SIGMA to make a major RF mount announcement in the near future [CR1]

[chrysoberyl]

Hoping to see some good Macros for RF from Sigma.

I would very much like to see a version of the sharp 70mm Art without the flaky focus-by-wire. I would buy a RF camera to go with such a lens. 2:1 magnification would be icing on the cake.

 

[koenkooi]

I would very much like to see a version of the sharp 70mm Art without the flaky focus-by-wire. I would buy a RF camera to go with such a lens. 2:1 magnification would be icing on the cake.

I'm going to bet that future Sigma lenses with AF will all be focus-by-wire, so I'm curious, do you object to f-b-w in general or just the flaky one in the 70mm?
The only f-b-w macro I have is the EF-M 28mm and manual focus on that is 'OK' for me. Not great, but not bad either.

 

[Chaitanya]

I would very much like to see a version of the sharp 70mm Art without the flaky focus-by-wire. I would buy a RF camera to go with such a lens. 2:1 magnification would be icing on the cake.

Personally I really would like to see RF native 150mm Macro or 180mm f4 Macro which can shoot beyond 1x mag ratio(even if there are limitation for AF I would buy them). Even I was put off by that wierd implementation of FbW on Sigma 70mm Macro.
Given that Canon will just release a 100mm Macro initially with slowly bringing the niche 180mm and MP-E replacements for RF, we just have to see what Sigma really introduce for MILC market.

 

[usern4cr]

Personally I really would like to see RF native 150mm Macro or 180mm f4 Macro which can shoot beyond 1x mag ratio(even if there are limitation for AF I would buy them). Even I was put off by that wierd implementation of FbW on Sigma 70mm Macro.
Given that Canon will just release a 100mm Macro initially with slowly bringing the niche 180mm and MP-E replacements for RF, we just have to see what Sigma really introduce for MILC market.

I'd also like to see a longer RF macro, like 150 or 180mm or even longer, that could go to 2x instead of the normal 1x. And I'd prefer to see it in an L IS USM version.

Maybe if enough people mention this to Canon, they might consider making one!

 

[Max TT]

They need to do something better than Art series. They're nowhere close to modern L lenses in quality (except if you're one of those people who thinks quality=sharpness and nothing else.)

Anyway. Sigma won't do any genuinely unique RF glass. It will be something that they can also produce for E mount, L mount and Z mount, which means it has to be designed to lowest common denominators, meaning taking the largest flange distance of the three (RF/L, 20mm), the narrowest mount diameter (E mount, 46.1mm) - so compromise lenses.

With native glass being relatively expensive Sigma have a niche for producing relatively inexpensive lenses that fit nicely in quality between the inexpensive (eg non-L) native lenses and the professional (eg L lenses) native lenses for each mount.

If you're not used to L glass you'll love them.

Ok Sigma head of development, thanks for letting us know

 

[Trey T]

They need to do something better than Art series. They're nowhere close to modern L lenses in quality (except if you're one of those people who thinks quality=sharpness and nothing else.)

Anyway. Sigma won't do any genuinely unique RF glass. It will be something that they can also produce for E mount, L mount and Z mount, which means it has to be designed to lowest common denominators, meaning taking the largest flange distance of the three (RF/L, 20mm), the narrowest mount diameter (E mount, 46.1mm) - so compromise lenses.

With native glass being relatively expensive Sigma have a niche for producing relatively inexpensive lenses that fit nicely in quality between the inexpensive (eg non-L) native lenses and the professional (eg L lenses) native lenses for each mount.

If you're not used to L glass you'll love them.

For the existing Art and Contemp series, it depends on the work you do to determine which is more "feasible". You've made great points but I can divide up those points into at least 10 different conversations, but let's focus. The question we all have to answer is what is the most feasible setup for ourselves, w/ respective to our objectives.

