Sigma CEO confirms ‘most new products’ will be ‘exclusively for mirrorless cameras’

Lol, you clearly are young? Your spelling and grammar suggest so. Older systems? They are still releasing DSLRs so likely you have an older system?

I believe in social media (and I include this website) that there is an unrepresentative young fan-base supported by a few old codgers who want success so pander to sub 45 year olds?

Sony especially seems to have a large young (not well educated) fanboy base (ex-playstation?) who cannot take criticism or debate anything. Probably still living at home with mum?

I cannot think of one practising and competitive sub 40 year old in the dozen camera clubs I know of? Yes lots on the internet producing digital images but less so producing salon quality prints.

Perhaps in 25 years time ...... lol

I liked that Sillen. I enjoy sarcasm. My observations are from real photographers (as you say) not internet manipulated Sony fanboys. That suggests that 'new' Sigma dslr lens fittings are now stopped by Sigma .... or are they?

@Waipingqi

Yes I agree. However despite owning three wide drawers full of lenses, i do buy new lenses. It is a truism though that less DSLR lenses are bought as many have sufficient lenses. Certainly when and if I move to mirrorless (Nikon Z8?) although I might use existing lenses via an adapter that would be foolish in the longer term as what Nikon as putting out with Z bayonets are outstanding. Some of the best measured lenses ever!

Sigma's corner of the market is photographers who want the absolute highest level of image quality and don't care about fiddling with a USB dock, correcting focusing issues, carrying around a 5 pound lens, etc. and are also price-sensitive.

Working pros don't need the utmost highest level of image quality (those who do shoot medium format)... they need reliability, they need to get the shot 100% of the time, and time is money for them... they will always get 1st party lenses.

As for "No reverse engineering" EOS R is available since November 2018, a year later, November 2019 a rumor was published that Sigma is working on RF lens road map. It's March 19, 2020 and no more rumors, not a single official hint from Sigma that they'd make any RF lenses any soon. Canon is brilliantly fanfaring the coming EOS R5, and, if Sigma had any RF plans, this would be an excellent possibility to piggyback the Canon R5 marketing campaign, but Sigma is silent about RF. Similarly they are silent about Fujifilm X and Z, but eloquent about L, E and m4/3 mounts, the mounts that require no reverse engineering.

Here is my pure speculation about the technical/legal aspects of RF reverse engineering:
I can see three major factors Sigma is totally silent about RF:
(1) Reverse engineering a reliable, production quality RF protocol seems/proved to be a lot more challenging than stone-age primitives like EF.
(2) Canon RF protocol might check the lens make and model, and if it is not an officially supported genuine (Canon) lens, the camera stops working with the lens. That is, first, Sigma has to make a contract with Canon. EF lenses via the adapter are accepted to keep status quo and customers.
(3) Canon may be threatening to take legal actions, if and when a third party reverse engineer their intellectual property coming out with products eating Canon's revenue who spent a hell lot of money to make its own RF ecosystem/market.

Again, it's possible that they haven't put much research into RF yet, considering there are only two camera bodies out for a system that's only coming up on a year old.

@Wai, really interesting, the only autofocus RF lens I found was the 14mm f2.8 https://www.samyanglensglobal.com/en/product/product-view.php?seq=446, which is definitely interesting since it is demonstrating the technical possibility that making an electronic AF RF lens is doable, whatever the AF performence was, and Canon is not raising legal actions against Samyang.

@Waipingqi L mount surpass RF and Z? What? Come on. I will bet any amount of money that will not happen.

DFPanno, Where did anyone say that? No one did. What a stupid comment.

DFPanno
Oh, so you have a reading compression problem. I got it.
Normal people saw the rest of the quote (Which you chopped off) that says, "It is not that straight forward though"

Urbex Mark, I didn't say mirrorless is niche'. Where did you read that? I said FF is niche' .

Examples are ok in theory but not relevant to the real market situation!
From real market data we can see almost every big company is alive because of its mass products. And very few stay alive because of their exclusive products - like Leica.
If we see example in case of Sigma - we see them selling on 1/2 of the prices of OEM lenses.
So everybody producing lens only for smallest market share ( 35mm ) is recipe for market failure!
And most people will not buy same mount but bigger and expensive lenses to use them with their APS-C bodies. Also they will not go 35mm body.

Yeah, we know saying going on for a while. And if hold some true - 35mm camera owners usual are willing to pay more, exactly as Leica owners, MF owners and so on. Buuuut!
Actually APS-C owners from big 3 ( Canon, Nikon Sony ) does not have much choice if they have at all! And this if from years, and this is same or worse with MILC!
But!!!!!! If there is relation between sensor size and sold lenses:
1.) MF and Leica need to sell much more lenses - because they are much more expensive and PRO like tools. And their owners for sure are prepared for big expenses.
2.) 4/3 sensor format need to sell no different lenses than KIT - because by marketing "this are not PRO tools and cheap".
3.) Fuji need to sell no lenses for APS-C but only lenses for MF. Again for same reasons.
4.) Smartphones need to have zero market for lenses/adapters because their are cheaper, not PRO and blah, blah and so on............
Buuut nothing from above is real or hold any true! ....................

