 Hi, my name is Ed Spencer, I'm the UK Exhibitions Manager for Sigma Imaging in the UK. So there's a very exciting new alliance that was announced, and Sigma is right there in the middle. Absolutely, it is very exciting. So we are one of the members of the Elm Mountain Alliance, which as I'm sure you're aware by now, is ourselves, Leica and Panasonic. And it's going to give us a great opportunity to make some innovative products for the consumer going forward in the future. So right here, now you're very good friends with Panasonic and Leica. You're going to do a full frame system, provide lenses, but also camera. Yep, so the roadmap at the moment is to launch a full frame mirrorless camera using the Foveon chip next year, and a range of prime lenses from the 14mm f1.8 through to the 135mm f1.8, and obviously all the f1.4 series lenses, all in Elm Mount. So they will also be available for the mount conversion service. So here it says about Sigma cameras, and there's a phobia mentioned right here. What is a phobia? This is one of the great things about the Elm Mount Alliance. It gives the consumer the opportunity of having cameras from different manufacturers that maybe have different strengths. Our cameras have always used, or our digital cameras have always used a phobia on technology, originally a Californian company, and it's a little bit unusual in that we have a completely different way of capturing information compared to traditional filter chip. So what happens on a conventional chip is you capture the blue, the green, and the red next to each other. So you might have a blue pixel here, and next to it might be a green pixel, and next to that might be a red pixel. The phobia on sensor uses a three-layer system. So we capture all of the color information for blue at every pixel location, and then we can capture the same for the green and the red at a stacked one on top of the other. So from a, let's say, 29 million pixel image, it will actually display 20 million pixels on a computer screen. So we're taking more information and compressing it into a much higher detailed image. So the other ones do through color filtering kind of stuff? That's right. So on a conventional chip, it's essentially a monochrome chip, and there's a very strongly colored filter put in front of each pixel, so the pixel will either see red, or it'll see blue, or it'll see green. But you don't get all the colors at each location. Is it kind of like LCD versus OLED? And OLED is kind of generating, or maybe not, but where somehow you have truer colors, how many cameras have come out with this before? So essentially all of our digital cameras have had this on the SD9, which was, I think, around about 2004. So there's been the SD9, the 14, the 15, and now of course we're into our fourth generation of camera system, which is the Quattro system. So we have the SD Quattro H cameras, which have the interchangeable lenses, and the SD, or the DP Quattro system, which are the fixed lens cameras. So the ones that you've had with interchangeable, have they been compatible with Canon or Nikon? No, so traditionally our interchangeable cameras have used their own proprietary mount, which is called an SA mount. And this ties in, of course, with the L mount alliance, where going forward, we're going to use the Leica L mount, and we're going to leverage that very short flange distance, a 20mm flange distance on that system to produce some really exciting cameras. So my experience looking around on the internet, you know, when I look at all the lenses that are out there, people say sometimes, for example, that there might be a Sigma art lens, it's really great, and it's better priced somehow, right? So potentially Leica might have some high priced ones, you might have some a little bit lower priced ones. So Sigma as a company has always seen itself as being the lens for the biggest market sector, let's say. I don't want to say the mass market as such. We've always aimed to have a competitive price point. More recently, with the higher megapixel cameras, we've also aimed to have the higher resolution and other unique features to the lenses. So we're still trying to keep a competitive price edge whilst having an excellent product. So Sigma is like an expert in lenses, right? And how does Sigma make the lenses? Again, that's quite an interesting question, because Sigma do actually make all our lenses in our own factory in the zoo in Japan. We do everything from bashing out the iris blades through to polishing, grinding lens elements and final assembly. So it's a really integrated system and this leads into our Cine product line. You have this as high end, right? We've taken our vertically integrated production from our still camera lenses and we've used that to offer a Cine series of products. So for the red camera, for Ari, for Panasonic? So they're available for Canon EF, for PL-positive lock and for the Sony F-email. So a lot of people buying these for our professional film and TV productions. It's still early days for us and when we launched the range, we didn't have sort