For a less generic conversation, most of us know that telephoto zoom lens from Art and L for sporting purposes are not the same. The L zoom lenses are optimized for 1D body, utilizing the full 12v system, for consistent and precise performance. On the other end of the spectrum of performance, having to do portraits, Art is arguably the most feasible lens you can pair up w/ any modern EOS DSLR. Data have shown that Sigma have made a trend in improvement of performance and loved by many. It's a good argument to make that based on that upward trend, their design philosophy have the potential to be more "feasible" product in most aspects than L lenses.

I would love to hear you articulate about Sigma's future plans, based on your personal experience

 

[slclick]

Ok Sigma head of development, thanks for letting us know

There are a few Art lenses which are better in many ways than a few L lenses. Let's not start acting like L's are all Zeiss optics or Schneider builds.85% of the L line is magnificent but there are some average ones. And that's ok, they are still very, very good.

Sorry, not directed at you Max but the Head of Sigma Art Dev

 

[jolyonralph]

There are a few Art lenses which are better in many ways than a few L lenses. Let's not start acting like L's are all Zeiss optics or Schneider builds.85% of the L line is magnificent but there are some average ones. And that's ok, they are still very, very good.

Sorry, not directed at you Max but the Head of Sigma Art Dev

Glad to see the Sigma fans out in force. It's funny how defensive people get of the things they've spent their money on.

Now, the random focusing issues on the Sigma Art potentially go away when you're using mirrorless anyway, so it's likely that Sigma is going to be more reliable on RF than it ever was on EF mount - which has to be a good thing.

There aren't any Sigma lenses that are better than any of the Canon RF L lenses - and it's RF lenses we're talking about here - and Canon RF L glass is killer.

 

[slclick]

Glad to see the Sigma fans out in force. It's funny how defensive people get of the things they've spent their money on.

Now, the random focusing issues on the Sigma Art potentially go away when you're using mirrorless anyway, so it's likely that Sigma is going to be more reliable on RF than it ever was on EF mount - which has to be a good thing.

There aren't any Sigma lenses that are better than any of the Canon RF L lenses - and it's RF lenses we're talking about here - and Canon RF L glass is killer.

I'm no Siggy fan, just realistic about certain lenses characteristics. But see, now you're editing/changing your post. You said L. . Just admit it, say you meant RF and be done. Next.No biggee.

 

[jolyonralph]

I'm no Siggy fan, just realistic about certain lenses characteristics. But see, now you're editing/changing your post. You said L. . Just admit it, say you meant RF and be done. Next.No biggee.

I'm also not trying to say that Sigma lenses are terrible, I have a couple of Sigma E mount lenses for APS-C that are inexpensive and very nice quality. I've had bad experiences with EF mount Sigma lenses before including Art lenses, which has made me wary of buying anything else from them until now, but I'm sure they will fill a useful gap for those who don't need and can't afford the RF L lenses from Canon (and count me in that group. Only one I have currently is the RF 24-105L)

 

[chrysoberyl]

I'm going to bet that future Sigma lenses with AF will all be focus-by-wire, so I'm curious, do you object to f-b-w in general or just the flaky one in the 70mm?
The only f-b-w macro I have is the EF-M 28mm and manual focus on that is 'OK' for me. Not great, but not bad either.

The 70mm ART is my only experience with focus-by-wire. I otherwise love the lens, but wow - it takes so long to focus manually - it's so easy to go too far and then overcompensate and repeat! I miss too many insect shots because of this problem.

I appreciate your input on this subject!

 

[Ozarker]

So do you support competition or not?

Rewarding Canon for being dickish and refusing to license their lens communications protocols undermines competition. They'll never change unless people step up and buy Sigma.

Yeah, because it is "dickish" to protect what one toiled and spent $ on to develop. You expect Sigma to be able to use the invention of others without paying into it? That, my friend, is the antithesis of competition. Let Sigma figure it out.

Are you a pro photographer? Would it be "dickish" for people to infringe on your copyrights? Would it be "dickish" of me to claim the use of your gear, car, or house just because I want them and can sublet them? Please.

I get it. You want RF glass, but don't want to pay the Canon RF price. Instead, you want somebody like Sigma to make something cheaper for you and you don't care whether or not Canon has to pay for it. It doesn't matter that Canon engineers have families to feed. You just want a Sigma RF lens.

