tbcass
Veteran Member
I have never heard that the failure of Sony SSM lenses is common. (what common means is open to question) As a counterpoint, if the screw drive motor in the body fails none of your screw drive lenses will AF.
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Wish there were more SSM lenses...Im done with screw drive
- Thread starter floyd_of_oz
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Marco Cinnirella
Veteran Member
Never heard of the screw drive motor failing whereas several folks on here have had SSM fuse on the main PCB fail. SSM motors, across all brands, do fail, as Roger Cicala has written about over at Lensrentals.com - apparently quite common across brands on 70-200 f2.8 lenses especially due in part to relatively heavy glass elements in those. No idea if Sony SSM motors are more/less failure prone than those from C or N. Note I say failure is more common than with screw drive lenses - absolute failure probability is still low. Either way, there is no guarantee an a-mount lens can be fixed these days, or a body for that matter, as spares are in short supply. All that said, I still have and use my a99 and a99ii with a range of screw drive and SSM lenses. I have however stopped adding to my a-mount collection.
tbcass
Veteran Member
In the past when screw drive lenses were common I saw posts from people that had the screw drive mechanism in the camera fail. Today hardly anybody uses them so such reports would indeed be rare.
Marco Cinnirella
Veteran Member
Really? I'm an old timer on here too and I don't recall threads about screw drive motors failing apart from where folks used Minolta HS lenses incorrectly, such as trying to AF while holding focus ring. But can't say my memory for old threads is complete of course. It's all moot now as I say because any a-mount failure is likely to cause a big headache due to low part availability.
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In case you are indeed saying that today hardly anybody uses AF screw drive lenses, provision of supportive data would be appreciated. I may have misunderstood your post, though.
Reports on any issue wit Sony A Mount gear are indeed rare in general and around here anyway, seeing the low traffic in forum 1037 :-( .
Cheers,
Ralf
woodturner
Forum Enthusiast
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I use screw drive.. so that's 1 at least. 
I am tempted to quote Bill Withers, but that would be "... just ... the two of us" ;-)I use screw drive.. so that's 1 at least.
Cheers,
Ralf
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neilt3
Veteran Member
Make that three !I am tempted to quote Bill Withers, but that would be "... just ... the two of us" ;-)I use screw drive.. so that's 1 at least.
Cheers,
Ralf
Most of my lenses are Minolta screw driven ones and their still going strong on my a99ii , a77ii , older Sony and Minolta DSLRs and Film SLRs as well as on my a7Riv vie the LA-EA5 .
I have a few SSM and SAM lenses , but they get less use .
I've never heard of the AF screw drive going faulty in a camera body , unlike a few reports of the SSM fuse blowing . Though I'm not sure that that makes it a common fault , just less likely to be easily repaired .
With screw drive , what was common was gear stripping on certain Sigma lenses .
toni
Veteran Member
sigma lenses were poorly built, gear stripping was one of the reasons I stayed away from them.
neilt3
Veteran Member
Two things that Sigma did well .
Gear stripping and incompatibility with the next generation of cameras .
Must have been a marketing decision, I mean , you've got to keep selling lenses , so make sure they'll need replacing on a regular basis ! :0
The last Sigma lenses I bought were the 19mm and 30mm for a NEX 3 .
The AF of both of them broke in a very short space of time .
Last time I'll buy Sigma.
The only Sigma lens I've had ( and still have ) are the original 12-24mm , 15-30mm and the 180mm f/3.5 1:1 Macro . All screw driven and give decent results .
Every other Sigma lens has been poor , either optically or mechanically.
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toni
Veteran Member
Regarding compatibility, they reverse engineered the lens protocol resulting in incompatibility with newer cameras.
Tamron did it better, by getting the official information from Minolta.
Its a shame because the latest art series are very good optically.
Tamron did it better, by getting the official information from Minolta.
Its a shame because the latest art series are very good optically.
Marco Cinnirella
Veteran Member
That's a really outdated view. I mean not long ago most Westerners thought anything made in China would fall apart, now we all use electronicss made there and think nothing of it. Similarly, in the 70s some Japanese cars like Mazdas were pretty unreliable and now Japanese cars are the last word in reliability (unlike BMW and Mercedes, which have gone in the opposite direction).
It's true SOME Sigma lenses were poor, but some were legendary. The 10-20 they made was great bang for buck, I have an old Sigma 84mm f1.4 lens that I shoot on a99 and a99ii and it is an amazing lens, the bokeh, the sharpness wide open, superb - it is still 100% perfect after I fell over and dropped it onto concerete btw.
