Photokina 2018: Sigma interview - 'There's no magic to it, we just try to be unique'

[mi-fu]

A very interesting interview with Sigma CEO Katuto Yamaki.

The coolest line is near the end:

"Yes, this is a problem! Usually manufacturers choose flat ground for their factories, but my father liked to build in the middle of the mountains. His dream was to become a company like Carl Zeiss, and they have a factory in the hills. He thought that flat ground was boring! It’s very challenging."



https://www.dpreview.com/interviews/1588388811/photokina-2018-sigma-interview

 

[amirm]

Very frank and honest answers. This caught my eye:

Wonder if my current DSLR lens collection will be totally obsolete 10 years from now.

 

[mi-fu]

Wonder if my current DSLR lens collection will be totally obsolete 10 years from now.

The lenses won't be obsolete, as there will be adapters

But I guess DSLR will almost certainly disappear in non-specialized markets in 10 years time. By then, most people will prefer lenses designed for mirrorless. They will be smaller / lighter / and perform better.

I feel sad about my lens collection now

 

[Soniclife]

Wonder if my current DSLR lens collection will be totally obsolete 10 years from now.

They will be, but in 20 years they will be retro and cool again, if they still work properly.

 

[restorer-john]

Wonder if my current DSLR lens collection will be totally obsolete 10 years from now.

Judging by the ever increasing numbers of lenses and DSLR bodies on the retail secondhand market (cash converters stores) around us and the downward spiral of prices on even top quality glass, I think it's already happened.

The 2nd hand prices on crop lenses have more than halved in the last 12 months.

I blame the phone cameras, people are pulling out virtually unused camera gear they haven't used for several years and simply selling them for cents on the dollar. I've picked up Nikon bodies with less than 20 frames shot on them.

 

[JJB70]

I went through this a few years ago when Kyocera pulled the plug on Contax/Yashica and my rather expensive Contax RTS3 and Zeiss lenses were left as a beautifully engineered and made relic of a system no longer live. Very sad, as in terms of engineering and quality of buold I still think the old Kyocera Contax system remains unsurpassed. After that I went for much more modest gear as it became clear that the old idea of buying top quality lenses as an investment for life was dead.

 

[restorer-john]

I went through this a few years ago when Kyocera pulled the plug on Contax/Yashica

I have some lovely Yashica lenses from when I had a film SLR (about 1987). A burglar stole the body and left the lenses which are still in my storeroom.

 

[mi-fu]

I went through this a few years ago when Kyocera pulled the plug on Contax/Yashica and my rather expensive Contax RTS3 and Zeiss lenses were left as a beautifully engineered and made relic of a system no longer live. Very sad, as in terms of engineering and quality of buold I still think the old Kyocera Contax system remains unsurpassed. After that I went for much more modest gear as it became clear that the old idea of buying top quality lenses as an investment for life was dead.

Contax system was once a great system. I owned a Contax AX camera. It used a movable film plate mechanism to offer auto focus for manual lenses. Quite a design!!

It was a real pity that Kyocera pulled out from camera industry. If my memory is correct, they were also one of the earliest manufacturers offering full-frame 35mm camera. I have heard that the camera business was too small for Kyocera group, so they decided to simply close it during the analog-digital transition.

The analog-digital transition really shook up the whole camera industry.

- Nikon, the once leader, now clearly becomes a 2nd tier-player.
- Sony becomes a market leader within years from nowhere
- Bronica, Contax, Mamiya, Minolta, Rolleiflex are all gone or taken over.
- Hasselblad, Olympus, Pentax, Ricoh are all in precarious positions.
- Sigma, Tokina, Tamron, Voigltlander are now seen as well-regarded lens makers.
- Leica becomes a pure luxurious brand
- Fujifilm turned from a film manufacturer to a niche camera manufactuer
- Only Canon maintains its #1 position

 

[JJB70]

My first "serious" camera was a Yashica FX-D, it was a superb camera, very solid build and nice handling yet in the UK at least it always slipped below the radar and never had anything like the equivalent Olympus, Minolta, Canon etc models. One of the big selling points was access to the Contax/Zeiss lens system via a shared lens mount, OK the lenses were very expensive next to the body but the lens is critical and it allowed you to have a relatively low cost second body if you did move up to Contax. I remember the AX, it spoke volumes of the design expertise and manufacturing capabilities of Contax that they made the system work. My RTS3 had a vacuum film back. To be honest I'm not sure I've ever owned a consumer item that has came anywhere close to the depth of engineering and sheer quality of that camera.

 

[pierre]

I went through this a few years ago when Kyocera pulled the plug on Contax/Yashica and my rather expensive Contax RTS3 and Zeiss lenses were left as a beautifully engineered and made relic of a system no longer live. Very sad, as in terms of engineering and quality of buold I still think the old Kyocera Contax system remains unsurpassed. After that I went for much more modest gear as it became clear that the old idea of buying top quality lenses as an investment for life was dead.

Same here. I have recycle some optics on my Pentax camera, 50mm 1.4 works very well for ex but I had no luck with some.

