# Why do major manufacturers like Canon, Nikon, Sigma not make manual lenses?



## Gavjenks (Aug 18, 2013)

There are so many amazing things that could be done with modern lens technology and manufacturing methods to allow optically crazy lenses for affordable amounts of money, if you didn't have to cram in gyroscopes and motors into every lens.

I read the other thread that was just made recently about Sigma's new 18-35mm constant aperture f/1.8, and my immediate thought was "almost ALL lenses could have these sorts of advanced abilities for the same prices, if we weren't paying for all the electronic crap."

I'm not saying to stop making autofocus lenses.  I'm saying to make both: autofocus lenses that have normal stats, and manual lenses that funnel all of those modern technology and engineering resources into crazily wide apertures or huge zooms that aren't low quality, or multiple diffractive optics featherweight tiny little 400mm lenses, or whatever, without ending up beyond the price that most of the market is willing to pay.

They do a LITTLE bit of this. For instance, tilt shifts from these companies are not autofocus, or for example, Canon's MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro has no autofocus.  But these are cases where autofocus wouldn't really work very well, and they were forced not to do it.  But all the same, this allows them to put the cost toward some amazing capabilities instead: tilft shift + large image circles.  Or 5x sharp macro optics.

Why not do that sometimes WITHOUT being forced to do it by physics? Not everybody NEEDS autofocus or image stabilization or auto aperture all the time in every lens. Why do we want to pay for them every time in every lens, at the expense of other cool stuff we could be getting instead?

Why am I paying for autofocus or auto aperture, for example, in a typical fisheye lens, where my depth of field is like 20 meters most of the time, and where I never even change my working aperture for months on end? I'd much rather have it be $200 cheaper, or a few millimeters wider.


----------



## tirediron (Aug 18, 2013)

Because they're in business to make money.  They make the products that the majority of consumers want, and at the end of the day, it is not worth their while to put the amount of money into R&D that is required to come out with a new lens when in all likelihood they will only sell a few tens of thousands of units to the hipster crowd.


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 18, 2013)

Putting image stabilization in Canon's 70-200mm 2.8 lens apparently adds about $700 to the price.

It's not unreasonable to estimate that by removing autofocus and autoaperture, you could shave off another $500-$600.

Only "hipsters" would be interested in a sharp, well-corrected modern Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L-quality optics brand new lens for $750 or so ($500 used after awhile?)





Or an 18-70mm f/2 constant aperture sharp modern manual lens for $300?


----------



## Derrel (Aug 18, 2013)

Nikon still makes 11 manual focus lenses. Down from around two dozen different manual focus models a few years back.




There are around 35 million, or more, used manual focus Nikkor lenses currently "in the wild".


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 18, 2013)

Are any of the ones on that list newly designed lenses, though, or old relics they still make?

The concept doesn't work unless *modern technology* is brought to bear on the manual lens. Aspherics, newly available exotic glass, fresnel lenses, modern plastics, etc. etc.

Making an old design from the 1970's doesn't accomplish the desired goal. It just results in lenses with normal optical qualities for cheaper than normal prices. Which is fine, but not what I'm asking for. I want superhuman lenses for TYPICAL modern prices (possible by using modern tech. for glass and structure, but not for electronics). Those are different things.


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 18, 2013)

By the way, what I'm suggesting is, in other industries, perfectly normal and done all the time.

Cars, for instance.  There are several companies that manufacture high end modern luxury sports cars, which take advantage of all of the modern technology in materials science and mechanics to achive superhuman performance, but without any unnecessary creature comforts or trim. _You can buy $1,000,000 sports cars that don't even have power windows_, because the motors are unnecessarily heavy. You can also buy a $300,000 or $100,000 sports car designed with the same philosophy.

Or you could buy a mainframe computer server that doesn't come with a keyboard or a monitor or hardly any disk space, or its own cooling system, or maybe not even a proper housing for the box, or connections for any of these things, or a motherboard that can even decently support them anyway, etc.. But does have stupidly stupidly powerful processors and RAM.

