davemillier
Member
Sigma are not Leica though, are they.
They are well known as a cost-effective 3rd party lens manufacturer... and that's about it.
They have made a handful of film cameras no one remembers and a small number of DSLRs that have sold just a few tens of thousands in a decade that have suffered notorious reliability and bugginess issues (I've just taken the bottom plate off my SD14 and and soldered in a bunch of wires in an attempt to solve the very common problem that if you dare to fill the 5 shot buffer, there is a high probability that the camera will freeze up). The cameras are seriously underspecced, years behind in performance, lack any kind pretence of standard features such as dust shakers, live view or video, suffer from poor LCDs, terrible battery life and are stuck with the SA mount (for which lenses are hard to find).
The majoritity of their sales have been to hobbyists, and in particular to a relatively small group of hardcore fans. Most of these people are not in the position of purchasing expensive highend cameras but have supported Sigma/Foveon, buying each iteration despite the faults of the previous model because they are committed to Foveon. Most of those people have waited a long time for a modern, competive camera from Sigma and the SD1 was hyped as the one.
The price is a marketing disaster even if they manage to find some customers and even if they make some money from it. Sigma senior executives publically speculated the price would be competitive with the Canon 7D. They have totally alienated their devout customer base - read the forums, universal condemnation from the only people that ever bought Sigma. Largely, they feel betrayed.
What happens to Sigma, if the fans turn their faces away and then the handful of pros and rich people who buy into the "baby medium format" scam, suddenly come to realize this a Sigma and you are expected to solder it yourself to make it work!
They are well known as a cost-effective 3rd party lens manufacturer... and that's about it.
They have made a handful of film cameras no one remembers and a small number of DSLRs that have sold just a few tens of thousands in a decade that have suffered notorious reliability and bugginess issues (I've just taken the bottom plate off my SD14 and and soldered in a bunch of wires in an attempt to solve the very common problem that if you dare to fill the 5 shot buffer, there is a high probability that the camera will freeze up). The cameras are seriously underspecced, years behind in performance, lack any kind pretence of standard features such as dust shakers, live view or video, suffer from poor LCDs, terrible battery life and are stuck with the SA mount (for which lenses are hard to find).
The majoritity of their sales have been to hobbyists, and in particular to a relatively small group of hardcore fans. Most of these people are not in the position of purchasing expensive highend cameras but have supported Sigma/Foveon, buying each iteration despite the faults of the previous model because they are committed to Foveon. Most of those people have waited a long time for a modern, competive camera from Sigma and the SD1 was hyped as the one.
The price is a marketing disaster even if they manage to find some customers and even if they make some money from it. Sigma senior executives publically speculated the price would be competitive with the Canon 7D. They have totally alienated their devout customer base - read the forums, universal condemnation from the only people that ever bought Sigma. Largely, they feel betrayed.
What happens to Sigma, if the fans turn their faces away and then the handful of pros and rich people who buy into the "baby medium format" scam, suddenly come to realize this a Sigma and you are expected to solder it yourself to make it work!