of a budget or a target as to what we were aiming for, but they are rapidly gaining a reputation in that market. And there's a whole range right here. But these I would guess cost several thousand or something. The primes are typically around about four and a half thousand pound mark in the UK. Obviously they'll be in different values and different currencies. A lot of people sitting around, there's some presentations once in a while. Yes, we have a number of product ambassadors. This show is obviously run by our German sister company. So the ambassadors will primarily be people they work with. So I can't say too much about that. But yeah, we like to give people something to do at the show, something a bit more exciting than just looking at product behind the glass. So yeah, there are presentations. There's the telephoto booth. We're keen to most of our accessory products as well, because as well as making the lenses and the cameras and the flash units, we also make things like the USB docks, the teleconverters, and even the USB dock for the new flash gun, which is pretty unique. You have some huge telephoto lenses like this. What are these? Are these for taking pictures kilometers away? Well, the big green lens there is the 200 to 500 f2.8. It's the only 200 to 500 f2.8 lens in the world. It's not so much an ultra telephoto. It is only 500 f2.8 at the end of the day, but unique in being a very, very fast aperture. So absolutely fantastic for wildlife if you want to capture animals, that dawn and dusk when they're most active. It's a fantastic piece of kit. Do you have one of those? I have one as my demo kit. I don't personally own one. Okay, cool. Here you were saying there's, for example, filters around here and some veteran products. What is that? So these are some of our older products, which are very well-respected in the marketplace, but they fall outside of a current art sport and contemporary liner. So we can see in the background there, we have the very well-regarded macro range of lenses. One second. So is it like this? And these go for what kind of cameras? So it depends on which one you go for, but they're primarily violent for Canon, Nikon and Sigma RSA. Some of them will also be a violent Sony A-mount and Pentax mount. All right. So right here you have some sports lenses. Are a lot of sports photographers happy with these? Absolutely delighted. I mean, the 150-600, the contemporary and the sports version, they are among the best-selling hyper-telephoto lenses on the market. And you go to something like an air show. These days are a sports event. And when you see an aircraft going past, all the cameras go up in the air. Many, many of them will have those lenses on there. So popular. And the prices are for professionals, right? Not really. Again, I'm going to speak to the UK market. Yeah. $13.99. Sounds affordable for a big lens like that. So you've got a 600mm lens, hyper-telephoto lens, hyper-sonic inverter for ultra-fast-order focus, customizable. This again is a unique feature of the Sigma and the US Redoc. At least we were the first people. So when we set the optical stabilizer up, we set it to what we felt was an optical setting in the factory. But maybe I want to have a more stable viewfinder image, and I want to run the OS a little bit slower to make tracking a subject easier. Maybe I don't care so much about the viewfinder image, and I want to run it a little bit quicker. So using the USB dock and the custom functions, I can change the OS speed, I can change the autofocus speed, and I can even do things like change the distance at which the focus limiter works. There's a little bit of customization in there to make it truly your own lens. So the optical stabilizer, you can manage the speed of the lens. Oh yes, a little bit. We start doing anything in the OS of the camera. Only of the lens. There's only in the lens, yep. And around here, sorry. So you have art. What's the art? So around about 2013, we came to the Global Vision ethos, and we split our product range down into art, sport and contemporary. And in simple terms, you can say that the art series is our premium quality short focal length lenses. The sport is our premium quality telephoto lenses. And the contemporary is our more innovative consumer type lenses, which tend to be a little bit lighter, maybe not such a faster aperture. They tend to have a thermally stable composite barrel, whereas these are primarily aluminium. So people enjoy, for example, the 50mm f1.4, so it's very bright. Absolutely. I mean, the art series lenses, particularly the 35 and the 50, they have an enviable reputation in the market of placing quality. This one right here? Yep, that's the 35mm. So it's like one of the best sellers, or one of the big hits? Yeah, it's so, so popular. I mean, the other popular one, of course, is the 18-35 on the APS-C system. That's found at home in a lot of people's bags for shooting video one as well as stills. A lot of people are saying that people should buy that and use the, what do you call it, the adapter for Micro Four Thirds and stuff, because