Or a sleeping bag that doesn't look particularly pretty or roll up to fit in your pocket, or conveniently "breathe" to stop you from sweating too much if you use it too early in the season, etc. But IS optimized at a reasonable price to keep you alive in -70 degree weather or whatever.

Let's do the same sort of thing in photography is all I'm saying. Lens options designed for maximum possible performance at certain things with somewhat reasonable price points. Ones that dump all unnecessary convenience baggage in order to cram in more of a certain kind of performance instead.




Hell, this even exists already in photography for NON-lens accessories, but not lenses. You can buy an all around affordable tripod, sure, but you can also get an 8 segment tripod that contracts to like 5 inches and weighs 2 pounds (extreme portability in exchange for low stability or convenience of usage), or you can buy an iron brick of a studio tripod that could balance an elephant on top of it, but requires a car to move it anywhere more than a block away (stability in exchange for giving up portability). For some reason, though, all lenses take a much more "jack of all trades / middle of the road" approach when it comes to electronics features.


----------



## Derrel (Aug 19, 2013)

Nikon invented floating element lens design, which revolutionized wide-angle lens performance. Later, they refined it, and came up with their close-range correction system, or CRC and the 20/2.8,24/2.8 and 35/1.4 all have CRC, and are relatively modern designs. I'm not sure when the 28/2.8 was last re-worked design wise,and I do not think it has CrC. The PC-E lenses are all new designs, and the 85 is the second generation. The 55 and 105 Micro-Nikkors are pretty good optically.

The biggest issue with manual focus lenses on autofocus bodies is accurate focusing. In many shooting scenarios, manually focusing is pretty inaccurate for many shooters, due to the viewfinder screens most cameras have nowadays. The fine-grained, smooth, sometimes artificially brightened viewfinder screens AF bodies come with do not show the ACTUAL shallow depth of field, due to the way the viewfinder screens are ground; an f/1.2 lens for example, has depth of field that visually appears to be about f/4 on an AF viewfinder screen, give or take a bit, so focusing is VERY dicey on something like an f/1.2 lens. Of course the same caveat applies when using an autofocus 1.2 lens on an AF body equipped with an AF viewfinder screen. Canon's Chuck Westfall said that the new Canon viewfinder system in one of their modern-era DSLR models had an effective DOF representation of f/4.2, which was causing a ton of focusing issues for people using their 50/1.2 and 85/1.2-L models and trying to manually focus them...the human error in focusing is now a huge PITA...

The best way to manually focus with an AF body is live view focusing, or live view with focus peaking, but that's mostly limited to fairly static,tripod-based shooting. The shift from manual focusing to autofocusing has hit the camera bodies pretty significantly...the tiny, crappy viewfinders on most APS-C entry- and consumer-level camera bodies make manual focusing using the tiny, low-magnification viewfinder image an iffy proposition. Now that Nikon has moved all cameras except the D4 to 24 megapixel sensors, and the D800 and D800e to 36 megapixel, accurate FOCUSING has become even more critical than it used to be. A 36-MP capture that's badly focused can end up having 8 megapixels worth of detail. All one needs to do to see how pathetic an entry-level d-slr focuses a manual focus lens is to use an MF lens on say, a D3200 or D5200 or D7100...and then use the same lens on a FILM camera that has the proper viewing system for manual focus ascertainment...there's no comparison.

So, while it might SEEM like manual focusing is a big plus, the digital cameras out on the market right now are really designed to be used with AF lenses. I was looking at Thom Hogan's D3s versus D3x sample photos a while back...as he pointed out, a slightly mis-focused 24MP D3x capture looks worse than a spot-on D3s 12.2 megapixel capture! We see the same thing reported on from a lot of high-megapixel shooters now...FOCUSING has become a major stumbling block now that the capture sizes are so,so large. I think the way the camera makers see it, they wanna sell MILLIONS of entry-level bodies and lenses and sell tons of volume. Manual focus has lost a lot of lustre in the marketplace. And I think the presence of Cosina manufacturing the "Zeiss" MF and cine lenses has pretty well sewn up the niche market that manual focus is these days.

