Sigma: Our RF lenses have been a great success

Sigma has 6 APS-C lenses in their lineup, and 30 FF lenses. Why do you think that is? Could it be that they sell a LOT MORE full frame lenses? Or are they just that dumb and they keep releasing more & more FF lenses when the "real demand" is with APS-C?

Believe it or not, Sigma is not dumb. They make incredible FF lenses and sell a LOT of them. Except not on RF, where for "some reason" they only sell APS-C. This isn't rocket science, Sigma is not allowed to sell FF glass on RF. Maybe that will change. Maybe not. But let's not try to make the nariative something that is obviously not true. Sigma would be selling FF on RF if they were allowed to.
You're forgetting a "little" problem: Sigma have limited manufacturing capacity, and their lines for full frame are pretty much maxed out just with the current volume. The same goes for Tamron, their business for E-mount and Z-mount alone is brisk enough that they have little spare capacity to produce lenses for other mounts. Well, they do a ton of OEM work too, but we don't know exactly which models they make under that arrangement.

Sigma's APS line, however, is mature and has probably seen a stable amount of sales for years now. Which means that introducing a new mount into that mix is much easier, especially when there's a big market starved for better optics. Just the fact that they're moving pretty aggressively, and that all of their APS catalog will be ported by next year should be causes for optimism. Nikon, who are most definitely selecting each new introduction on a case by case basis, haven't allowed Sigma to release most of their crop lenses, much less any full frame ones. Canon might be more generous, who knows.
 
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You literally stated the below...

You can claim "not my problem", but my entire point is that one cannot legally break DRM. If there's no DRM, it's trivial to reverse engineer these things. A well implemented DRM system is impossible to bypass without quantum computers. Most are not perfectly implemented, but even if you do manage to bypass it, the act of bypassing DRM is illegal in the large majority of jurisdictions around the world. Depending on how you bypass it, the manufacturers can also often issue updates to render such methods useless (as we saw with early 3rd party lenses). That's not a patent protection, but a DMCA protection (in the US, its equivalents elsewhere)

Perhaps Yongnuo is doing my prior suggestion and using EF protocol communications (which effectively has no DRM) over the RF contacts. Or perhaps Canon's lawyers haven't reached out to them yet. Or they ignored Canon's lawyers and it'll take some time before we see an actual lawsuit. Samyang / Rokinon / Viltrox were selling lenses for a good while before Canon cracked down on them.
How many times do I have to tell you all I am doing is to pass on the information of what you can and cannot patent.
 
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I totally agree. I wish for a Sigma 20mm F1.4 at the moment or a 14mm lens. They are really great.

Hopefully, at one point they will be allowed to sell at least some FF lenses.

I think the narrative "Sigma is going to make a killing selling RFS" can still be true in this context. Take the Sigma 10-18mm F2.8 for example. It has to "compete" with an imho crappy RF-s 10-18mm F4.5 - 6.3. Unless you want a tiny lens, absolutely need the control ring or simply don´t care about F-numbers, everybody will opt for the Sigma version. Users of R10 & R7 with their upmarket cameras will an attract a lot of users for the sigma version. The Sigma 10-18mm does not really have a competitor here, so it is going to sell like crazy.

If you compare the competition for this lens for e.g. the e-mount market, there are more viable options. Sony at least has a 10-18mm with a constant F4 aperture, Samyang offers a 13mm f2 and 16mm f2 and Sony offers a 16mm F2.8 pancake. Lots of options which lead to fewer sales for Sigma compared to the RF mount. So, therefore, the narrative still stands. But, there is a second unspoken part to it: Sigma would also make a killing with FF lenses in the rf mount.
The Canon 10-18 is much cheaper so many will buy it over the Sigma for the price alone.
 
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I totally agree. I wish for a Sigma 20mm F1.4 at the moment or a 14mm lens. They are really great.

Hopefully, at one point they will be allowed to sell at least some FF lenses.

I think the narrative "Sigma is going to make a killing selling RFS" can still be true in this context. Take the Sigma 10-18mm F2.8 for example. It has to "compete" with an imho crappy RF-s 10-18mm F4.5 - 6.3. Unless you want a tiny lens, absolutely need the control ring or simply don´t care about F-numbers, everybody will opt for the Sigma version. Users of R10 & R7 with their upmarket cameras will an attract a lot of users for the sigma version. The Sigma 10-18mm does not really have a competitor here, so it is going to sell like crazy.

If you compare the competition for this lens for e.g. the e-mount market, there are more viable options. Sony at least has a 10-18mm with a constant F4 aperture, Samyang offers a 13mm f2 and 16mm f2 and Sony offers a 16mm F2.8 pancake. Lots of options which lead to fewer sales for Sigma compared to the RF mount. So, therefore, the narrative still stands. But, there is a second unspoken part to it: Sigma would also make a killing with FF lenses in the rf mount.

Sony also has the 11 F1.8 and 15 1.4 APS-C primes.
 
