More than one year after the announcement the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 A-mount lens is finally in Stock in Japan at Amazon.co.jp. If you want to buy it now you can buy it through Japanese eBay sellers shipping worldwide [shoplink 27345 ebay]here[/shoplink] and [shoplink 27346 ebay]here[/shoplink]. It will ship soon in other countries too:
US preorders at Amazon US (Click here), BHphoto (Click here) and Adorama (Click here).
Europe preorders at Redcoon Germany (click here), WexUK (Click here).
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Oh. APS-C, Not FF…
I guess it is impossible to make a large aperture (f/2.8+) zoom lens for E-mount since no one wants to make one. 🙁
Not impossible but Sony believes that the E mount advantage is portability. Hence you can expect slow zooms and lenses in future. If you need fast zooms and primes you are in the wrong system. Chances of anyone making AF lenses currently for FE mount are remote.
CZ already got burned when they made premium lenses and Sony discontinued the NEX7 with no real replacement and they launched the FE mount where the lenses weren’t compatible.
Yes, that is exactly why Leica didn’t have any fast lens…
Anyway, if you’re decided to buy a small camera, you need fancy, hip lenses, not the huge rubbish ones… It’s so obvious.
Ever heard of autofokus or steady shot?
Ok, make it twice as big as Leica’s. Still, it’s kind of sad when you don’t release some lens just because it doesn’t look cool on the camera. I’d put any longish Tamron on my 5n with the added bulk of LA-EA, but they decided to throw away stabilization just because a-mount cameras had this in body. And the price is still the same as with stabilization! I can’t believe the logic that drives lens market…..
Its simple really. Sony Alpha has body IS because Minolta had body IS and Sony had tons of old Minolta lenses without IS.
Lens based IS is where the money lies as you can charge extra for an IS version rather than have it in the body. Sony has learned this from Nikon and Canon and hence they decided to go down this route.
That said Sony wanted the NEX bodies to be as small as possible which is another reason why there is no space for body IS in NEX.
Leica lenses are small as they lack any focus motor or stabilization. Plus these lenses are designed for a different system which is why they don’t perform very well in the corners on NEX.
I agree – it looks like Sony’s vision is still 2 systems. Personally I wouldn’t have minded going FE (as I rarely use zooms), but the lack of oss primes is a deal breaker for me. Until they can match the performance of my 35/1.4 and 24/2 in low light, I’ll stick with my A77ii.
I received an e-mail from Sigma USA last Thursday (June 19th) that they finally got confirmation from their main HQ that the Sony and Pentax mount versions of this lens have been confirmed for delivery next week (so this week now) and that they are getting enough to fulfill all backorders they have in their system (which also includes all the pre-orders from licensed vendors).
So if that holds true, then I would expect shops would start receiving their orders sometime later this week or possibly next week (depends on if the shipments go directly to the vendors or if they go to Sigma USA first then get distributed). I meant to post something about it last week but I was unavailable to do so.