If you DO want some new manual focusing lenses, Cosina is making its Voigtlander SL-II series for Canon and Nikon SLRs. https://www.cameraquest.com/Voigt_SL2.htm

They have what I have read is a good 20mm/3.5; a NEW 28mm f/2.8 aspherical for $529 F or $499 EOS; the 40mm f/2 Ultron; a 58mm f/1.4 Nokton, and have announced a new 75mm f/1.8 design (which seems to be delayed over 30 months since announcement in 2011...hmmm...); and the 90mm APO-Lanthar. If one wishes to pay triple or quadruple, one can buy the "Zeiss" branded manual focusing lenses, made also by....Cosina...


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 19, 2013)

Hm, touche.

But although my T2i has a ****ty little pentamirror tucked in a dusty corner under the built in flash, my 6D has a pretty legit looking prism that seems just as large as my old manual Olympus 1's is.

As long as you have a good, bright prism, is it feasible to simply swap out the focusing screen for one of a different grind and magnification and/or microprism split focus or similar to bring the camera's manual focusing abilities up to par with typical manual cameras?

If so, that's only like a $20 accessory. If not, why not? What is it about the design of DSLR prisms that even with a different focusing screen would be fundamentally different than old manual cameras?


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 19, 2013)

Hm, touche.

But although my T2i has a ****ty little pentamirror tucked in a dusty corner under the built in flash, my 6D has a pretty legit looking prism that seems just as large as my old manual Olympus 1's is.

As long as you have a good, bright prism, is it feasible to simply swap out the focusing screen for one of a different grind and magnification and/or microprism split focus or similar to bring the camera's manual focusing abilities up to par with typical manual cameras?

If so, that's only like a $20 accessory. If not, why not? What is it about the design of DSLR prisms that even with a different focusing screen would be fundamentally different than old manual cameras?




Also, wouldn't it be a perfectly workable solution to not have any electronics in the lens, but to still use the AF sensors on the bottom of the camera body to just tell you when the software thinks you have perfect focus? And to indicate in some other way when you start getting closer (for example, blinking the green focus confirm dot faster and faster as you get within range of in focus, then holding steady at perfect focus)? Your hand simply being the replacement for the AF motors in the regular scheme of things. This would not require any new focusing screens or prisms or any other hardware.  Just firmware adjustments. yet it could still deliver all the same acuity of an AF system with none of the cost of the actual motors and electronics.


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 19, 2013)

why is this forum double posting everything I try to edit tonight?


----------



## Derrel (Aug 19, 2013)

Yes, the size and magnification of the FF bodies is decent....but the "grind" or the degree of scatter, that is used in the viewfinder screens in AF systems just KILLS the human eye's ability to discern In-focus or out-of-focus. Like Westfall said, their tests at Canon were showing one body model with an "apparent" visual depth of field value of f/4.2...so...the people doing the manual focusing with fast primes were unable to actually get the benefit of the shallow DOF on things like their 50/1.2-L and 85/1.2-L lenses.

The other day, I picked up my old Nikon F3HP, and looked through it with a 50/2 on there. Oh-My-LORD!!!!!!! I was able to just SNAP! it into focus by hand-and-eye. D-slr finders are the same size, but lack the degree of contrast that the manual focusing viewscreens needed, and had.

Finder screens on average these days cost what? $100 to $200, depending? They USED to be cheap. But once again....this high-volume sales stuff is killing us. In an "old" design like a Nikon F,F2,or F3, the screen fits down from the top, with a removeable prism, and the screen sits on top of a frame, so it fits perfectly and the screen can NEVER drop out and into the mirrorbox. On most lower-end 35mm film cam's and on ALL d-slr's, removeable screens go in, are pushed up, and held in place by a fairly delicate clip system. The vast majority of d-slrs have NON-interchangeable finder screens, because,well...there's not that much NEED for them. Here is some "want" or desire, but it's a niche crowd. Interchangeablke viewfinder screens have ALWAYS been associated with top-end and 'serious' cameras.