Continue:
Fuji actually have widest APS-C range of lenses and actually sell them and expand them. And they have small part of APS-C market! So they need to be at total loss.... They do the same but much slower for MF which based on commented logic is totally opposite! Because MF owners are really prepared for much bigger expenses!!! And there is almost no alternative.
Also smartphone market is literally exploding for all kind of lens/adapters including Anamorphic........ Also again opposite to explained logic.
4/3rd again wide selection of lenses with very small market share compared to APS-C! From cheaper to special lenses! And most cameras are cheaper than APS-C and 35mm.
And for sure there is no MF or Leica lenses sold like hot cakes!
Sorry but to say that largest with orders of magnitude ILC market hold no potential for selling lenses is total BS!!! Yes APS-C camera owners will not buy overpriced 35mm lenses this is for sure!!!

it's for the customers to look and count the blades in awe

definitely not. EF-M does not really need reverse-engineered mount protocol Sigma lenses that were drveloped for a different mount system originally. just a marginal piggyback riding 3rd party addition to Canon EOS M system. EF-M 22/2, 28/3.5 Macro, 32/1.4 are better, truly native lenses.

if Sigma REALLY want to make a WORTHWHILE addition to EOS M system, then bring 2 newly designed, useful, constant f/4 lenses that are ultracompact, with good IQ and affordable price to fill existing gaps in EF-M lineup instead of mount- converted minority program niche prime lenses.

decent, supercompact 15-75/4.0 IS STM and 50-150/4.0 lenses would be welcome.

and if primes, then something LONGER than 50mm, because those arr currently missing. eg a 85/2.4 IS STM optically as good as the 22/2 and 32/1.4 canon ef-m.

I don't believe that they can design lenses only for one system. Their long term plan is to use the same designs for different camera systems, in order to have economy of scale. Usually, the manufacturers for that type of cameras have decent and cheap (usually kit) zooms, so the market is free for companies like Sigma to produce Primes that may the users want to buy. And the market is not only Canon here, is Sony, Canon, Nikon Z, Fuji APS camera market combined, in order to be able to reuse the same designs.

They are good lenses, better than many other Canon M's, and they are also affordable, part of the cost effective benefit of being made for many platforms. I don't think you'll hear too many M users complaining.

not interested in those Sigma lenses. not cheap enough given their hacked / reverse engineered mount protocol and too big for what they are. Sigma did not utilize EF-M mount true potential. all 3 of their lenses could have been almost pancake sized. like the outstanding, dirt- cheap canon EF- M 22/2.0. when Canon launches a native EF-M 50/1.8 STM some day soon for € 150, Sigma 56 will look ridiculous.

You are not the only customer out there. There are people that prefer 1.4 vs 1.8 even @APS format.

sure. 0.01% of EOS M users might possibly buy the Sigma 56/1.4. Even less than EF-M 32/1.4 buyers. Rest of us go with adapted EF 50/1.8 for € 90 and call it a day and really good bang for the buck. :-)

And, of course there are people that don't like the bulk of adapted lenses (I am on of them, even if I am using a different system).

35mm was cheapest, this is not the case now!
35mm is expensive at the moment!
This is why smartphones rules now!

The trio is for APS-C!

Are their L-Mount APS-C cameras on the market?

i am referring to the 16-55 f2.8 on the A6xxx, especially when use this setup on a small gimbel like Crane m2.

We need to include lenses when we compare both formats.

If you use equivalent aperture to compare image quality of both format, they will come closer.

Fujifilm exec's will gladly talk about APSC.
They and Canon are the only two companies building market share at the moment.

And that A7III vs XT4 comparison someone mentioned?
4k 60p video, 20-30FPS, better IBIS (in tests so far), and a lot more, vs. Near entry level specs on the A7III.
No contest there. The A7III is a tiny bit better in some situations, but in many other situations the A7iii CANNOT do it.

I'll take a tiny loss in IQ only seen when zooming in near 100% and with certain lenses under some conditions vs. Unable to A LOT.

@lawny13 - "So... if you wanted a 55-200 f4.5-6.3, the equivalent FF lens would be 85-300 f6.5 -f9." - all else "equivalent" difference between 200mm and 300mm is 100mm - 10 cm !!! Maybe the weight could be similar but size could not!!!