it's actually, you know, the converter. I can only speak for Sigma and Sigma don't make a Micro Four Third adapter, but obviously we're aware that many, many people are using these on Panasonic's, particularly the video, via various adapters and arrival for third-party third-sets. Can you announce any Micro Four Thirds? We have a new Micro Four Thirds lens announced at this show, but it's not in the Art Series. As far as the Art Series go, new lenses are the 40mm, 40mm f1.4. But is that Micro Four Thirds now? No, no, this is all primary Canon, Nikon and Sigma SA. So there's one on new ones there? This is a unique design for us with the new lens we looked at earlier. We took our existing Art Series still lenses and we converted them into Cine-type products, with all the Cine-gearing and that sort of thing. With the 40mm art, we did it the reverse way around. We knew we would make it as an Art Lens, but it was initially designed as a Cine Lens, and then we launched it, secondly, as an Art Series lens. So it's a little bit bigger than some of the other Art Series, but the quality is absolutely phenomenal. The new Art Series lens, again for GS Last primarily, is the 28mm f1.4 you see there. A nice fast 28mm lens just fills the gap between the 24mm and the 35mm. And like all of these Fast Aventure Prime lenses, has 9 rounded iris blades in them to give a great bokeh as well. So why is the 28 bigger than the 24mm? Shouldn't it be the opposite usually? Or it depends on a whole bunch of stuff inside, right? I'm sorry, I don't fully understand the question. That's a bad question, but I thought that perhaps if you have f1.4 and f1.4 then maybe it would require bigger optics to make it work on a 24mm than a 28mm. Yep, I now understand the question. In terms of the relative size of the lenses, it's really determined by getting the best optical performance. Sometimes that means we can make a lens a little bit more compact without sacrificing that. Sometimes we have to do some clever things with the optics to make sure we get the best possible resolution and the best possible performance all around which is what the art series is really about. Is it true that Sigma doesn't it's famous for maybe not compromising on keeping the size maybe slightly bigger sometimes just to get the highest quality and the best price? Again, if you look at the kind of temporary range we're more interested in size and weight and flexibility and then you see the hyper zoom lenses the 18200 and the 18300 for the APS-C system and they tend to be a little bit smaller a little bit lighter with a slower aperture. When you look at the art series lens they are very much geared towards the best optical performance possible and that's very evident to see and the feedback we've had online and elsewhere very much a lauded by range. And many reviewers on the internet say that you are right up there as the highest quality but it's much more portable sometimes than other people doing. That's what they say and I don't want you to disagree with them. And so this would contemporary if we just jump over here Oh, sorry it's right over here So these are the 5D launching, right? Yep, these are the 5D lenses announced at Photokina 2018 all interesting and exciting in their way. We're looking at the two sports lenses here and we have recently opened a magnesium alloy manufacturing facility at our own factory in Asiut and these are the first two lenses that we can leverage for this one in particular the 60-600 it has a magnesium alloy rear barrel where the lens is obviously in the most stress and then to save weight it has a thermally stable composite main barrel which means we can have a lens that goes up to 600mm that's roughly the same weight as our contemporary 150-600 So you're really getting a premium quality 10x zoom the world's only 10x zoom that goes up to 600mm lens at a usable and friendly weight of 1.8 kilos and so it starts very wide Yep, yep so it goes from a more or less standard all the way through to a hyper telephoto so 60-600 So people can use it as a standard kind of like portrait also? Yep, absolutely so some people will remember we've always done a 50-500 and at the same time we did that we did the 150-500 obviously the 150-500 was replaced with the 150-600 the sport of the contemporary is the modern take on the 50-500 10x zoom concept but also we're going up to 600mm so we're starting at 60 to give that 10x ratio and the prices, is that what you mentioned before? 