Camera
Sigma CEO talks market trends, the challenge of innovation and the future for APS-C
|
Sigma CEO Kazuto Yamaki
Photo: Richard Butler |
“All camera and lens manufacturers have to be innovative,” says Sigma CEO Kazuto Yamaki, but “technology competition among manufacturers may not always be beneficial to customers… Easier to use interfaces, compact and lightweight bodies for enhanced portability, or some other specifications might be more important.”
In the second part of a wide-ranging interview conducted at the CP+ show in Yokohama in late February, Yamaki talked about current state of the market, the need for innovation and the challenges of delivering that innovation.
State of the market
“Last year was not so bad,” he says, when asked about the state of the market: “It looks like the trend of the shrinking market has hit the bottom.” But he suggests this may not continue: “For the time being, many photographers are now switching from DSLR to mirrorless, which will sustain the market. However, after they switch to mirrorless cameras, I worry that the market could shrink in the coming years.”
“One reason for my concern is the increasing average price of cameras and lenses. I truly appreciate the passion of the customers who are still spending so much money on cameras and lenses. However, I’m afraid that not so many customers can afford such high-priced cameras and lenses, so we’re still trying hard to keep the retail price reasonable.”
“I’m afraid that not so many customers can afford such high-priced cameras and lenses”
“Especially these days, the younger generation takes huge amounts of photos with smartphones. While we can expect some of them to switch from a smartphone to a camera, many may find the price gap too wide, and challenging to make the switch.”
Yamaki also expresses concern about some of the tech trends he’s seeing: “Investing in the development of more advanced technology is crucial. However, it’s equally important to focus on our customers.”
“We’ve seen some cameras with very technically impressive specifications, but I worry that they’re not always capabilities that many photographers really need. Moving forward, I speculate that more user-friendly specifications might mean more to customers. Easier to use interfaces, a compact and lightweight body for enhanced portability, or some other specifications might be more important.”
The challenges of innovation
 |
|
Sigma has launched some ambitious and unusual lenses in recent years, including the 14mm F1.4 DG DN. Yamaki describes astrophotography, for which it’s designed, as the most challenging subject.
Image: Sigma |
He uses the recently announced 500mm F5.6 as an example of customer-focused innovation. “Canon and Nikon had similar lenses for DSLRs. They achieved it by using diffractive lens elements,” he explains: “Instead of using one powerful diffractive element, we used multiple special low-dispersion [SLD] glass. We used one SLD and three FLD elements. By using multiple special lenses, we could achieve a similar effect. That’s how we can make it so compact and lightweight.”
But this approach isn’t simple, he says: “It requires lots of very high manufacturing technology and skill, but because we have a very good factory and our optical designers trust the capability of our factory, we were able to go for this design.”
“In most cases, we are the first to use new types of glass, and once they see Sigma use that lens element, they start using it.”
“This trust is really, really important,” he explains: “Lens polishing is still a unique process that has a lower yield. Normally, in something like electronics, the yield ratio is something like 99.99996 percent, or something like that. But when it comes to lenses, for example, in our case, because our yield is so high, our yield ratio from the start of the process to the end is close to 90%. So if we plan to build 1,000 units of a specific lens, we have to start polishing 1,100 pieces, and during the process, about 10% of the lens elements will fail and have to be scrapped.”
A question of trust
“That’s the reason why other companies hesitate to use new glass elements. They are uncertain about the yield ratio. In most cases, we are the first to use a new type of element, and once they see Sigma use that lens element, they start using it. I’m very happy to play such a role. Sigma is kind of the guinea pig in the lens industry: they use Sigma as an experiment, and if we prove it, they use it.”
This commitment to pushing the use of new glass types reflects Yamaki’s wider vision of the company’s role. This can be seen in the ambitious lenses it’s recently introduced aimed at astrophotography, he says.
“First of all, I believe it’s one of Sigma’s missions to create niche products. If we only concentrate on standard products and release lower-priced versions, it’s not good: we would not be able to contribute to the development of the photography culture. As a lens manufacturer it’s our mission to develop such niche lenses that satisfy a specific target group.”
