Zos Xavius wrote:
Why? Because pentax decided to make cameras that Sigma lenses do not
fit on anymore which cost sigma money to fix. I would say there is bad
blood. The small market share isn't likely enough to convince them
that kmount is worth their time.

There was an interview in the past year or so, and I can't find it right now, which listed two reasons. The first was the low volume of sales. The other reason was Pentax's lack of electronic aperture controls. Shortly thereafter Pentax announced the new electronic aperture controls.

I did find this interesting bit on why Sigma still makes camera bodies
https://petapixel.com/2016/10/12/sigma-still-make-cameras-sigma-ceo-blames-zombie-father/

Just found it:
http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2014/04/02/sigma-qa-part-i-ceo-kazuto-yamaki-explains-why-so-few-pentax-mount-lenses

DE: That's interesting, your comment about the engineers. It makes sense: Engineers just want to optimize their own designs, not consciously make things more difficult for third parties.

One of our readers asked why you offer so few of your lenses with the Pentax mount, and he also asked about longer telephotos, in particular. If the mounts are fairly simple -- if it's really just a matter of changing out the mount, shouldn't it be possible to make more Pentax lenses? Or is it still just a cost issue, even for a relatively small investment?

[Note, this section has been edited 4/12/14, as I had misunderstood what Yamaki san was saying, see the editorial note following this exchange]

KY: Pentax still uses mechanical parts to control the aperture. So, mechanically, it's totally different from other mounts, even though it uses the same optics. Making a Pentax mount means we have to use special parts just for Pentax mounts.

DE: It's a whole different aperture mechanism that you have to use. Ah, that's very interesting.

KY: Yes. So, we'd like to make as many lenses for Pentax as possible, but with very small demand we cannot make them frequently. For such a lens, the long back-order times are a big problem for us. So we cannot make too wide a product line for Pentax. For example, a 300mm f/2.8 -- maybe we can produce this for Pentax once every few months; but some people may need a 300mm f/2.8 now. We cannot make it so often.

DE: Ah -- you can't afford to carry a large inventory given the small sales volume, but you also have a minimum production run that's economically viable. So you end up having long lead times, sometimes. I see, that makes sense, very interesting.

[Ed. Note: I'd originally misinterpreted Yamaki san's comments here, so he clarified what he was saying in a further email exchange I had with him. I had thought he was saying that Pentax lenses were different simply because they used a mechanical aperture coupling, vs an electronic one. As several astute readers pointed out, they do, but so do lenses from Nikon and Sony.

Yamaki san's point is that lenses with mechanical aperture mechanisms require separate production runs to produce each type, vs an electronic system that would just need a different arrangement of contacts and reprogramming of the lens's CPU.

The problem for Pentaxians is that there just aren't enough of them, so demand for Pentax-mount lenses is small to the point that it's economically difficult to produce them, or at least to do so in a way that would keep Pentax users happy.

The issue is that the smaller a production run, the more costly each individual unit is, due to inefficiencies associated with switching the production line from one lens to another. As the run length becomes smaller, that fixed switchover cost become a bigger and bigger part of the cost of each unit. From a practical standpoint, there's a lower limit on run length, below which it's just not profitable for them to produce a product.

For popular lens models, the minimum production run isn't too big a problem for Pentax users, as there's enough demand that Sigma can produce a batch of lenses often enough to more or less keep them in stock in the retail channel. As you get into slightly more obscure, specialized, or perhaps more expensive glass with less demand, though, the minimum affordable production run for a given model might amount to 6 months, a year, or even a couple of years' worth of demand on the Pentax mount.

As Yamaki san explained to me, it wouldn't be viable for him to produce and market a lens that might be unavailable in the market for 6 months or a year at a time - Potential customers would become very unhappy with Sigma over the poor availability. (And, adding my own interpretation here, how could they efficiently let people know "hey, remember that cool lens we said we were making for the Pentax mount that hasn't been available for the last year? It's available now, so get out your wallets!")

At first thought, you might say "well, what's the problem, they can just build a batch of them, and warehouse them until that batch runs out, then do another run." The problem is, doing so would again increase costs, because holding large quantities of lenses in inventory would tie up Sigma's capital, meaning it wasn't available for other things that would give a much higher return. Even if Sigma were able to borrow additional money to use to hold that inventory, they'd be paying interest on it, which would again increase costs.

So, that's the full story: In my latest email with him, Yamaki san expressed what I believe was very genuine regret that he isn't able to bring more of their lenses to the Pentax mount, but can only do so for the most popular models, that will generate enough demand to be produced sustainably.


On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 2:13 PM, Darren Addy<pixelsmi...@gmail.com>  wrote:
You know Sigma has the tooling/technology. I have three Sigma EX AF
lenses and they are all wonderful (50-500mm, 10-20mm, and 28mm f1.8).

This announcement does not include a Pentax mount:
http://www.newsshooter.com/2017/02/21/sigma-announces-four-new-lenses-including-the-full-frame-14mm-f1-8-dg-hsm-art/


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