 

[usern4cr]

Yeah, because it is "dickish" to protect what one toiled and spent $ on to develop. You expect Sigma to be able to use the invention of others without paying into it? That, my friend, is the antithesis of competition. Let Sigma figure it out.

Are you a pro photographer? Would it be "dickish" for people to infringe on your copyrights? Would it be "dickish" of me to claim the use of your gear, car, or house just because I want them and can sublet them? Please.

I get it. You want RF glass, but don't want to pay the Canon RF price. Instead, you want somebody like Sigma to make something cheaper for you and you don't care whether or not Canon has to pay for it. It doesn't matter that Canon engineers have families to feed. You just want a Sigma RF lens.

I agree with the gist of your post. I think that Canon ought to have the legal right to prevent other companies from making lenses to work with their bodies, unless they come to a legal agreement with Canon beforehand. I'm actually surprised that they don't have sufficient encryption to ensure only approved lenses will work with their bodies.

I have no problem with paying more for a company's product that does this if I think their product is still worth the higher price. In fact, that's the case as I type on a Mac right now from Apple, which took great pains to defend it's hardware and software from being overrun by others without their permission.

 

[justaCanonuser]

Just curious: You mentioned "MA" and "ML". What do these abbreviations stand for?

Oh, sorry, I should return to my old habit not to use abbreviations: MA means "micro adjustment" (of the phase-detection autofocus system, that's the one working when you peer through the optical viewfinder), and ML means "mirrorless".

 

[justaCanonuser]

That macro is old, so its not surprising the performance isn’t great. I have to admit that I haven’t used Sigma’s lenses that much, but from reports I read from some respected camera sites have it that the variability is a lot worse than Canon, which is the least Variable. Camera Rentals agrees with that. Canon’s mechanicals are up with the very best. Sigma’s can be pretty good. But the fact is that it requires expensive work, and cheaper lenses have to give way somewhere. I wouldn’t agree that Sigma is equal to Canon’s L series mechanically, and for the R series, they’ll have a really tough time equaling what Canon has done there.

Yes, but when my wife tested both lenses some years ago, the Sigma was half the price of the Nikon and optically superior.

I agree, I learned the same from lens rentals. Obviously Canon has massively improved the precision and test cycles in their production lines. Canon pro/prosumer gear is expensive, but you get quality. Based on our many issues with Nikon gear in the past decade, I can't say that about Nikon's quality.

 

[jolyonralph]

I agree with the gist of your post. I think that Canon ought to have the legal right to prevent other companies from making lenses to work with their bodies, unless they come to a legal agreement with Canon beforehand. I'm actually surprised that they don't have sufficient encryption to ensure only approved lenses will work with their bodies.

It would have been trivially easy to do this. All they needed to do was have some kind of security chip in RF lenses and, critically, the RF-EF adaptors that is required for autofocus communication.

This way non-electronic manual focus adaptors would still work fine, EF lenses (including Sigma) would still work fine with the RF adaptor, but if you wanted to have a native mount RF lens you'd need to licence the technology and get the chips from Canon.


Part of the reason they didn't do this I suspect is related to a previous patent about a sensor that moves so that EF lenses could be mounted directly onto the mount without an adaptor. I suspect this was only ever thought about in terms of Cinema lenses though because it's a dumb idea in general. This would mean the RF mount has to support both EF and RF protocols natively, so any third party can now hack together a "native RF mount lens" by using the RF bayonet mount and the EF lens protocols from 1987.

 

[usern4cr]

It would have been trivially easy to do this. All they needed to do was have some kind of security chip in RF lenses and, critically, the RF-EF adaptors that is required for autofocus communication.

This way non-electronic manual focus adaptors would still work fine, EF lenses (including Sigma) would still work fine with the RF adaptor, but if you wanted to have a native mount RF lens you'd need to licence the technology and get the chips from Canon.