“Secondly, most lenses are so good, maybe much better than people’s expectations. But only astrophotographers are never satisfied: they’re so keen for quality! They’re looking at the shape of stars in the corners. Star images are the toughest, most challenging subject, or let’s say, the most nasty lens chart. You can see all kinds of aberrations in star images. That’s why we want to show what we can do with our capability. So lenses for astrophotography is my personal strong passion to show the capability of Sigma’s technology.”
The future of APS-C
 |
|
Yamaki says the audience for its I-series of full-frame lenses, such as the 17mm F4 DG DN pictured, is similar to that for the DC DN range of APS-C primes. However, it doesn’t sound like there are plans for I-series-style versions of the DC lenses.
Image: Sigma |
With all this talk of niches, we steered the conversation towards the DC DN primes. We wanted to know whether he sees the users of these lenses as distinct from those of the mid-priced i-Series full-frame primes, which feature metal bodies and aperture rings.
“I see they are very similar customers: those who value compactness and image quality. These customers often live in big cities and use public transportation a lot. So they cannot carry around big, heavy equipment in the car. They have to carry it around in their bags.”
Despite this, it doesn’t sound like there are any plans to refresh the DC DNs with more i-Series-like designs: “Those who want full-frame can use the I series lenses, while those who are happy with APS-C cameras can use the many lightweight DC DN lenses,” he says.
But, while we won’t expect APS-C primes with aperture rings for X-mount or the Nikon Z fc any time soon, Yamaki’s comments about his commitment to APS-C bode well, given the announcement that it’ll make lenses for both Nikon’s Z mount and Canon’s RF system:
“Our plan is to have a relatively complete range of lenses for APS-C sized sensors.”
This article was based on an interview conducted by Dale Baskin and Richard Butler at the CP+ show in Yokohama, Japan.
Season’s greetings! We’ve almost reached the end of 2024, and as is our custom, the DPReview team would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Boxing Day, Happy Kwanzaa, Joyous Festivus, and Happy Holiday to all. We’re incredibly grateful you’ve stuck with us for yet another orbit around the sun.
2024 was an important year for DPReview symbolically. One year ago today, on December 25, 2023, we celebrated the site’s 25th anniversary. For the past 12 months, we’ve been looking back at some of the moments and milestones from that past quarter century. We couldn’t have reached this point without your support.
2024 has also been an important chapter for DPReview as a business. Many of you know we’ve been going through a period of rebuilding. Every person at DPReview, including many folks behind the scenes, has poured their heart and soul into this effort. Why? Because at a fundamental level, we believe that an internet with DPReview is better than one without it.
The hard work is paying off. You might recall that a couple of months ago, we advertised some new editorial roles on the site, and I’m thrilled to report that we’ll have a couple of new faces joining the team early next year.
“At a fundamental level, we believe that an internet with DPReview is better than one without it.”
A huge factor in that success has been our community. Whether you’re a regular in the forums or just pop in to comment under the occasional article, we’re grateful for your contributions. Our forums are a goldmine of information, crowd-sourced from knowledgeable people for over 25 years. Our homepage may get a lot of attention, but the forums are where the magic happens: exchanging ideas, forming communities, and forging personal connections.
In fact, we’re planning to ramp up support for our online community in 2025. Remember those new staff members I mentioned? One of them will be focused on supporting our forums, including our team of volunteer moderators. This will be the first time we’ve had a person on our team dedicated to this task, and to be candid, it’s overdue.
Before you leave today, we’d love it if you’d take a moment to leave a comment and let us know what made 2024 at DPReview memorable for you. Or, if you’re feeling prophetic, please tell us what you’d like to see in the coming year.
From all of us at DPReview – the editors who craft the stories, the tech wizards who keep the lights on, and the business team who keep us on solid footing – we wish you all a happy and healthy holiday season. We’re genuinely excited about what the future holds and look forward to having you by our side as we embark on the next 25 years.
