The Sony full frame lens strategy - Part 2

In my previous blog post on the Sony lens strategy for its full frame A mount I took a long time to say that I reckon its simple, to have a minimum number of lenses, almost all 'premium' glass, nothin mid range, one entry level kit lens and a few mandatory specialist lenses - ie macro and a fisheye. I postulated a possible, final, lens line-up that resulted in somewhere between 15 and 21 full frame lenses for the A mount ws likely. Go back and look at that entry for more detail if you care enough.

So now this questions are, why would Sony do this and should we be concerned?

First the why. Actually I reckon this is pretty easy - money. Sony is an electronics house, either it makes no optics or at best very few. I now suspect that EVERY Sony DSLR and mirrorless lens is 'bought in' from an OEM. This places a pretty hard (and probably quite low) ceiling upon how much Sony might make from selling lenses but leaves them with all the hassles of maintaining inventories, quality control, distribution, etc. Therefore Sony is probably thinking the following:

• Sony must have a kit lens to sell its cameras so thats unavoidable
• to sell cameras (especially full frame) Sony needs to ensure that there is a minimum range of glass for the more demanding (either for technical or other reason) users. The only way of ensuring this is available and of sufficient quality is distribute it yourself under your brand.
• everything else can be left to OEMs (ie Sigma, Tamron, Tokina etc) to deal with directly. In fact, Sony might actually make more licencing the details of the A mount to these OEMs than paying them for lenses to rebrand and on sell.

Secondly, should we be concerned? Frankly no, in fact, given the advent of the E mount, I think A mount users may be delighted. This is my thinking:

• in reality the lenses provided by OEMs easily meet the quality and range needs for 95% of mid level and entry level users (and probably 85% of advanced users). And
• in reality the lenses that might have been Sony branded would have come from OEMs anyway.

Ok, but why should A mount users actually be happy with this arrangement? Because it makes maintaining the A mount and the E mount easy, it means that Sony can keep an A mount going with little corporate investment. A mount users might complain that they arent being shown much love, and thats true, but at least their mount continues to live, might I say, live with a very nice range of premium glass.

Many current Sony users are angry with Sony over how they've treated the A mount and by extension them. I can understand that however, I'd point out three things:

Sony isnt a charity, its job is to make money, a job it hasnt really been doing very well lately so I understand their desire to start doing better there

Right now a Sony user can buy a full frame A99 and APS-C A77 that can go toe to toe with just about anything else in the market (not saying they are the best but they are certainly competitive) and premium glass required to bet the best out of those cameras and A mount users are a whole lot better off than they were back in 2005/6 when the mount was dying under Minolta's management.

So all in all perhaps all the doom and gloom is a little over blown.

The Sony full frame lens strategy - Part 1

A long time ago, about 2006, when I was getting into photography in a bigger way and thinking of buying a DSLR I was aware that I wasnt just buying a camera but rather I was buying into a system of bodies, lenses, flashes etc. A quick and dirty scrub revealed that really there were three real long term options, Canon, Nikon and Sony. I figured 4/3s was to limiting for the long term (something I still believe), that Pentax wasnt likely to survive (sort of true, its still breathing but on life support) and that was really about it.

I ended up plumping for the Sony A100 as it offered the best value for money at the time and held promise of a healthy system to buy into. Anyway, as part of my decision I actually did some detailed analysis (painful for me) and mapped the lens line-ups for my three contenders to make sure I wasnt wandering into a dead end. I found that Sony had a pretty complete lens line-up (inherited from Minolta), had announced some new glass (including some really cool CZ primes) and was widely considered likely to flesh this out into something that by and large mirrored what we got in Nikon and Canon.

Fast forward to today and I've been in a similar position. My A700 died, I figured that I'd got sufficient return on investment from my A mount equipment over the past 8 years and decided to reconsider my photographic way forward. I wont go into the whole process now but as part of that I revisited my original work from way back when and discovered something really odd. Everything I had assumed would happen with the Sony lens lineup had not occurred. Furthermore, this was such a non issue I had barely noticed it until I went back and made myself revisit the question.

I cant find my very orginal spreadsheets but from hazy memory at the time Sony had around 20 full frame, A mount lenses either on the market or announced, these were scattered between super cheap entry level glass, some mid range stuff and some premium G and CZ lenses. Nikon and Canon each had about 40 full frame lenses essential comprising a 'set' of lenses (of varying size) at each level. It should be noted however that the all these ranges werent really thought through, each was clearly the result of decades of varying fashions and technologies producing designs that overlapped but stayed alive in current inventories for a variety of reasons. However, this consideration aside I remember thinking that a 'proper' lens line-up would comprise having lenses at each level (entry, mid, premium) with a small number of primes at entry, more in the mid zone, most at the premium end. Low end zooms would be slow and soft(ish), mid zooms moderate and sharp(ish), premium zooms fast and sharp. Ultimately I thought Sony would end up with about 30+ FF A mount lenses.