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That's not my problem. I am just trying to transmit the information on what you can patent and what you cannot. Yongnuo is selling RF lenses and hasn't been shut down by Canon so presumably they have cracked the problem somehow.
Successfully prosecuting for IP infringement in China for patents outside of China is hard. Canon may not want to set a precedent if they fail to win a case which would be widely publicised.

Canon might have weighed the pros/cons and decided that it is less costly (overall) to limit any lost profits to cease-and-desist letters in the hope that the OEM may want to have a closer relationship with Canon in the future.

Carrot/stick approach seems to be working for them with Sigma. I believe that there is some solidarity between Japanese OEMs when competing against Chinese OEMs but that is a very general sentiment. They certainly have no issues competing against each other but maybe in a less cut-throat way.
 
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My question was, whether this competitive situation and the fact, that manufacurers produced a greater variety of lenses result in better quality of the respective lenses? I dont think so. There was also a greater variety of M39 Leica-screw mount lenses. But Leica and Zeiss have always made the best.
Conclusion: Consumer will not profit from an open RF-Mount. You may have cheaper, but not better glass.
Sony had no choice but to open the E mount so that they could sell bodies at the beginning and use 3rd party adapters for Canon etc lenses.

Would anyone assess the L mount alliance as successful? That would probably be the closest example to compare.
 
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If I was Sigma I would think exactly like Richard writes. There is/was a big hole in Canon's APS-C lens lineup just begging for someone to fill, and it was the obvious place for Sigma to start.
Sure I understand it is frustrating for fullframe users waiting for Sigma to release the lens they are hoping for. But once the currently announced APS-C lenses has all hit the streets in January, lets see what (hopefully) comes next from Sigma before making any fast conclusions...
There is a big hole for wide/fast primes in Canon's line up. I don't think that Sigma have competition to the EF11-24 or RF10-20 but they do have primes especially 20/1.4 and 14/1.4.

If Canon doesn't want to compete in that segment then it would make sense to allow Sigma to sell RF versions of those lenses - even if only manual focus.
If Canon will release lenses in that segment (and they haven't for a very long time) then there is no point Sigma asking nicely.
 
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Believe it or not, Sigma is not dumb. They make incredible FF lenses and sell a LOT of them. Except not on RF, where for "some reason" they only sell APS-C. This isn't rocket science, Sigma is not allowed to sell FF glass on RF. Maybe that will change. Maybe not. But let's not try to make the nariative something that is obviously not true. Sigma would be selling FF on RF if they were allowed to.
Correct me if I am wrong but I don't think that Sigma has released an EF mount lens since R mount was released.
There would be nothing stopping Sigma releasing EF mount lenses as they have done this for a very long time. Even if the lenses were only manual focus then there would be still use cases for tufthem.

Canon would have learned from the EF protocol emulations in the past so they upped the communication speed and most probably encrypted it to avoid any reverse engineering. Sensible, pretty cheap and gaining the control they wanted in the 3rd party market.

The only (to me) logical reason for this is that Sigma is playing a longer game and wanting to include RF protocols for future AF lenses.
 
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Successfully prosecuting for IP infringement in China for patents outside of China is hard. Canon may not want to set a precedent if they fail to win a case which would be widely publicised.

Canon might have weighed the pros/cons and decided that it is less costly (overall) to limit any lost profits to cease-and-desist letters in the hope that the OEM may want to have a closer relationship with Canon in the future.

Carrot/stick approach seems to be working for them with Sigma. I believe that there is some solidarity between Japanese OEMs when competing against Chinese OEMs but that is a very general sentiment. They certainly have no issues competing against each other but maybe in a less cut-throat way.
Viltrox whom they did censure is Chinese. Maybe Yongnuo are braving it out. Japanese firms are known to favour each other in general, sometimes as far as buying each others stock.
 
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Successfully prosecuting for IP infringement in China for patents outside of China is hard. Canon may not want to set a precedent if they fail to win a case which would be widely publicised.
It's very likely that Canon were simply bluffing and don't have a leg to stand on. They don't need to sue Viltrox in China – they could easily do it in the US and Europe, places that have much more robust IP law, and two important markets that Viltrox probably don't want to lose. You can't stop them from making and selling their wares in China, but that's most certainly not the case in the West. Also, the cost of litigation alone can be a huge threat for a smaller company. I have a feeling that Viltrox initially complied out of fear, but after consulting with attorneys in their main markets, decided that Canon were full of sh*t and just restarted the production and sale of RF products.

Canon might have weighed the pros/cons and decided that it is less costly (overall) to limit any lost profits to cease-and-desist letters in the hope that the OEM may want to have a closer relationship with Canon in the future.
It could be, but C&D letters without any followup in the case of repeated offenses are worse than just staying quiet. Such a situation can actually lead to the loss of trademarks and copyright, for example, due to non-enforcement. I highly doubt this was Canon's plan.