Then there's the problem of how the cameras meter off of the screen image...OMG...different grinds used to necessitate EV comp be dialed in. SOME screens were useless, and almost killed metering. Most were only 1/2 to 2/3 EV correction, as I recall. On the newer cams like the 7D and I think the D300 series, they have a transmissive screen that is artificially BRIGHTENED by illumination supplied by the camera's battery system. KatzEYE, the company, makes some screens that fit some d-slrs. These newer, illuminated screens can superimpose grids, and so on. I miss the good old days of the K-screen and the grid E-screen.


----------



## Derrel (Aug 19, 2013)

Ahhhh, here's a blurb on the new "illuminated" system Canon added when they came out with the 7D:

"The EOS 7D's viewfinder doesn't feature interchangeable focusing screens. Instead, it has a *transmissive polymer network LCD display* integrated into the prism assembly -- a design we've previously seen in Nikon's DSLRs. Illuminated by a light-emitting diode in low-light conditions, this display is embedded with patterns that allow it to display either the camera's AF points, metering areas or a grid to assist with precise image alignment. It's an interesting design that allows the user to select which information they want to see without needing to fiddle with changing viewfinder screens. One potential drawback is that in extremely cold (sub-freezing) temperatures, the AF point display in AI Servo Tracking mode may lag behind the actual performance of the AF system. Note that due to the transmissive display, when there's no battery in the EOS 7D, its viewfinder becomes dark and clouded."

from  Canon 7D Review: Full Review - Viewfinder


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 19, 2013)

And Option #2?

More rapidly flashing AF confirm dot as you approach precise focus? Let the AF system continue to do the focus interpretation, but your hands replace the motors in perfectly nailing it. No need for better prisms or screens. Could be retrofitted onto old models without any new hardware.

I should ask about this on the magic lantern forums I guess...


----------



## gsgary (Aug 19, 2013)

Get a Leica


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 19, 2013)

Uh.... your solution to maximally *cost-effective* performance-oriented lenses is LEICA?!


----------



## Overread (Aug 19, 2013)

Isn't there a company that is already doing this - Ronkin or Roknin or something with some pretty decent optics in fully manual lenses.


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 19, 2013)

Yeah Rokinon (actual manufacturer is Samyang who sell their stuff under multiple brand names) is awesome.

But they only have like 5 appreciably different lenses (in variations ad infinitum), and 3 of them although good quality, are fairly boring (85mm 1.5, 35mm 1.5, and a not-actually-very-cheap tilt shift that gets pretty bad reviews on build quality). There are some impressive apertures, but you can already get really close to those numbers with any of a huge variety of old surplus manual lenses, etc. for just as cheap.

Their other two lenses however (14mm 2.8 and 8mm fisheye) do indeed push some serious boundaries, and do so in a performance optimized way fueled by a cheap lack of autofocus and electronics. They both very much take advantage of modern technology and design to do some crazy wide angle stuff at price points that would be inconceivable in the past, and in a market that has no other comparable options (the Canon 14mm of apparently similar quality costs about 5x as much).

That's exactly what I am looking for! But again, only two impressive specimens thus far.  Definitely more interesting than the Cosina stuff (a 28mm, f/2.8 manual? really? There are literally dozens of models of exactly those manual stats, populating almost every single brand ever to have sold manual lenses, available for pennies everywhere)




edit: oh rokinon also has a fairly decent catadioptric 500mm that is kinda cool. Donuts, though.


----------



## 480sparky (Aug 19, 2013)

An excellent way to make this point of why they don't is to go into business for yourself. Start yourself your own company, manufacture manual focus lenses, and get back to us in five years and let us know how you're doing.