 

[Ron Texas]

I'm not sure that I buy into a heavy switch to mirrorless in a short time. As for crop cameras, 135 format has reached a price where crop doesn't make sense when the total system cost is considered.

 

[FrantzM]

I d

Contax system was once a great system. I owned a Contax AX camera. It used a movable film plate mechanism to offer auto focus for manual lenses. Quite a design!!

It was a real pity that Kyocera pulled out from camera industry. If my memory is correct, they were also one of the earliest manufacturers offering full-frame 35mm camera. I have heard that the camera business was too small for Kyocera group, so they decided to simply close it during the analog-digital transition.

The analog-digital transition really shook up the whole camera industry.

- Nikon, the once leader, now clearly becomes a 2nd tier-player.
- Sony becomes a market leader within years from nowhere
- Bronica, Contax, Mamiya, Minolta, Rolleiflex are all gone or taken over.
- Hasselblad, Olympus, Pentax, Ricoh are all in precarious positions.
- Sigma, Tokina, Tamron, Voigltlander are now seen as well-regarded lens makers.
- Leica becomes a pure luxurious brand
- Fujifilm turned from a film manufacturer to a niche camera manufacturer
- Only Canon maintains its #1 position

I understand you were addressing the "Camera" Industry ... if we were to add the film industry the changes were cataclysmic.. Kodak is no more .... Well... Kodak exist in some form but is likely a gnat by any metrics .. Fuji was its closest competitor it is as you said, now a maker of niche cameras ... Where are the European Film and paper brands: Agfa, Ilford, etc .. They may still be alive but ...
Sony has been circling the wagon for a while back in the days they came up with the Mavica which was not that well received ... in 1981, followed by the Mavica Pro lines which were as bad although ... Yet it signaled the direction things here going, especially Kodak .. The rest is history or current news I remember laughing seeing the bad pictures from a Mavica an intrepid and wealthy person bought in 1994.. I laugh no more at what comes out of my iPhone

 

[restorer-john]

I remember laughing seeing the bad pictures from a Mavica an intrepid and wealthy person bought in 1994

I remember playing with one too, taking some pics of the girlfriend I had at the time. We thought it was amazing putting pictures instantly (well slowly actually) on a 3.5" floppy drive! It was big chunky thing and around $1399ish.

That Mavica floppy disc I found years later in a box and it contained a few pictures of a young friend/employee of mine who sadly died in his mid 20s from a super aggressive bowel cancer. I still have those happy images, which one day I hope to give his son if I can ever find him, as he would have very few pictures of his Dad- (his partner was pregnant with him, when his Dad died) He was also a best man at my wedding and I have pics of that too.

So Mavica may have been a terrible camera, but the images it took could be priceless to a young man.

 

[mi-fu]

An excellent piece on the analog-digital transition, on the case of Kodak and Fujifilm:

https://petapixel.com/2018/10/19/why-kodak-died-and-fujifilm-thrived-a-tale-of-two-film-companies/

The most eye-catching part is regarding to Fuji:

Even before launching the VISION 75 plan, the president ordered the head of R&D to take inventory of Fujifilm technologies, its seeds and compared them with the demand of the international market. After a year and a half of technological auditing, the R&D team came up with a chart listing the all existing in-house technologies that could match future markets.

Very smart and daring move!

 

[AnalogSteph]

As there seems to be the odd Contax/Yashica system lens owner in this thread - I hope you guys are aware that there are conversion kits available. The lenses themselves are still considered very good glass. I do have to wonder how they'd stack up against some more modern constructions *cough* Samyang 135mm f/2 and 16mm f/2 *cough* but it's not like you couldn't have both. I do wish manufacturers would come out with some nice, reasonably compact fixed focal teles again, like the 135mm f/2.8s of yore. That 135mm f/2 is some first-rate glass but also about twice the size and weight.

I think it is obvious at this point that crop DSLRs may not have too much of a future. The long flange distance inherited from their full-frame film predecessors makes their wideangle lenses big, heavy and expensive at the very least. (Or small, but meh performers and still expensive, like the wide Pentax Limiteds. I still like the concept, but these days you'd rather have a cute lens on an equally cute mirrorless body.) Incidentally, the best ratio of sensor size to flange distance to date would have to be found in the brand new Nikon Z mirrorless system presented earlier this year - full frame and 16 mm, narrowly beating Leica SL @ 19 mm and Canon EOS R @ 20 mm. This is making crop systems with APS-C sensors and 44-48 mm look pretty sad. It's atually shorter than Micro-4/3 at 19.25 mm, a system with a sensor half the size.
Anyway, what we might still see is a square 36x36 mm image sensor - after all, lenses are circular. You could shoot full frame, full frame vertical, a square 30.6 mm format or anything in between.

Sigma's modern-day zooms are pretty solid as far as I'm concerned, I can't complain much about the 70-300 DG OS nor the 17-50 f/2.8 (I don't think it's quite as good optically as the excellent Pentax 16-85, but it cost me a fraction on the used market and does fine for me). I think their reputation has gone up quite a bit since they came out with the excellent Art series lenses.

I think the main problems of fancy photography equipment these days are that either you can't be bothered to lug it along (size / weight), or you very much would like to take pictures but aren't allowed to.