Carrot/stick approach seems to be working for them with Sigma. I believe that there is some solidarity between Japanese OEMs when competing against Chinese OEMs but that is a very general sentiment. They certainly have no issues competing against each other but maybe in a less cut-throat way.
The Japanese manufacturers mostly share one biiig bed. They're all in this together, and pretty much all of them have incestuous relationships with one another. Canon are kind of an exception here; they make their own glass, they make their own sensors, they order custom processors and ADCs, and generally have a level of vertical integration that the others can only dream of. But even they know that it's much preferable to tolerate insolent Japanese upstarts versus Chinese ones, so yes, you're probably right about this. Canon have probably decided that Sigma and Tamron are the lesser evils, and thus to promote them while trying to beat the Chinese newcomers away.
 
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You can write your communication protocol, but how do you plan on getting the camera to communicate in your protocol if it's expecting cryptographically signed messages in its own protocol? Lens manufacturers have no control over the firmware running on a camera. You can't just "translate" to Canon's protocols and sign your messages without either having the keys or finding a flaw in the DRM implementation (which again, would be illegal to break)

that was just a pet theory. it was never proven that it was a digitally signed and encrypted datastream as a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure the protocol in the patent applications don't mention digitally signing.

and besides, the lens manufacturers could have just used the EF protocol if that was the case.
 
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That's not my problem. I am just trying to transmit the information on what you can patent and what you cannot. Yongnuo is selling RF lenses and hasn't been shut down by Canon so presumably they have cracked the problem somehow.

this is all one big circling the bathtub drain. The only thing i can think of is that Samyang and Viltrox used something canon proprietary to do the lens communication instead of using the EF protocol.

So Canon went after them hard.

Canon couldn't have gone after them for the a) mount b) electrical contacts c) reverse engineering RF async protocol - so the on lens ASIC/CPU is the only thing left that I can think of. what else really would be worthy of a C&D?

Which means that Samyang and Viltrox messed up - they could have used the EF protocol and literally just told Canon to go pound sand. Some features wouldn't have worked, but it would have been perfectly legal.

It was always one of the big mysteries of what really went down with Viltrox and Samyang and why they didn't just flip protocols and make a Mark II version.

Scared or just decided it wasn't worth the effort?

Regardless - If Sigma wanted to bring full frame lenses to the RF mount (looking at the above) .. there's literally sweet - F-ALL Canon could do about it, if Sigma was willing to work in EF emulation mode on the RF cameras.

But .. it could very well be that Japanese companies try to play nice with each other, and Sigma decided to wait until they had a more formal agreement.

When I talked about this in an opinion piece a long time ago - I mentioned another reason Canon may have wanted to go after these vendors hard - and that is canon's own support. It wouldn't surprise me if Canon got a lot of support calls when a firmware upgrade broke a tamron or sigma lens compatibility.

So it could be that with the RF mount and lessons learnt, they wanted a more formal communication versus the wild west approach.
 
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except the sigma is a constant F2.8 so it is a more upscale lens that has no competition from canon (yet).
Don’t underestimate the allure of cheaper 1st party gear! Where there was 1st equivalent available, my dad seemed to always pick the Olympus version, not any of the other m4/3 versions.
And I have the Canon EF-M 32mm, not the Sigma variant ;)

Personally, I’d pick the Sigma version, but someone else might be bullish on IS and favour the Canon version.
 
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Don’t underestimate the allure of cheaper 1st party gear! Where there was 1st equivalent available, my dad seemed to always pick the Olympus version, not any of the other m4/3 versions.
And I have the Canon EF-M 32mm, not the Sigma variant ;)

Personally, I’d pick the Sigma version, but someone else might be bullish on IS and favour the Canon version.

hey i'm all in on great bang for the buck lenses.

and the EF-M 32mm wrecks nerds against just about any other APS-C prime made by any manufacturer. Slowish AF aside.
 
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I totally agree. I wish for a Sigma 20mm F1.4 at the moment or a 14mm lens. They are really great.

Hopefully, at one point they will be allowed to sell at least some FF lenses.

I think the narrative "Sigma is going to make a killing selling RFS" can still be true in this context. Take the Sigma 10-18mm F2.8 for example. It has to "compete" with an imho crappy RF-s 10-18mm F4.5 - 6.3. Unless you want a tiny lens, absolutely need the control ring or simply don´t care about F-numbers, everybody will opt for the Sigma version. Users of R10 & R7 with their upmarket cameras will an attract a lot of users for the sigma version. The Sigma 10-18mm does not really have a competitor here, so it is going to sell like crazy.

If you compare the competition for this lens for e.g. the e-mount market, there are more viable options. Sony at least has a 10-18mm with a constant F4 aperture, Samyang offers a 13mm f2 and 16mm f2 and Sony offers a 16mm F2.8 pancake. Lots of options which lead to fewer sales for Sigma compared to the RF mount. So, therefore, the narrative still stands. But, there is a second unspoken part to it: Sigma would also make a killing with FF lenses in the rf mount.
 
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