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sigma usb dock
#11
Quote:...finding 16 correction values doesn't sound like fun to me.
 

I believe that's why some serious manufacturers have a limit on this Smile... Nevertheless, this could be nice for zooms like fast 70-200mms. But for single FL shooters, not a big step IMHO...
#12
Quote:I believe that's why some serious manufacturers have a limit on this Smile... Nevertheless, this could be nice for zooms.....
.....it would be nice for it to work on a certain zoom i know quite well.....from one of those other 'serious' manufacturers....

#13
Quote:By adjusting in the lens, it would work on any body you connect it to, including those which do not offer body adjustment. Also the body based corrections are currently still quite limited. On the latest Canons you can set different adjustments for each end of the zoom range, but that's it.
Interesting to know for a Nikon user - here we do have only one setting.

 

Quote:The Sigma dock seems to allow you to set 4 focal lengths at 4 focus distances, which is much more comprehensive although finding 16 correction values doesn't sound like fun to me.
Actually, it's quite opposite of fun. But the results were worth it. Not to mention there were several firmware updates to Sigma lenses because some Nikon cameras behaved weird with the lens.

 

Practically, it's a boring job. Like you said, you need at least 16 shots, but I found it worth to do a bit more. Each focal length at each position: Three times the same procedure, bringing the lens manually out of focus, then let the AF work. Shoot and again the same procedure. This brings eventually missed AF positions out of the game. Most of the time AF was accurate, but maybe 5-10% of the shots were a bit off compared to the other two shots.

 

Then you need to change the lens from camera to the adapter and type the guessed results (which value I do have to use if the focus is 5mm off at 35mm fl and 0.6m distance? 2? 4? 1?).

 

After that, the procedure has to be repeated to make sure the values are accurate. After a while I noticed a kind of test-chart allergy. Not of the dock - of me. I know, there's a software for this kind of focus adjustments. And I know as well, there are a lot of possibilities to have a super-adjusted lens, extremely well adjusted body and still missing the right focus distance, especially if the object is moving.

 

Another thing worth to talk about is the question, on which spot the AF module actually works. Is it 50 pixels, 75 or only 20. Of course there are those little "focus frames" (talking about Nikon). But where exactly is sharpness happening? Stupid question?

 

Maybe. I just see the frames are the same, be it FX or DX. Putting a wide angle like the Sigma 18-35/1.8 in front of a D7100, this little focus frame square covers a comparatively big area. No problem if it's a brick wall. Big problem if it's something with depth, if you want to have a sunflower in 5m distance sharp and there is on each side of the sunflower enough space for another one or two. Which will be sharp? The one I focus manually with LiveView for sure. But the one I focus with phase detect AF is like throwing a handful of water. Something will get wet and not necessarily what I was aiming at.

 

So the adjustment of the 18-35 was time consuming and not as much an improvement as the adjustment of the 35/1.4 on FX was. Maybe this lens has very small tolerance abbreviations, maybe it's just because wideangle lenses are very difficult to adjust, the DOF is a bit too big and the testcharts start becoming too small.

 

But what if one uses different bodies? I don't know. I figure, it's the best way to adjust the lens with the body you use most with it and for the other bodies use AF-finetune of the body. The lens might have different correction values depending on the distance. By equalizing those you can get an ideal lens which is far easier to finetune to the body.

 

And what, if you have a mixture of bodies with AF finetune and without? Question is, would you really finetune a nice, new lens with stunning resolution values to a either old or cheap body without AF finetune? Are there much contemporary bodies out there without AF finetune?
#14
The design is rather stupid though. Why didn't they just implement a micro USB into the lenses ? This way the calibration procedure would have been a lot easier.


Other than that they should provide this for free. After all this is j u st meant for bug fixing.
#15
Contrary to Sigma's engineers I don't know. Wink Given there's no other brand doing this kind of "bugfix"-help, I find your comment aiming to be called "stupid", too Smile I don't because that would be impolite to one of the hosts and also not necessary. LIke most accessories, one can take pictures without them.