----------



## gsgary (Aug 19, 2013)

Gavjenks said:


> Uh.... your solution to maximally cost-effective performance-oriented lenses is LEICA?!



leica lenses will better any canon and nikon you can fit Leica R lenses to Canon witb fantastic results


----------



## amolitor (Aug 19, 2013)

Gavjenks said:


> Putting image stabilization in Canon's 70-200mm 2.8 lens apparently adds about $700 to the price.
> 
> It's not unreasonable to estimate that by removing autofocus and autoaperture, you could shave off another $500-$600.



It's completely unreasonable. On what basis do you make that leap?


----------



## gsgary (Aug 19, 2013)

amolitor said:


> It's completely unreasonable. On what basis do you make that leap?



Dont think he has seen the price of Leica lenses no auto focus on them


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 19, 2013)

amolitor said:


> Gavjenks said:
> 
> 
> > Putting image stabilization in Canon's 70-200mm 2.8 lens apparently adds about $700 to the price.
> ...


Image stabilization is not particularly more complicated of an engineering problem (in the modern day) than autofocus and aperture and wiring and remaining computer chips. So whatever their cost is for one + markup should be somewhat similar to their cost for the other + markup.  I knocked it down a couple hundred to be conservative on top of that.

Note that although IS gets much more expensive with heavy glass to move around, so does autofocus with heavy glass to move around as well (and further to move it).





> An excellent way to make this point of why they don't is to go into business for yourself. Start yourself your own company, manufacture manual focus lenses, and get back to us in five years and let us know how you're doing.


I am legitimately considering this and have been prototyping various ideas for some months now. My ideas and capabilities are completely different, however, from what a company like Canon or Sigma could do, though, obviously. I stand ZERO chance of making a competitive standard-purpose high performance lens, so the only way I would see more of those on the market would be though my voice as a consumer, not through manufacturing.  Unless you have 50 million dollars you'd like to loan me.

Mostly, I'm just curious, though. Not upset about the lack of lenses.



> leica lenses will better any canon and nikon you can fit Leica R lenses to Canon witb fantastic results


Leica lenses are like maybe 25% better on average in exchange for a 2,000% higher cost. Hence my emphasis on *cost effective*. They are not that. They are frilly high end designer "look at me I'm cool and rich and you should sleep with me" lenses.

Which is fine, more power to them. But not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking about normal, affordable companies who already make normal lenses also making equally affordable lenses which have above-normal optical qualities in exchange for the cost savings of not always putting in auto-everything 100% of the time.


Derrel's points about the difficulty of manual focusing with modern screens and prisms pretty much answers why they don't do this currently for wide aperture lenses. (Although I still don't see why you couldn't just have the autofocus sensors in the body tell you when you have manually focused to the correct point)


----------



## Dao (Aug 19, 2013)

First of all, when you buy a lens, you are not just paying for the cost of making the lens.  The $500 to $700 different in cost of the non-IS vs IS lens is not the different in cost of putting the IS into the lens.  What Canon/Nikon selling us is the technology or better yet, a feature.   A feature that they believe that people will buy.  If not, they will try to market it in a way that to make you believe you need that feature.  If they succeed, great! If not, they will try again with different things.

A can of Pepsi cola cost 50 cents at the machine.  Do you think if they just sell you a soda without any taste will cost a lot less?   It is not going to be 10 cents nor 25 cents, not even 40 cents.  It is going to be 50 cents or more.    When you buy a bottle of Aquafina bottle water, you paid $1.50 or more.  But that water is coming from the tap water (same with Coca-Cola Co's Dasani).   Same thing, they are marketing a product and make you believe it is better and you need it.   It works, so they continue to sell us the tap water.  So since it is just tap water, should it be 10 cents per bottle?  Nope.  That is not going to be the case.  Even if the cost of manufacturing the bottle water and deliver it to the consumer is 50 cents per bottle, they are going to sell it at $1 or more.

It is not because they should, it is because they can as long as the market allow them.


----------



## usayit (Aug 19, 2013)

All this is moot....  