@video-vs-photo

I realize that of course. All I was pointing out is that there aren't many like to like comparisons to be had equivalence-wise. How small can a f6.5-f9 be? I don't know. Or rather I don't want to go into calculating it. But people consider FF to be heavy and big and expensive. But when you look at when manufurers go and make a lens that would be FF equivalent in terms of build quality and speed (DOF) they get huge... fast.

Like the fuji 200 f2. Yes, its 50 mm shorter than the EF 300 f2.8 and 200 grams lighter. But the weight is a 10% difference and length a quarter. And their prices are quite comparable.

Point is that most regular consumers would compare an APS-C 55-200 to a 70-300 both with relatively the same variable apertuer and remark thta APS-C lenses are considerably smaller than FF. But if you applied the quivantly build quality and apertures... the gap isn't quite as big.

@C plus plus

A7III... entry level specs? Wow... how the world and exceptions have changed.

If you need 4k60p and 20 fps then by all means. But most generally. Most don't need faster than 8fps or 4k60p. Well, I guess there are those who love to have the highest specs possible even if they don't use them.

Oh ya.. you need to be comparing the A7III to the XT3. They are the same gen relatively speaking. The XT4 would be better compared to the A7IV when it comes out, and it would hit the 2k price point.

@joenj - I have and like the R...I just bought the Tamron 45 1.8, and have a few EF lenses. I’d just like to see some compact options.

dSLR lens owners cannot abandon their dSLRs for mirrorless. For mirrorless to sell it should come with covert adapters for free.

There are very few holes on the m4/3 lineup, so the third party makers don't have nearly the opportunities there as they do for APS-C. Some of that m4/3 glass is really special, too, like the Oly Pro primes.

@fungshui. Show me the APS-C equivalent of the Olympus 45mm f1.2 Pro. In fact, who me the APS-C equivalent of any of the Oly Pro lenses.

@dmanthree Fujifilm 56mm f/1.2

Not stubborn on any brand, but neither of those lenses you mentioned is as good as the Oly. The Sigma is much softer in the corners and the Fuji is just plain soft wide open. Not a stupid question at all. Beyond that tele, honestly, there is nothing in APS-C that can touch the Oly pro lenses. I don't shoot m4/3, but that's a fact. Just my opinion, that's all.

From the Lenstip review of the Fuji: "When it comes to the maximum relative aperture the tested lens is on the borderline between decent and weak results."

@dmanthree
I don't know whether you know how to read a MTF chart. Let's use the same source as you quoted, lenstip, and focus on sharpness.

Fujifilm Fujinon XF 56 mm f/1.2 R Review - Sharpness
https://www.lenstip.com/420.4-Lens_review-Fujifilm_Fujinon_XF_56_mm_f_1.2_R_Image_resolution.html

Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 45 mm f/1.2 PRO Review - Sharpness
https://www.lenstip.com/524.4-Lens_review-Olympus_M.Zuiko_Digital_ED_45_mm_f_1.2_PRO_Image_resolution.html

In the center, the highest MTF50 reached by Oly 1.2/45 is 96.3lpmm. And let's simplify it and we assume the same sharpness for the whole sensor coverage is the same(which it isn't). It means Olympus 1.2/45 resolved 1637 line pairs per long edge of the sensor. The MTF50 of Fujifilm 1.2/56 reached 75.6lpmm. On the same matrix as above Fujifilm resolved 1784 line pairs per long edge. Fujifilm won.

TBC

For the sharpness on the edge using similar calculation, Olympus reached 80 lpmm which translates to 1360 lines pair per long edge and Fujifilm reached 59 lpmm which translates to 1392 lines pair per long edge. Fujifilm won again. Neither support your claim of Olympus 45mm F/1.2 being unique or special. At best it is similar to Fujifilm 56mm F/1.2 within margin of errors and sample variance.

Why Lenstip gave worse comments on Fujifilm than Olympus despite Fujiflim outperformed Olympus you ask? Haha, obviously Lenstip had a higher expectation on Fujifilm than Olympus. Surprise! It tells you about how it perceives these two brands.

While I have one D500 myself, but I am mostly FF and M4/3 but hardly use the APS-C. even when I use the D500 for Airshow and wild life, I am using all FF lens so not interested in any APS-C lens at all.

@Greg:
Lol, that was pretty funny! Hope you're not actually mad. If so, please don't be. But thanks for the literal lol! 😂

Maybe the 35mm should just rot away? Not enough IQ difference but too slow. And if you need resolution MF and LF is much better.

I really like my Samyang 35/2.8, it's sharp, tiny, and extremely light.

unfortunately it comes with a huge vignetting penalty, which tends to happen with small lenses.