 

As soon as I really know which part of a defocus issue on some distances comes from the camera's itself (then Sigma would bugfix the camera's manufacturers inaccuracies) or their own lens isn't manufactured without flaws. And given their quality, I sort of doubt the last bit. For a lens supplier this is the way not to be locked out by camera manufacturers "developments" to make their mounts difficult to handle to a competitor.

 

A USB socket in each lens
  • would increase the costs of each lens - even the ones whose owners never want to do adjustments
  • tempt people to use it the wrong way
  • might be difficult to be placed in a already packed design
  • is a very good way to bring humidity and dust into the lens
  • most probably would interfere the interaction of camera's AF and lens's AF drive unit
This are the reasons I could think of and maybe I miss the main reason. But Sigma would answer your question better than me, I guess. It even could be that the camera manufacturers own lenses adapt to their cameras with a silent firmware upgrade of the lens. And what's so bad about bugfixing? Never made a firmware update for some camera? I can only speak for Nikon, but D800, D7000, D7100 and even D5100 had other firmware versions when I bought them. And there were not more versions of firmware coming from Sigma, but at least for the 35/1.4 that was an improvement of faster although more precise AF. Thanks to the dock it was done in a few minutes instead of sending in and wait to get it back.

 

I'm also not too happy about the handling but nobody needs to buy it to make the lens work at all. They also could have included  some sort of lens calibration module into their software. Like LensAlign which comes with focus target for 80 or 100 US$

 

Usually they are without flaws out of the box, after 100% check in Sigma's factory. Now one can finetune AF accuracy in 4 different distances at four different focal lengths and also finetune AF speed/accuracy correlations and shake reduction behavior. If one wants to do so. And I read rumours about making the dock work also for elder Sigma designs. I don't call that only bug fixing and I don't think it should be free, especially because Sigma's import service gives lifetime lens-check and cleaning once a year for free here in Switzerland. Sigma even offers a mount change although not for free.

 

Are you aware of any camera manufacturer doing anything for free after warranty is over?

#16
Quote:Contrary to Sigma's engineers I don't know. Wink Given there's no other brand doing this kind of "bugfix"-help, I find your comment aiming to be called "stupid", too Smile I don't because that would be impolite to one of the hosts and also not necessary. LIke most accessories, one can take pictures without them.

 

As soon as I really know which part of a defocus issue on some distances comes from the camera's itself (then Sigma would bugfix the camera's manufacturers inaccuracies) or their own lens isn't manufactured without flaws. And given their quality, I sort of doubt the last bit. For a lens supplier this is the way not to be locked out by camera manufacturers "developments" to make their mounts difficult to handle to a competitor.

 

A USB socket in each lens
  • would increase the costs of each lens - even the ones whose owners never want to do adjustments
  • tempt people to use it the wrong way
  • might be difficult to be placed in a already packed design
  • is a very good way to bring humidity and dust into the lens
  • most probably would interfere the interaction of camera's AF and lens's AF drive unit
This are the reasons I could think of and maybe I miss the main reason. But Sigma would answer your question better than me, I guess. It even could be that the camera manufacturers own lenses adapt to their cameras with a silent firmware upgrade of the lens. And what's so bad about bugfixing? Never made a firmware update for some camera? I can only speak for Nikon, but D800, D7000, D7100 and even D5100 had other firmware versions when I bought them. And there were not more versions of firmware coming from Sigma, but at least for the 35/1.4 that was an improvement of faster although more precise AF. Thanks to the dock it was done in a few minutes instead of sending in and wait to get it back.

 

I'm also not too happy about the handling but nobody needs to buy it to make the lens work at all. They also could have included  some sort of lens calibration module into their software. Like LensAlign which comes with focus target for 80 or 100 US$

 

Usually they are without flaws out of the box, after 100% check in Sigma's factory. Now one can finetune AF accuracy in 4 different distances at four different focal lengths and also finetune AF speed/accuracy correlations and shake reduction behavior. If one wants to do so. And I read rumours about making the dock work also for elder Sigma designs. I don't call that only bug fixing and I don't think it should be free, especially because Sigma's import service gives lifetime lens-check and cleaning once a year for free here in Switzerland. Sigma even offers a mount change although not for free.