More recently I have acquired Sigmas for Sony FE mount and Fuji X mount and they are all stellar in terms of build, reliability and optical performance. I also own their 35mm art lens for a-mount and it is a fabulous lens.
tbcass
Veteran Member
That was then. In the last 10 years, Sigma lenses have been as good or even better than OEM.
neilt3
Veteran Member
I'll just correct my typo there .
When I wrote "Every other Sigma lens has been poor , either optically or mechanically." I meant to write " Every other Sigma lens I've owned has been poor , either optically or mechanically."
Clearly even before the ART range of lenses some of their offerings were of a high standard , but I tended to opt for the Minolta or Sony ones where available .
Either way , it's enough that I'll not give them any more of my money again .
This doesn't mean I won't buy third party lenses , just not Sigma's .
neilt3
Veteran Member
I'll just correct my typo there .
When I wrote "Every other Sigma lens has been poor , either optically or mechanically." I meant to write " Every other Sigma lens I've owned has been poor , either optically or mechanically."
John KM/linhof
Leading Member
I know this is a gear site, but here goes - an analogy:
My wife of 54 years died of cancer June of 2022, she was just short of her 78th birthday. She quit her life long love of watercolor painting at age 75. During her almost 40 years of doing watercolor portraits as a business, she painted over 1000 portraits mostly of children.
During this time she used my cameras, Minolta XK's and later Sony A850. I was her photographic technician. BUT, as a watercolor artist she was the expert. She never questioned her belief in her tools, specifically her chosen watercolor paint supplier and her brushes and the watercolor board she used. Her time was spent on studying the subject and taking notes on skin color and a sample of the subject's hair.
I try to follow her example in my photography and also Ansel Adams "pre-visualization" of what is desired of the photograph. Doesn't always work as sometimes I have shot 800+ digital images of a car show. But in the past I also have taken one image (mostly on film) of a subject both human and/or landscape and/or architectural record.
What matters (to me) is what hangs on the wall, whether it is a photograph or a painting.
Now the "wall" can be a computer screen or a digital and/or film projection screen.
My wife of 54 years died of cancer June of 2022, she was just short of her 78th birthday. She quit her life long love of watercolor painting at age 75. During her almost 40 years of doing watercolor portraits as a business, she painted over 1000 portraits mostly of children.
During this time she used my cameras, Minolta XK's and later Sony A850. I was her photographic technician. BUT, as a watercolor artist she was the expert. She never questioned her belief in her tools, specifically her chosen watercolor paint supplier and her brushes and the watercolor board she used. Her time was spent on studying the subject and taking notes on skin color and a sample of the subject's hair.
I try to follow her example in my photography and also Ansel Adams "pre-visualization" of what is desired of the photograph. Doesn't always work as sometimes I have shot 800+ digital images of a car show. But in the past I also have taken one image (mostly on film) of a subject both human and/or landscape and/or architectural record.
What matters (to me) is what hangs on the wall, whether it is a photograph or a painting.
Now the "wall" can be a computer screen or a digital and/or film projection screen.
This is a sweeping and dated generalisation. I've had numerous Sigma lenses, none of which have had stripped gears or optical faults. The Sigma 300/4 APO Macro was a great value telephoto lens for its time (many years ago) and it's a shame they stopped making it, along with the 400/5.6 APO Macro which replaced their earlier and inferior 400/5.6. I have an excellent Sigma 24-105/4 Art which is now by far my most used lens on my A99ii. And my Sigma 35/1.4 Art is also a great lens
I've been shooting A Mount since before Sony took over and I don't recall seeing any reports of screw drive motor failures. I have heard plenty of reports of problems with the SSM fuse but fortunately haven't had any myself.
neilt3
Veteran Member
Just a shame you didn't read a few more posts of this thread before replying .
You'll have noticed I clarified that typo when I said " Every other Sigma lens I've owned has been poor , either optically or mechanically." and it's still a fact .
Lucky you . Amongst others , most 70-300mm lenses tended to strip their gears .
I bought one before I knew about this , two days later returned it as the gears had stripped . And that was with my Sony a100 in 2006/7 . When the a700 came out they had no chance !
Plenty of optically poorly designed Sigma lenses as well .
The 170-500mm APO I had was soft all over , my Minolta 100-300mm APO D gave better results cropped .
The 50mm and 100mm macro's I had were also inferior to other macro lenses I've since bought and older manual focus lenses I already had .
Another gear stripper and lucky dip for compatible chip or not .
It wasn't just Minolta and Sony A mount that had these problems , Canon and Nikon users also got caught out when they upgraded bodies . possibly other brands had the same .
It's the CZ 24-7omm f/2.8 ZA SSM does a good job on my a99ii .
I have zero interest in Sigma lenses , though the ART lenses do have a good reputation .
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