2024 In Review
2024 is just about over, so we thought it’d be a good time to look back and identify some trends that started emerging or kept going strong throughout the year. This isn’t a recap of all the news that happened – we’ll be releasing one of those soon enough – but rather a broad look at the direction the industry is going, which may give us an idea of what to expect throughout 2025.
Global Shutter
 |
Photo: Richard Butler
It’s hard to say that global shutter was a trend in 2024; in terms of consumer mirrorless cameras, there was only one with the tech, the Sony a9 III. Given the benefits it brings, though – the ability to sync with full-power flash at almost any speed, the ability to shoot stills at 120fps, and to use shutter speeds up to 1/80,000 sec to capture the fastest subjects without any blur – we fully expect to see it come to more high-end sports / action cameras.
That’s not to say that the a9 III’s sensor is perfect. Compared to its rolling shutter counterparts, it takes a hit to absolute image quality with its 250 base ISO, which means it has about a stop more noise than most of its competitors.
However, if you need the performance a global shutter offers, it’s likely none of those caveats will be deal breakers. We just mention them to say that we don’t expect to see global shutters in cameras that are focused on image quality above all else, such as the Sony a7R series or a follow-up to the Nikon Z8 – at least not in 2025 or even 2026.
Physical color mode controls
 |
Photo: Mitchell Clark
This year, it felt like every other camera had a physical control for color modes. Fujifilm’s Film Simulation dial, included on the X-T50 and X-M5, feels like the obvious example, but it was far from the only one: Panasonic put a LUT button on the creator-focused S9 – and then gave its users the option to backport one onto other cameras – and Nikon included a button to bring up its Picture Control menu on the Z50II.
Physical color mode controls aren’t a brand-new thing. We saw one on the Olympus Pen-F in 2016. But this is the year they definitively became a trend.
Only time will tell if they stick around. Camera manufacturers will likely be paying very close attention to whether consumers actually value being able to easily change the look of their photos and videos using a physical button or dial. If it turns out they do, this year’s crop of cameras likely won’t be the last we see with a color mode control.
APS-C shooters have more options than ever
 |
Image: Sigma
2024 was the year that Canon and Nikon started allowing more and more third-party APS-C lenses onto their systems. At the beginning of the year, you only had a handful of options if you wanted a third-party autofocus lens for RF or Z-mount. Now, you have significantly more.
The change came from some of the usual suspects, as well as some smaller companies. Sigma and Tamron were the first to announce they’d be bringing their lenses to RF mount, but Samyang slid in under the wire with an announcement that it, too, would start producing lenses for the system.
Most of Sigma’s DC DN primes have been available on Z-mount since early 2023, but this year, we’ve seen a slew of autofocus primes become available for the system from brands like Siuri and Viltrox.
There are still holes in the lineup for each brand, though – neither has a great telephoto option, and there aren’t any fast zoom Z-mount lenses – which is why we’d like to see this trend continue into 2025. If we’re really dreaming, maybe Canon and Nikon will allow more third-party full-frame glass, but we’ll save our fantasies for a different article.
The rise of smaller full-frame lenses
 |
Image: Sony
Speaking of full-frame glass, this year we’ve also seen a trend of smaller, lighter full-frame lenses. Panasonic’s 18-40mm F4.5-6.3 for L-mount is the most obvious example – the company says it’s the “smallest and lightest interchangeable zoom with autofocus for full-frame mirrorless cameras” – but Sony’s FE 24-50mm F2.8 is also a great, compact new lens that makes a ton of sense on smaller bodies like the a7CR.
Even the big lenses have been getting smaller – Sigma’s second-gen 24-70 F2.8 is 10% lighter than its predecessor, a difference that’ll definitely be noticeable in hour eight of shooting a wedding. Sony’s 85mm F1.4 GM II also boasts a 20% weight reduction compared to the original.
