I praised many times Sigma for the quality of their lately announced ART lenses. But I also have to express my disappointment for this: Back in June 2013(!) Sigma released the 18-35mm f/1.8 A-mount lens accepting preorders at Amazon US (Click here), BHphoto (Click here) and Adorama (Click here) and expected availability in late July 2013 (see screenshot on top). Since then Sigma never shipped any A-mount lens and also didn’t release any official note. That’s quite a let down 🙁
Lately one of our SAR readers got an official response from Sigma France saying the lens would ship in May. Now let’s hope this promise will be fulfilled! Here is the original french message:
“Message de votre service clients Miss Numerique
Bonjour,
Nous vous remercions d’avoir commandé chez Miss Numerique.
Le constructeur du produit SIGMA objectif photo ART 18-35 mm f/1.8 DC HSM monture SONY éprouve malheureusement des difficultés à produire cette référence en quantité suffisante, ceci se traduit par des difficultés d’approvisionnement de leur réseau de distributeurs.
Devant notre insistance, notre fournisseur nous a annoncé un approvisionnement dans un délai de 4 semaines.
Votre commande sera alors expédiée dès réception.”
P.S.: And please do not repeat the story with your newly announced 50mm ART lens Neither 🙂 Preorders are up at BHphoto (Click here) and Adorama (Click here).
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Although yes, that is bad, A-mount sales will account for such a tiny % of the total sales of this lens Sigma is just being sensible in allocating its resources. Unfortunately.
Its a catch-22. The slower they are, the higher the chance of them getting lower sales, then they will become even slower to release anything on A-Mount and will eventually lose all interest from A-Mount owners to even look at their lenses, because there will be a common perception that Sigma doesn’t make A-Mount glass.
When the first rumor of 18-35 1.8 by Sigma has surfaced, i was in the market for a fast APSC zoom. I’m glad I got my Sony 16-50.
It’s not like sigma has ever released a-mount lenses in a timely fashion. I’m more interested in seeing whether anyone buys it. From the reviews, performance wide open is better at 18mm than 35mm, which is disappointing for me (24-35mm are my most used fl to on my 16-50).
I don’t know what reviews you have read, but the 35mm part of the focal length (while being the weaker end of the zoom range) still pulled in strong numbers on DPReview, DxOMark, and SLRGear. On DPReview compared to the Sigma 35mm F/1.4, it held up well. While I expect a full frame prime with a 2/3 stop advantage to perform better, the 18-35 still did quite well.
Both Tamron & Sigma should make all their lenses to be A Mount & update the Electronics to AF for E Mount also using LAEA1 / LAEA3 Adapters. This way they can include OSS even for A Mount lenses(like the Canon / Nikon equivalents) & open up a whole new market for themselves.
There is such a shortage of E Mount lenses that these updated lenses will still sell. I would personally love the Tamron 24 70 2.8 & 70 200 2.8 on a Sony A7 (Size be damned). Unfortunately both Sony equivalents not only slower, but also cost more.
My e-mail from Sigma USA back on March 26th told me they planned to release the 18-35mm in the USA for A-mount in early to mid April and the USB dock in early May. Being that it is now mid April, it is looking more like mid to late April unless I hear something new. At least this time, they put me on a distribution list so I will get notified when they have a definitive release date.
I believe that the dock has just been announced for Sony and Pentax. http://petapixel.com/2014/04/14/sigma-50mm-f1-4-gets-new-focus-feature-and-sony-pentax-mounts-will-get-usb-dock/
Announced, maybe. But we have always known that the Sony and Pentax mounts were going to get it eventually. Even Sigma knew this, otherwise their employees wouldn’t be telling us tentative release dates before the official announcement, hence why I was told by Sigma they were aiming for an early May release of the dock.
If Sony themselves are abandoning the A-Mount, why would 3rd party manufacturers make it a priority? No wonder here…
Who ever said they were “abandoning” the A mount? Kazuo Hirai himself said there were new A mount cameras coming this year and next.
Next he will tell you that Kaz meant new “alpha system” cameras (meaning e-mount cameras, which fulfill his claim of new “alpha” cameras this year).
Then you will counter with an exact quote.
Duott will proceed to claim that you misinterpreted the quote
You will tell duott to “go buy a canikon then”.
Duott will call you a Sony fanboy.
You’ll call him a troll.
Not necessarily in that order.
I would be interested as to when the Tamron 150-600mm will finally become avaiable. The wait is just too long
what annoys me is why Sigma is not developing e-mount. There are 3 apsc format e-mount lenses in their program and it halts there. Good e-mount glass is what A users need now, more than a-mount.
Why they should be hurry? I am waiting for this lense since the biginning, but it’s clearly sony is going to abandon Amount. No need to hurry since the system is going to be shut down.