I was so, so wrong. 8 years and many generations of camera on and in pure numbers the Sony lens line-up has gone precisely no where, there is still just 21 lenses out there to buy (a few more if you count older 'Mark 1' versions of updated lenses still available in some places). Looking at it another way, the Sony lens line-up has actually progressed considerably, and while a fair bit of legacy glass and (I suspect) the results of failed experiements are still with us, an overall pattern is emerging and I feel a fraction more confident that I understand whats going on.

The Sony A mount lens strategy is clearest in the area of zooms and its basically this. Provide 1 (and only 1) entry level kit lens and then a small number of premium, high end glass to cover the basic requirements. As a result there are now just 6 full frame, A mount zoom lenses. To put this in perspective, to my count, right now Canon offers about 17 and Nikon about 15 full frame zoom lenses. The situation is a little less clear in primes but the basic principle holds true. Sony offers 14 primes, just one of which is an 'entry' level, the 85 2.8 SAM lens, the remainder are (by my grading) 2 mid level (minolta 'legacy' glass, the 50 1.4 and 20 2.8) and 8 premium level lenses (24 CZ, 35 G, 50 CZ, 85 CZ, 135 CZ, 135 STF, 300 G, 500 G). There are also another three primes that I havent 'graded' these are the 50 and 100 macro's and the 16 fisheye - these lenses dont really fit in a 'quality' grading, rather they exist outside that notion.

I should note, I think the 85mm prime is an outlier, not a representative of a current Sony strategy. When the it and the (aps-c only) 50 and 35's were announced they were to form the basis of an "easy choice" range of primes. This range has not grown in years. I guess the easy choice experiment failed - sony didnt sell a lot more cameras or lenses - and so is lingering until it can be quietly shuffled off.

So I think its clear, Sony's long term strategy with full frame lenses is simple: a small range of premium glass covering the 'essential' ranges for 90% of photographers and a minimum amount of other lenses to fill out a kit or meet minimum expectations (ie must have some macros and perhaps a fisheye). If that is the aim then Sony's line-up is actually almost complete. Whats missing?

For zooms all I can imagine would be a premium superzoom like the Canon 28-300 L. For the primes maybe a superfast tele like a 200 2.0? Perhaps a tilt/shift lens for landscape? Maybe a 21 CZ and 28 2.0? So, imagine I've got this right about Sony's FF A mount strategy, and lets assume my small additions were made to the line-up and those lenses that dont fit the strategy were quietly let go. What would the final Sony FF A mount lens line-up look like?

Zooms

16-35 CZ (in place)
24-70 CZ (in place)
70-200 G (in place)
70-300 G (in place)
70-400 G (in place)
28-300 G (NEW)

Primes

21 CZ (NEW)
24 CZ (in place)
28 CZ (NEW)
50 CZ (in place)
85 CZ (in place)
135 CZ (in place)
135 STF (in place)
200 G (NEW)
300 G (in place)
500 G (in place)

Specials

16 Fisheye (in place)
50 Macro (in place)
100 Macro (in place)
24 T/S (NEW)

Thats is - just 20 lenses, 15 of which we already have and of the five new ones all of them are probably 'nice to haves' rather than essentials.

Thats a pretty radical departure from what I and just about everybody thought Sony was going to do. Why is that? What is Sony thinking and should we care?

I think this blog post has gone on long enough - I'll cover that next time.

My ideas for lenses for the new Sony FE mount

Well, I've bought the A7R and am seriously considering my future in the A mount and whether a swap across to the E mount might be my long term end point. The beauty of the way Sony has created the FE mount is that its made it possible for me to consider a swap but by having the LEA4 adapter the full switch across isnt a) mandatory and b) driven to any external timeframe - ie I can choose to swap completely to the FE mount, partially, or not at all and I can make that swap at whatever pace my wallet can afford. How cool is that?

Of course there is another problem with trying to swap completely to 'native' FE mount lenses - that is there simply isnt a full line-up of FE lenses to buy even if I wanted too. A favorite internet past time is to try and predict (or simply guess) what camera companies are going to do next and pontificate about why company x will (or at least should) follow our sage advice. Far be it from me to ignore this proud tradition so I'm going to join in. So here is my guess/prediction whatever of what lenses Sony will produce for the FE mount in the intermediate future (say) 12-24 months.

First, like any good essay we need to lay out our assumptions. These are based heavily upon rumours circulating out of and around sonyalpharumours.com. In general I've found them to be remarkably realistic and (in hindsight) pretty accurate so I'm sticking with Andreas for the time being. So my assumptions are:

• Sony are planning to announce/release 15 'native' FE mount lenses in the intermediate future - so my list (including the currently released 5 lenses) will add up to 15 lenses (ie 10 more).
• While the current FE mount camera (the A7 and A7R) are distinctly rangefinder like (therefore skewing lenses towards street/landscape/travel/macro - ie wide) there will be an FE mount SLR styled body aimed more at sports/wildlife etc resulting in some longer lenses two. I believe the announcement of the 70-200, a very SLR and un-RF like lens reinforces this assumption. So, my guesstimated line-up skews towards these RF like 'wide' applications but will include some SLR like longer options. These longer options will, however, be more general purpose lenses than dedicated tele primes for the time being.
• I believe the FE mount lenses will (generally) aim for premium optical quality at relatively affordable prices (say $800-1500 generally). The trade off will be that max apertures will be a little lower than we expect from 'premium' lenses. Im basing this assumption largely upon what we've alrady seen in the FE mount, the lenses so far tested are amazing performers optically - right up there with the very very best, but also 'relatively' cheap given their optical quality and a fraction 'slow'. This strategy, whilst not confirmed, has been strongly endorsed by sites such as DPReview and personally I reakon its a brilliant plan. I think many people will love the idea that they can afford top shelf optics and all they are losing is (generally) a stop or so of wide open aperture that they would rarely have used anyway.
• Given what we've seen recently, Sony/Nikon/Canon lenses are all priced pretty closely. The biggest factor in price seems to be lens age, ie older lenses are cheaper (usually 25-30%) than newer ones. Looking at the current FE lenses and their prices, it appears they seem to be priced at around 70% of 'new' Canon L series equivalents or pretty close to the same as 'older' Canon L series equivalents. Therefore, generally, when guessing a price for my predicted lenses I've used that logic.
• Generally, Sony is going to get Zeiss to look after 'shorter' primes and zooms. Tele primes and longer general purpose zooms will be branded as "G" lenses. Interesting question as to who is actually designing and building these, I reckon its still Minolta. This assumption is based upon what we've tended to see so far in A, E and FE mount glass and kind of lines up with the bulk of Zeiss' expertise in the past. 
• Lastly, the lenses will broadly follow the kind of 'traditional' focal lengths (you know 20,24,28,35,50,85 etc) BUT just for fun I'm going to play a little at the margins and throw in a few slight variations. Why, because this is something the Germans at Zeiss and Leica seem to love doing - witness the FE mount 55mm(?) 'normal' lens. Given that at least some of these lenses will come from Zeiss I'm going to throw in the odd oddity.

So here we go, first the 'standard/normal/traditional' primes:

21 2.5 CZ. A typical CZ lens. Seen in the contax slr (c/y) mount,contax (g), nikon and canon mounts. No matter the format seems to be something CZ has dialled in.

25 2.8 CZ Like 21mm, 25mm length seems a 'classic' CZ focal length that pops up time and time again. Of course CZ has gone to a more usual 24mm for Sony recently but I'm hoping for a return to the 25 for no real reason that its a little quirky, I suspect the actual photographic difference is zero.

28 2.8 G Going with a G here for no specific reason. 28mm is a bit of a strange focal length, often being used for consumer primes or the wide end of budget zooms - dont know why. Anyway, based on my gut thinking here I can see CZ dodging this length and Sony farming it out to Minolta.

35 2.8 CZ * Already out and about.

55 1.8 CZ * Already out and about.

85 2.0 ? Could be CZ or G - really a coin toss. I lean towards CZ (slightly). Why a 2.0 not 1.4/2.8 - no technical reason - I suspect some of these max apertures are a little arbitary and while photographically odd these 'partial' f numbers are often linked with high performing lenses. Wouldnt be surprised to see Sony try and leveerage off this history.

135 2.5 ? Like the 85 a real guess, used the same logic.

'Specialist' primes

24 4.0 T/S CZ (or P/C if you are Nikon oriented). An unlikely but very welcome addition to the line-up I'd reakon. Welcome for 2 reasons, these are 'serious' lenses for 'serious' photographers, a T/S lens would signal Sony was serious about this technology, it would be a clear statement "we arent messing with fuji and the M4/3 crowd, we are gunning for canon and nikon). Its also welcome because the A7R is a brilliant landscape camera and needs T/S lenses to expolit its boundaries.

100 2.8 Macro. I think a macro is obviously coming, the only real questions are what length (50,60,100 are the options I think), how fast (2.8 is kind of traditional but speed in these lenses is kind of wasted so Sony could go to 3.5-4.0) and made by whom (CZ/Minolta/Tamron - not wishing to over simplify but good/great macro lenses are pretty common - Sony might save here an go to a 'generic' supplier - tamron/sigma - for this lens.

Zooms

28-70 3.5-5.6*  Kit lens. A bit of an outlyer - doesnt fit the assumptions for the rest of the line-up. Not a model for other lenses.

16-35 4.0 CZ. Bit of a no brainer. Fills out the currently announced zoom range. Extends the total lens coverage below where I think Sony will bother with a prime.

24-70 4.0 CZ * Already out.

70-200 4.0 G* Already announced.

70-300 4.5-5.6 G A 'typical' focal length for a longer zoom, already got a "G" heritage in the A mount.

28-300 3.5-5.6 PZ G A wildcard entry from me but I think the logic is sound. First, people love their super zooms no matter what sensor size they use. These make great sense for the travel/walk around crowd. Secondly the FE mount screams video (at least to me), hence the power zoom function.

I could be totally wrong and if I am, so what, I've wasted my lunchhour playing a thought experiment. So how did I do? Would this be a useful line-up? Like to see something different? Think I've nailed it or that I'm smoking crack? Love to hear your thoughts.