Not an option for me. You need adapter (another brick), so you will lose small size of some vintage lenses anyway, and you have manual focusing only. My point is, that I expected progress in lens construction for mirrorless. And I can see quite the opposite - let alone giant 1.2 RF lenses, but 50 & 35/1.8 Z - what a shame! Take a look: http://j.mp/2NjMSmQ

@Piotr Kiszka

https://camerasize.com/compact/#795.786,486.353,777.395,777.580,777.846,ha,t

I don't think it's fair to say all mirrorless lenses trend towards larger size

@ Piotr Kiszka

Lens adaptor size varies, depending on the mirrorless camera and the lens.

Rangefinder lenses, Leica M mount & L39 screwmount, use very small adaptors. On M4/3 they're 9mm long. They barely add any size or weight to the lenses.

A typical SLR lens adaptor on M4/3 is 25mm long. That's probably what you're referring to. I agree about the added length being problematic for some lenses, unless it's a more specialized lens, like a macro lens.

Still, adapting lenses makes little sense to me, as I need dependable AF. That's what I need my camera to do - mostly family events, travel and portraits. Lot of AF-C and subject tracking. I use D610 + 35 Art + 85 Nikkor 1.4G, and Leica Q - mostly for travel. So far, I cannot convince myself to "switch" into mirrorless SLR - I see little-to-no gain, for a lot of money.

That is essentially true, but consider M4/3 market share and the amount of demand for those lenses. Isn't Sigma better off developing prime lenses for Sony FE, Nikon Z, or Canon RF rather than for M4/3 with it's 3% market penetration? Even Canon EOS M lenses make sense for Sigma on that level, at least in Japan.

It is entirely possible that Sigma will produce primes for m43s. But us m43s types will probably have to be satisfied with primes designed with FF in mind. A 'small' FF prime lens, might seem a tad large on an E-M10 or E-M5. Less so on an E-M1 or an E-M1X naturally. (I have always believed the "X" stood for Xtra large, or Xtra fast)

@Marty4650
Well, that's exactly what Sigma is doing. Developing lenses for Sony-E and EOS-M and also offer them in M43.

Sigma also would only hurt their own business with this. After all, they design and manufacture many of the Olympus/ Panasonic M43 lenses already

I totally agree with what @Marty4650 above, while I do have one M4/3 camera, but i look around, I can hardly find anyone around is using M4/3 as their main system, know a few guy has one small body and pancake zoom kit lens, that's about how far they want to go with this system, the last M4/3 lens I got was the Sigma 56 F1.4, a great lens BTW, i for one have no plan to spend any big $$$ on this system, I am sure there is people out there buying all the high end M4/3 lenses but market is pretty small, so I bet Sigma will spend their resource on the FF market at least for now, that's where the money is, just look at their new 35 F1.2, 40 F1.4, 24-70 F2.8 DG DN......

Maybe some f2.0 or f1.8 zooms? They behave the excellent ef 18-35 f1.8, a m43 version will be much welcome. Yes pana has the 10-25 f1.7, but who don't want some cheap alternatives.

For sure, a 14-25mm f/1.8 lens (the M4/3 focal length equivalent of an APSC 18-35mm f/1.8 lens) would be a bit cheaper than the 10-25mm f/1.7 lens, but it would still be a very expensive lens. Not something that could be considered a cheap alternative.

@xeppelin, you contradict yourself... First you say ''I'd never spend serious money on a lens with potential issues with every new camera model'' and after that you say ''Would love to get some good, compact, affordable constant f/4 zooms and moderately fast primes (like Samyang AF lenses, but not reverse engineered AF) for Canon mirrorfree''...
There can be NO third party lenses without reverse engineering for Nikon Z and Canon R mount. Canon M is dead mount. There are rumors of R mount apc-c cameras coming.

no contradiction. I would not spend "serious money" (= in my personal definition more than about € 699 on reverse-engineered 3rd party lenses. If however, Sigma came along with a 15-75/4.0 OSS lens for EF-M priced at 499 and Canon would not offer something comparable, I might consider.

There have been rumors all along of an Canon EOS R body with APS-C sensor. But there never will be one. EOS R is and will be FF and FF only.

Canon EOS M is far from "dead", actually quite the opposite: best-selling ILC system on market. Thanks to small size and small price of both cameras and lenses. Soon enough it will be Canon's only crop-sensor ILC system - when they finally ditch their crop mirrorslappers. KISS bye bye to REBELS. :-)

Unless you are using a Fuji XE1 or similar There is nothing wrong with the AF speed of the Fuji lenses.

At least my XT3 with the 18mm f2, 23mm f2 and 35mm f1.4 focus as fast as anyone could ever need. And the IQ is absolutely amazing. I wouldn’t dare to pair my XT3 with plasticky 3-pound Sigma lenses.

There no nikon mirrorless at that time.