside it has always seemed bizarre - for example they are happy to sell cameras with 15 sec write times and batteries that last 50 shots. Can you imagine Nikon or Canon releasing cameras with such weak specs? I can't. If they didn't have a fast enough processor they would rather not release a camera than release something that almost everyone would laugh at.

Sigma don't seem to care about such things. They can do what they want of course but it does seem like a strange strategy that doesn't make much sense. Why do they do these things, who does it benefit to make the Sigma a laughing stock? Of course the real fans understand the good side of Sigma cameras, but it is a very hard sell outside that little group and Sigma appear to content to keep on repeating the same moves.

I wonder why? They must surely have some kind of plan... what we need is Rick or Laurence or Kendall, anyone who the ear of Sigma to spill the beans... how do we make sense of the seeming wacky products they make????

David,

With all due respect, do you honestly believe this forum is the right place to discuss or reveal Sigma's plan going forward and what they have in the pipeline?

And taking a sampling of one - you - do you honestly feel a discussion of such could take place with you in a reasonable manner when you label what they are doing now as "seeming wacky" - "seems bizarre" - "weak" - "Sigma is a laughing stock" - etc.? Your take is important but can you imagine sitting in on a pipeline discussion and making a reasonable contribution?

Such discussions do take place but among people who are open to what the situation or market is now and also understand how to play the long game, for that has been Sigma's strategy since the beginning. I am not about to get into an argument here about how well or poorly they execute that.

My take is that a series of disconnects has taken place in photography in general since the dawn of the digital age. Taking, viewing, processing, printing, and publishing an image is incredibly faster than it was in the film days. Camera development and true innovation is vastly slower than in the film days. The result is that we bïtch about how long it takes for the part that is now really fast and forget about how complex the part that is not, is.

Setting aside Sigma and its seeming snail's pace of camera (and lens) development, how long do you think it takes Sony to develop a truly innovative imager? Or Nikon, to develop a camera, such as the D4 (now almost completely outdated at 30 months!!), which means only the body; the imager has been outsourced after Nikon dumped its in-house efforts?

Mighty Oly, for instance, has used essentially the same imager technology for the last 6 years with minor shifts in pixel counts. They just keep throwing it in similar and then improved bodies.

I would not argue that Oly or Nikon are anything but what they are. Oly continues to produce some of the least detailed images on the planet, which folks love, since they "nail the color." That Nikon is one of the marvels of the digital age and took over 10 (in a word, ten) years to develop. One year was spent of field testing alone.

So Sigma's track record is not so bad if you accept what they are up to and intend to do imnsho.

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

Henry David Thoreau

My favorite bookstore for the last 40 years: http://www.differentdrummerbooks.ca/