1399? No, the 1660-600 the SRP UK price for that is 1899 1899 and then we have this one also sports this is absolutely an amazing piece of design almost all the barrels are magnesium alloy so it's a very strong weight lens but there's a couple of amazing features to this it has 10 low dispersion elements so it has a a parallel amount of exotic high performance glass in there but not only that, it also has 11 iris plates which all have a very pronounced curvature to them so you're getting a really fantastic focal with that so for winning sports photographers you're not just going to capture a sharp image you're going to capture a very visually pleasing image as well Nice, and those two they fit on which cameras? So once again these and the art series we're going to look at in a moment they're available for Canon, Nikon and Sigma SI at the current time So that means you have three versions of each? Yep, so we do a amount of version service which is again a unique service for Sigma Offer and that's Canon fitting and it was later moved to a Sigma camera system Sigma SI camera fit you can send the lens back to us we would convert it from Canon to Sigma SI or from Canon to Nikon whichever way around you want to do You convert them? Yep, providing me off with the lens in the fitting you want originally we can swap between one and the other for you But is there no issues with like cropping or some kind of thing that might happen if you convert or just mount somehow? There's no issues with cropping or compatibility but it's a little bit more involved than just changing the mount the mount on the back is actually the easy bit on some of them we do have to change the rear barrel but there's also the gearing, the iris coupling the circuit boards there's a whole bunch of parts we have to change but the actual optics stay the same so you get the same optics mostly the same barrels possibly you have to change one barrel over which way you're converting from Because when you go from DSLR to mirrorless there's a different focal point right? Well again you have to bear in mind that these have only developed a Canon EF Nikon F and Sigma SI so they can only swap between those fittings and all of those fittings are of course DSLR not mirrorless So it's not for swapping over to a mirrorless? No I don't know if there are any plans to bring out the zooms Sony FE if we did do that as we have done with the prime lenses then yes we can swap between Canon and Sony FE with what I was saying is so long as we made the lens in the fitting you require we can swap from the fitting you have to the fitting you require obviously if we didn't offer the lens in that fitting we're not able to make that conversion When we look at the 40mm or 28mm the prime lens are serious here these are available in Sony FE as well as Canon and Nikon and Sigma SI so these you could buy and can fit and later on swap to a Sony F if you want to to Sony FE That's the 40mm we looked at briefly earlier that's been created as an series lens from an original Cine lens design which makes it unique in our range and once again we have the 28mm next to it which you saw earlier as well just blocking that gap between the 24-35mm nice but once again like all of the 1.4 prime art lenses 9 rounded iris plates in there and you have a Contemporary yep we do have a Contemporary 56mm we call this the DCDN range it's a fantastic optical performance very much on a parallel with the Mart series but we've made it using the thermosable composite materials to keep the weight down so you get a very light weight lens to carry around with you with a very high optical performance and once again looking at iris plates on this we're actually 9 iris plates in this lens which is very unusual in such a small lens for a crop sensor camera so yeah pretty quiet And the prices are good? Pricing is yet to be announced so as far as the new products go we only have pricing on the 60-600 So Sigma is how old is this company? Ah now I couldn't tell you the exact date but Mitsuhiro Yamaki-san was the founder of the company and he set the business up in I believe the mid 60s I did look it up once and I believe we're about 5 years younger than Neckon So it's a long history It's a long history of manufacturing in our own factory in the zoo in Japan where we make everything ourselves it's also a long history of innovation so if you go back to the early days we were the first company to produce a teleconverter that fit between the camera body and the lens and that kind of innovation carries on today with things like the USB dock for lenses the USB dock for flash units the mount conversion service these are things which were either first to bring to the market or that we still have unique opportunity for consumers Sometimes people pay even more for the lens than for the camera but not quite when it's Sigma it seems to be more affordable depends we would feel that the lens is the more important part certainly you should be paying more attention to the lens perhaps than the camera in general obviously if you have a very specific function a very specific need there may be a camera that still needs more than another one but by and large the optics are what reduces the quality Did you announce, did you confirm the phobia and the L-mount camera coming in 2019? yet that was the announcement made on I believe Tuesday at a press conference You didn't say exactly when right? I saw a slide just before I came out to speak to you and Kazuto Yamekisan who is the son of our founder Mr. Hiro Yamekisan we stood in front of a PowerPoint presentation it said full frame mirror as phobia camera 2019 so I couldn't get a better source for the information than that