Part of the reason they didn't do this I suspect is related to a previous patent about a sensor that moves so that EF lenses could be mounted directly onto the mount without an adaptor. I suspect this was only ever thought about in terms of Cinema lenses though because it's a dumb idea in general. This would mean the RF mount has to support both EF and RF protocols natively, so any third party can now hack together a "native RF mount lens" by using the RF bayonet mount and the EF lens protocols from 1987.

I don't understand what patent you're talking about. My question about verifying lenses to work has to do more with protection from day 1. Why couldn't EF bodies already have had identification with the EF bodies back then? It's too late now to try to disallow non-Canon EF lenses to work with an RF body since so many Canon EF users will also have lots of non-Canon EF lenses.

But, they could have made RF bodies check for Canon (or authorized) RF lenses to work with the extended electrical protocols (I assume) they use. That would allow any old or new EF lens from anyone to work, but only Canon (or authorized) RF lenses to work. At least they'd protect that segment of lens development.

 

[jolyonralph]

I don't understand what patent you're talking about. My question about verifying lenses to work has to do more with protection from day 1. Why couldn't EF bodies already have had identification with the EF bodies back then? It's too late now to try to disallow non-Canon EF lenses to work with an RF body since so many Canon EF users will also have lots of non-Canon EF lenses.

But, they could have made RF bodies check for Canon (or authorized) RF lenses to work with the extended electrical protocols (I assume) they use. That would allow any old or new EF lens from anyone to work, but only Canon (or authorized) RF lenses to work. At least they'd protect that segment of lens development.

Canon Rumors Your best source for Canon news, rumors and more

We have been told a couple of times now that a “pro” EOS R mirrorless camera that is in the works will have some kind of a hybrid EF/RF lens mount. So this basically means that you’d be able to mount both types of lenses without the use of an adapter. We were also told

www.canonrumors.com

Back in the mid 1980s when EF was designed it would have been a significantly harder task to have protected lenses with any kind of protection chip. Anything non-trivial would have been both expensive to implement and, most importantly, would have had issues with power (chips in those days weren't the low power chips we have today.)

As far as we know the RF protocols are protected as you suggest. It's much easier now. Think about third party lenses as essentially EF lenses with EF-RF adaptors built in - the current "RF" lenses are exactly like this.

The next generation of RF lenses from Sigma etc are likely to work in the same way sending EF protocols (which Sigma finally understand after decades of doing it not quite right).

Canon seem not to care either way about third party lenses. They don't make it easy for third parties, but at the same time they haven't made it impossible.

 

[AlanF]

Monopolies are generally considered as being bad for the consumer and most countries have set up legislation to prevent their worst effects. Monopolies are not illegal in the USA but the Sherman Anti-Trust act prevents them from abusing their power. We in the UK have a Competition and Markets Authority, a successor to the Monopolies Commission, to control monopolies and make sure there is competition. I think, and am willing to be corrected on this, it is illegal to prevent 3rd parties from making batteries, lenses etc to work with your products but you can make it difficult.

 

[usern4cr]

http://[URL]https://www.canonrumors.com/an-ef-rf-mount-hybrid-mirrorless-camera-in-the-works-cr2/

[/URL]

Back in the mid 1980s when EF was designed it would have been a significantly harder task to have protected lenses with any kind of protection chip. Anything non-trivial would have been both expensive to implement and, most importantly, would have had issues with power (chips in those days weren't the low power chips we have today.)

As far as we know the RF protocols are protected as you suggest. It's much easier now. Think about third party lenses as essentially EF lenses with EF-RF adaptors built in - the current "RF" lenses are exactly like this.

The next generation of RF lenses from Sigma etc are likely to work in the same way sending EF protocols (which Sigma finally understand after decades of doing it not quite right).

Canon seem not to care either way about third party lenses. They don't make it easy for third parties, but at the same time they haven't made it impossible.

Thanks for the info. I can see Canon enjoying the benefit of unauthorized 3rd party lenses as long as it also increases Canon's overall market share and thus sales. I just wonder at what point lenses at a much lower price (& quality) can undercut Canon's high priced (premium quality) lenses to the point that Canon actually starts losing sales in general?