Again, this trend isn’t exactly new. We’ve seen a few lenses that have been largely defined by their size; Canon’s original RF 70-200mm F2.8 from 2019 and Sony’s 70-200mm F2.8 GM II from 2022 come to mind. But with further advances in optics and manufacturing techniques, we hope to see even more full-frame lenses come out that are smaller and lighter than the ones that came before… even if they still won’t be able to out-compact Fujifilm’s XF 16-55mm F2.8 R LM WR II.
The AI age
 |
Logos: Open AI, Midjourney, Meta, Stability.ai, Google
Pretty much every industry has had its own deluge of AI-related news in 2024, and photography is no exception. The continued proliferation of AI-generated images and text has sparked near-endless debates about what place, if any, the technology has in photography, with some people even taking the extreme position that the ubiquitous ability to generate images will destroy the art form altogether (assuming those comments too, aren’t AI-generated).
It’s not all existential doom and gloom, though, as some companies have used AI to try and improve the experience of photography rather than replace it. For instance, the new Canon EOS R1 and R5 II have Action Priority AF modes, which use machine learning-based algorithms to determine which subject to focus on during key moments in certain sports. It could be thought of as context recognition, rather than the subject recognition that’s become table stakes for most cameras. The EOS R1 and R5 II also have built-in AI-derived noise-reduction and upscaling functions, should you choose to use them.
AI-powered denoising and upscaling are also making their way into photo editing software, such as Lightroom or the apps from companies like Topaz Labs. And while Adobe has added plenty of generative AI features to Photoshop, we’ve also seen other AI-powered improvements, such as its distraction removal mode and Adobe Camera Raw’s new Adaptive profile and reflection removal feature.
However you feel about the technology, it’s almost certainly here to stay. The good news is that another facet of the AI trend this year has been companies working on improving transparency around AI, creating tools to prove a photo’s authenticity or show exactly how it’s been manipulated, either by AI or through more conventional means. The tech is far from ubiquitous, but it seems likely that we’ll see it spread to more and more platforms as AI becomes even more prevalent.
Have your say: Best gear of 2024
For the past few weeks, readers have been voting on their favorite cameras and lenses released in 2024. Now that the first round of voting is over, it’s time to reveal the winners.
Remember, though, it isn’t over just yet! Now it’s time to pick an overall winner. Make sure to cast your ballot for the 2024 Reader’s Choice Product of the Year – this one’s for all the bragging rights.
Best prime lens runner-up: Nikon Z 50mm F1.4
 |
First up is the 2024 runner-up for best prime lens, the Nikon Z 50mm F1.4, a fast prime that retails for less than Nikon’s own 50mm F1.8 S model. The tradeoff? Although it’s faster than the 50mm F1.8 S, it trades some of the clinical sharpness of that lens for more ‘character’, and you’ll likely see more vignetting and longitudinal chromatic aberration at some apertures. However, it gets you a fast prime at a popular focal length for under $500.
In our poll, the Z 50mm F1.4 barely edged out its sibling, the Nikon Z 35mm F1.4, effectively splitting the vote, suggesting that Nikon’s new F1.4 optics have struck a chord with enthusiast photographers.
Best prime lens winner: Sony 85mm F1.4 GM II
 |
The 2024 Reader’s Choice Award for the best prime lens goes to the Sony 85mm F1.4 GM II, the same lens we named as the best prime lens of the year in our 2024 DPReview Annual Awards. It’s not a fancy, exotic lens, but it’s a solid workhorse that gets the job done and delivers great image quality. It’s also lighter, sharper, and has faster and smoother focus than its predecessor. As we said in our Annual Awards announcement, the Sony 85mm F1.4 GM II delivers “consistent excellence you simply take for granted.”
Best zoom lens runner-up: Nikon Z 28-400mm F4-8 VR
 |
Placing in the runner-up position for best zoom lens is the Nikon Z 28-400mm F4-8 VR, which covers a huge range of focal lengths in a single lens. This lens remains relatively compact in its retracted state, making it an option for travel or a one-lens setup for general use. It’s even dust- and drip-resistant if you get caught in the rain on vacation.
