Sigma press release:

Sigma Celebrates New Facility Opening in Burbank, California

Places Sigma lenses plus unparalleled service and technical support in the heart of the TV & film production community

Burbank, CA – October 23, 2018 – Sigma Corporation of America, a leading still photo and cinema lens, camera, flash and accessory manufacturer, is pleased to announce the opening of its brand new west coast showcase in Burbank, California. A modern space for its world-class products, services and support, visitors can experience first-hand the popular Sigma Cine and Global Vision lenses through product demonstrations, seminars and special events. “Having a physical presence in the greater Los Angeles area has long been a vision of ours. The new west coast Sigma center has been years in the making and to finally open it to the public is very exciting,” said Kazuto Yamaki, CEO of Sigma Corporation. “We are thrilled to be a part of this creative community, and we look forward to the new relationships Sigma will develop with filmmakers and cinematographers, right in their backyard.”

Join Sigma at Its Grand Opening Event!

To celebrate the opening of the Sigma west coast office, Los Angeles area cinematographers and filmmakers are invited to attend the special reception hosted by Sigma Corporation of America on Saturday, November 3rd from 5-8pm PDT. In addition to the open bar with rare sake tasting, scrumptious food from local food trucks, Sigma swag and giveaways, attendees will have a chance to see product demos and a special work showcase by DP Timur Civan as the first official Sigma Cine Pro. As a Sigma Cine Pro, Timur will become a valuable resource to filmmakers, presenting informative lectures, seminars and workshops to cinematographers across the US. He has worked with clients as diverse as Louis Vuitton, Pepsi, Samsung, Toyota, Home Shopping Network, Vox Media and many more. His unique approach and technique are at the cutting edge of visual storytelling, and Sigma Cine lenses are always there to help bring his creative vision to life. Timur will be in attendance and available to answer any questions about Sigma lenses and how they facilitate his creative expression.

Sigma Burbank is located at 148 S. Victory Blvd., Burbank, CA 91502. All interested in attending the Grand Opening reception should RSVP via this link: https://sigmaburbank.eventbrite.com. Space is limited; spots on the guest list are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Lensvid  interview the CEO of Sigma, Mr. Kazuto Yamaki, at Photokina 2018.

The interview is about the new alliance that Sigma formed with Panasonic and Leica, about new photographic technologies, the future development in the industry and the new Sigma products.

The interview in the video above discusses the following topics:

• Sigma was working on their own mirrorless full frame camera for several years (with their own mount). However around 2015-2016 Panasonic suggested to Sigma to join forces and create a joint full frame alliance which was joined by Leica (when exactly Leica Joined is unclear) and the Leica L-mount (used on the SL cameras) was chosen for this new partnership.
• Sigma will make both lenses and cameras with this mount (and will develop new FF Foveon sensor) for their camera which will be available sometime in 2019.
• Panasonic, Sigma and Leica do not exchange information about future products but they do work on improve the L-mount and make sure future products will be compatible across the system.
• The new system is currently only for the three companies (this isn’t an open system like micro 4/3 for example), but Mr. Kazuto Yamaki stated that he is not ruling out adding more companies in the future.
• The new 60-600mm lens uses a lot of exotic materials to reduce the weight (which is still quite high – around 2.7kg) including CFRP (which stands for Carbon fiber reinforced polymer), an expensive material that helped Sigma keep the weight at the same level of the 150-600mm Sports (although in terms of absolute performance Mr. Kazuto Yamaki still thinks that the 150-600mm Sports is a better choice).
• Some Sigma users asked the company for tilt-shift lenses for mirrorless cameras but this is not a priority for Sigma at the moment (as this is a niche area and the company has a lot of more urgent things on its plate).
• Sigma always tries to make its lenses smaller and lighter but at least in the art series, it prefers optical performance over size/weight as opposed to the contemporary series which is more balanced.
• Next year Sigma will start making dedicated mirrorless lenses (we are assuming the intention here is full frame lenses since Sigma already has a very nice APS-C dedicated FF mirrorless line).
• These new lenses will be smaller but not by much. Mr. Kazuto Yamaki gives an example of Sony’s 35mm FF lens vs. their own DSLR lens with an adaptor and explains that making the lenses significantly smaller might not always be possible even if they are designed for mirrorless cameras from the ground up.
• Sigma is interested in Phase Fresnel but this doesn’t mean that we will see any lens based on this technology (which Nikon and to some extent Canon) employed.
• Sigma will keep an eye on the new Z-mount and RF mounts and see if it is something it will want to expend its lens line into or keep making Nikon F and Canon EF lenses and relay on Canon and Nikon’s own adaptors.
• Mr. Kazuto Yamaki agrees that we are at the start of a new area in Photography, one that signifies the move from DSLR to mirrorless cameras. He also mentioned that he believes this is part of a process of change that has been going on for a long time and has been happening every 20-30 years. The last time was the move from analog to digital, before that we had the move from manual focus to autofocus and even before that the move from rangefinder to DSLR cameras.
• Mr. Kazuto Yamaki predicts that we will see more mirrorless sales than DSLRs in about 3 years. However, DSLR lens sales will probably still be higher (as there will still be many more DSLRs around compared to mirrorless cameras).