 

Are you aware of any camera manufacturer doing anything for free after warranty is over?
 

Sure, e.g. Fuji is providing firmware updates all the time - also for their lenses.

 

And it's not the fault of the genuine manufacturers that Sigma has not obtained a license.

Even if they refused to issue a license, the responsibility is completely on the side of the third party manufacturer and you can't really blame Canon or Nikon for not caring about Sigma.

As such I fail to applause Sigma for providing a workaround here. They are simply charging for a device that reduces servicing costs for THEM, not US.
#17
FWIW, I will review the USB port during the next few weeks.

#18
Quote:Sure, e.g. Fuji is providing firmware updates all the time - also for their lenses.

 

And it's not the fault of the genuine manufacturers that Sigma has not obtained a license.
 

Tamron, Tokina, Zeiss do have obtained a license? I simply don't know.

 

Quote:Even if they refused to issue a license, the responsibility is completely on the side of the third party manufacturer and you can't really blame Canon or Nikon for not caring about Sigma.
 

I'm not blaming them, but I doubt they don't care. Meanwhile the Sigma lenses became a serious competition to the genuine ones and also eating marketing shares. So they do have reason to try to lock them out. 

 

Quote:As such I fail to applause Sigma for providing a workaround here. They are simply charging for a device that reduces servicing costs for THEM, not US.
 

I agree with the costs, but you don't see the time what service is costing us. Besides, Sigma has a servicepoint in Switzerland, a quick one, too. Tamron I had to send to Germany, twice. The shipping costs were not very far away from the costs of the dock. It took them about 5 weeks.

 

To me, it's the same like sensor cleaning. Of course it can be done at the manufacturers servicepoint. And Nikon is not responsible to provide me a free cleaning set only because DSLRs get dust on sensors...

 

You don't need to applause. I would understand your critics better, if the dock would be necessary to make their lenses work - but it's only a feature for users who like to get the last 2 or 3% focus accuracy or performance out of the lens or who want to customize certain behavior. Sides of that, Sigma lenses work fine without this dock.
#19
Personally I feel Sigma's current strategy of selling the dock at a low cost is the best way to do it. It is an optional accessory, that provides extra user value in allowing more micro-adjust and AF options (depending on lens) if you need/want it. It is not mandatory to have it to use their lenses. If they supplied it with every lens, you could end up with a lot of them lying around unused.

 

On 3rd party licences, the only one I'm quite sure about would be Tamron since they're part owned by Sony anyway, and many lower end Sony alpha lenses are rebadged Tamron lenses. Then again, it's not such a distant 3rd party in that case... There is also the relatively active Sony-Zeiss relationship to consider.

<a class="bbc_url" href="http://snowporing.deviantart.com/">dA</a> Canon 7D2, 7D, 5D2, 600D, 450D, 300D IR modified, 1D, EF-S 10-18, 15-85, EF 35/2, 85/1.8, 135/2, 70-300L, 100-400L, MP-E65, Zeiss 2/50, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300/2.8, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Olympus E-P1, Panasonic 20/1.7, Sony HX9V, Fuji X100.
#20
The dock is interesting indeed, it stimulates my hacking instinct. Too bad it's not compatible with DN lenses, which includes all the pieces for the e-mount.

stoppingdown.net

 

Sony a6300, Sony a6000, Sony NEX-6, Sony E 10-18mm F4 OSS, Sony Zeiss Vario-Tessar T* E 16-70mm F4 ZA OSS, Sony FE 70-200mm F4 G OSS, Sigma 150-600mm Æ’/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary, Samyang 12mm Æ’/2, Sigma 30mm F2.8 DN | A, Meyer Gorlitz Trioplan 100mm Æ’/2.8, Samyang 8mm Æ’/3.5 fish-eye II | Zenit Helios 44-2 58mm Æ’/2 
Plus some legacy Nikkor lenses.
  


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