Although the lens’ maximum aperture of F8 at the long end might seem a little restrictive, you can’t beat physics; however, Nikon’s Vibration Reduction technology – along with in-body image stabilization in many camera models – can assist at slower shutter speeds. It may not be as flashy as some of the faster zooms that were on the list, but the Nikon Z 28-400mm F4-8 VR provides a lot of versatility in a single lens, which is probably why it did so well in our poll.
Best zoom lens winner: Sony 28-70mm F2 GM
 |
The 2024 Reader’s Choice Award for best zoom lens goes to the Sony FE 28-70mm F2 GM. While it doesn’t go as wide as the popular 24-70mm zoom range, the FE 28-70mm proves it’s possible to maintain a relatively compact size while sporting a fast, F2 aperture, all with an internal focusing design. Its four linear motors even allow the FE 28-70mm F2 to focus when shooting at 120fps on Sony’s fastest camera.
We had a blast shooting this lens in 2024, so we appreciate why you collectively chose it as the top zoom lens of the year. If you’d like to see this lens in action, check out our video of Richard Butler using it to shoot portraits in New York City, along with a sample gallery that includes many of the portraits featured in the video. Congrats, Sony!
Best camera runner-up: Canon EOS R5 Mark II
 |
Grabbing the runner-up position for best camera is the Canon EOS R5 Mark II. It may deliver the same 45MP resolution as its predecessor, but just about everything else has changed.
The camera’s stacked sensor brings performance improvements to both stills and video, while Eye Control AF, Action Priority AF, and improved subject recognition AF are standout features that we hope to see percolate down to other Canon models. The R5 II also highlights Canon’s efforts to unify its mirrorless cameras with its Cinema EOS line, including codecs, gamma profiles, HDR video technology, and video tools. It’s hard to imagine many things this camera can’t do.
Best camera winner: Nikon Z6III
 |
The 2024 Reader’s Choice Award for best camera goes to the Nikon Z6III, making Nikon the People’s Choice winner in this category for the second year in a row.
The third generation of the Z6 series kicks things up a level. It features what Nikon calls a “Partially Stacked” sensor to deliver some of the benefits of a Stacked CMOS sensor but at a lower cost, delivering improved performance and autofocus while retaining the Z6’s reputation for excellent ergonomics. It also features significant video upgrades with higher quality output and a useful video tool set, reinforcing Nikon’s intent to be a player in the video market.
In our 2024 Annual Awards, the Z6III walked away with two trophies: Best Enthusiast Camera and our 2024 Product of the Year. It looks like it may be trying to make a clean sweep of the Reader’s Choice Awards as well.
Have your say – vote for Product of the Year!
 |
You helped determine the winners in the individual categories, so now’s the time to cast your vote in one last poll! Choose your favorite product from this list of winners and runners-up between now and Thursday, January 2nd. Watch for an announcement of the winning products shortly after the poll closes.
As always, thanks for casting your votes and being a part of our community throughout the year.
Please note that for the best experience, we recommend voting on our desktop site.
Poll Rules:
This poll is meant to be a bit of fun. It’s not sponsored, promoted, or paid for in any way, and DPReview doesn’t care how you vote. Our Reader’s polls are run on the basis of trust. As such, we ask that you only vote once from a single account.
-
Solar Energy3 years agoDLR testing the use of molten salt in a solar power plant in Portugal
-
Camera1 year agoDJI Air 3 vs. Mini 4 Pro: which compact drone is best?
-
world news1 year ago
Gulf, France aid Gaza, Russia evacuates citizens
-
Camera1 year agoSony a9 III: what you need to know
-
world news1 year ago
Strong majority of Americans support Israel-Hamas hostage deal
-
Camera4 years agoCharles ‘Chuck’ Geschke, co-founder of Adobe and inventor of the PDF, dies at 81
-
Solar Energy1 year agoGlencore eyes options on battery recycling project
-
Indian Defense3 years ago
Israeli Radar Company Signs MoU To Cooperate With India’s Alpha Design Technologies
