> > > At the risk of tweaking some people, IMO third party lenses > > are simply not > > as good overall and to offset this they must offer lower > > prices to create a > > Whatever!!! How come only Canon and Nikon can build good lenses? It just > does not make sense! > > > place in the market. That said, not ALL Canon lenses are > > diamonds but there very are few poor lenses in the line up > within a given > > category and price point. Here are some qualifying words; among third > party > > lenses there are a few truly excellent lenses (Sigma comes to mind), but > overall > > no third party lens maker offers a complete lens system of the > quality of > > Canon (or Nikon for that matter). > > They do not need to. Most third party companies need to offer a > good set of > lenses that either offer value advantage, or simply for cases > where there is > a gap in the lineup. > > Comparable Canon and third party lenses either seem to both stink > or good at > the same time. > The worst thing companies like Sigma did were to enter the EOS market with > bad consumer lenses. That gave them a bad name which some people > still hang > on to (like you). Canon makes a lot of good lenses - they have to because > they have to sell the EOS line. Sigma etc. does what makes business sense. > THey make couple bad ones, pretty much inline with whatever Canon > makes bad > (like75-300, 28-80). But when it comes to prosumer market, i > think that many > third party offerings are at least as good as Canon. Canon also can afford > to make some truely outstanding lenses that sells for a fortune. > The target > markets are different, but for most of us who are not professional > photographers, but are not beginners either, third party lenses > can often be > a better choice. > > Anyway Chip, you must be happy since this was definitely a trol > but I still > wanted to respond. I can't understand your stubborn approach in > this case. > > > > >
Hi Evrim, I was wondering if you could follow the convention of replying at the bottom of the previously posted messages. It messes up the format and makes it hard to read for people following a thread. TIA for this. I did not intend anyone to think that I meant to say that only Canon and Nikon can make good lenses. I was writing within the context of the EOS list forum and acknowledging the fact that Canon's only real competition in the 35mm SLR pro market was Nikon in terms of a camera and lens systems. True there are other makers of pro class 35mm bodies and lenses but they all lack the depth that Canon and Nikon have and are IMO not competitive in the marketplace. This is of course shown in the number of pro class cameras and lenses shown and sold at large camera emporiums that offer all brands. With the leadership in the pro class camera and lens system sales comes a large number of advanced, and somewhat less, amateur buyers attracted to the market leaders' ability to bring some of these leading features to the consumer market. Witness the explosion of the consumer IS lens sales. When the EF 75-300IS came out they flew off the shelves. With the introduction of the EF 28-135IS, for those who understood what it represented and could part with (too dear money IMO), they could have spent on several other excellent lenses this was THE consumer class standard zoom to have. I don't see ANY OTHER camera and lens system makers offering a complete line of ultrasonic and IS lenses, not even Nikon. This take balls, vision and leadership that the other 35mm makers don't currently have or at least are not utilizing. >From what I can tell there are very few weaknesses in the Canon or Nikon camera and lens line-ups that could be seriously exploited. There are some changes I'd like to see in the Canon lens line and I'm sure that the Nikon fans could say the same. There are very few lenses offered by the third party lens makers that significantly improve upon the OEM offering at a given focal length and price point. The stink you mention of their early EOS mount lenses was VERY well deserved by all accounts. Most of Sigma's problems stem from very poor mechanical design and worse production execution quality. Sigma is the only third party lens maker I have any respect for, they have improved their mechanical design tremendously with the HAM series lenses and their optical designs have always been some of the best of the third party lenses. It seems to me also that where a given Canon lens offering is a less than stellar performer optically (compared to our high expectations), the similar focal length offering from third party lens makers is also poor. Hmm... This may tell use something, either the particular lens is difficult to design and build to a given price point and the third parties are also having difficulties meeting these goals OR to contain their design, development and production costs they are cutting corners (design, development and production costs), to maintain a healthy profit margin. If the lens is just difficult to design within the price parameters of the market (how many they think they can sell before a redesign is needed), then a third party lens maker cannot compete with Canon as they have many more lens designs to spread or share the development costs over of a low volume lens. So the third party lens maker must remove some content (money), from the design, development and production of the lens. This reduction of content is reflected in performance, build quality and ultimately reliability and long term compatibility. If on the other hand Canon has just not committed a lot of resources to a particular lens than there should exist a clear gap (as you put it), in the lens line and a third party should be able to capitalize on it. But if our common observation is true this cannot be the case as the lesser performing lenses in the Canon line are also very frequently lesser performing lenses from the third party lens makers. Hey I'm not a working pro, my primary occupation is not photography (I do how ever get paid assignments though), but I have a lot of what I consider to be expensive lenses and bodies for all of the same reasons a pro would select them. They are the best tools I can get to do photography with. IMO the Canon lenses overall offer the best values in the marketplace. Canon's pro lenses consistently sell for more new and retain a higher percentage of value in resale than third party lenses and the reasons are many, optical performance, mechanical design, build quality, reliability, EOS mount compatibility, operational quality and user interface. As to Canon's prosumer lenses, they tend to have similar characteristics as the designated pro lenses but the distinctions are less clear in the market but the trend is there. Third party lens can certainly offer good performance and value but these are rare IMO. I like to keep my glass for a long time and switch bodies as new features become important to me. If I had purchased Sigma's best lenses five or six years ago when I first got into the EOS system I would have had to have purchased new lenses by now. If the lenses hadn't fallen apart like so many people have had happen to them, the sheer frustration of not having several lens available and gone for weeks at a time for reprogramming each time I bought a newer body type would certainly have killed any satisfaction I may have gained from saving a small amount of money. The glass is the core of your imaging system, no matter how good a body you may use if the glass isn't good enough (or in your bag), you simply cannot get the image you want. This is a poor value IMO, YMMV. Canon's consumer lenses are commodity items as such suffer as do all consumer items in the marketplace. But Canon's consumer lenses are well designed optically and while optically may not be as good as the current pro AF lenses are often better performers than the pro lenses of the last generation of manual focus cameras. I think this is progress. Of course a lot of these apparent improvements are caused by improved film emulsions, but that is another matter entirely. My remarks were not a troll but if you took them as such, well, we did have fun didn't we? 8^) Regards, Chip Louie * **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************