Manufacturers are in the business to sell stuff for a profit, not to make it more affordable for the 1% that might care.

Bringing in Leica into the mix is kinda dumb:

R-lenses are no longer being made.   You can generalize the conversation by considering older adapted (or not adapted) manual lenses. 

M-mount Leica is a niche product and no where close to being an option for someone looking for ~cheaper~ options.

Leica is working in revenues in the few millions... Canon, Nikon, and the like are operating with revenues several times that.  That's their target... tens of millions.  You don't make that catering to a small group of consumers.



If its that important, I'd sell a few items and go with Nikon with its long support for manual focus Nikkor lenses.    I'm sure there are used bodies that are old enough  and good enough that it is far more cost effective to simply buy a Nikon body to be used specifically with those lenses.   That's what I did with Pentax Kmount.   I don't see the typical consumer buying a manual focus lens just to save a few bucks.   Modern manual lenses that do exist (Zeiss, voigtlander, etc) are sold as niche products to a very small market.


----------



## Dao (Aug 19, 2013)

One additional note on the high price items or luxury items.  Manufacturers usually want or need to maintain that status.  And they do not want to upset the consumers/owners of the high price / luxury items.   That is a market that they do not sell a lot, but they can maintain a higher profit margin.  They will do a lot of thing to protect that market.

If Canon make a cheap L lens, what will happen?   A brand new 4 door BMW 3 series suddenly US$20,000 out of the door with non powered cloth seats, manual windows and door lock, regular grade audio system but still drive like a BMW 3 series?  Will they able to sell a lot of them since it is great price for a BMW 3 series?   I doubt it.  It is not only they cannot sell the cheap 3 series well, but also destroying their name.   It is possible that other expensive models sales will drop.


----------



## Steve5D (Aug 19, 2013)

Gavjenks said:


> There are so many amazing things that could be done with modern lens technology and manufacturing methods to allow optically crazy lenses for affordable amounts of money, if you didn't have to cram in gyroscopes and motors into every lens.
> 
> I read the other thread that was just made recently about Sigma's new 18-35mm constant aperture f/1.8, and my immediate thought was "almost ALL lenses could have these sorts of advanced abilities for the same prices, if we weren't paying for all the electronic crap."
> 
> ...



The answer is profoundly simple: They won't sell enough of them to make the investment, on their part, worthwhile.

I used to work for Taylor Guitars. The VP of Sales had a saying when someone suggested something along this same line: "We'll sell tens of them".

Bottom line is that there's not nearly the consumer demand for them, so it would be a waste of time and money for them...


----------



## amolitor (Aug 19, 2013)

The volume on AF components is enormous. The R&D costs of AF bits and pieces have been defrayed over an immense number of lenses. To a somewhat lesser extent, autoaperture likewise.

The bill of materials cost of stuff like this is almost never a substantive part of the cost. In a lens the only stuff with BoM costs that even registers is the glass, I suspect. The rest is just plastic, some machined metal bits and pieces, some wires, some glue. It's all a couple bucks here and a few pennies there.

It's quite possible, just an example, that the $700 cost for in lens IS for the whatever-it-was includes defraying the cost of a $300,000 bespoke test jig to verify that the IS is working properly, while testing the AF and AA components is done on pre-existing equipment that's been paid off for a decade.


----------



## Steve5D (Aug 19, 2013)

I have no doubt that the major lens manufacturers factor in the cost of all that plastic, machined metal bits and pieces, some wires, and the glue. _*All *_of it goes into the BoM...


----------



## amolitor (Aug 19, 2013)

Sure, but the point is that you're not going to get to $700 with bits of plastic. You *can* get to $700 quite quickly in a low volume product amortizing the _tooling costs for the plastic bits_ but that's not BoM cost.

Anyways, the point is 'it's $700 for such and such, to it must be about $600 for this other superficially similar thing' is a wild and unreasonable leap.


----------



## pixmedic (Aug 19, 2013)

Steve5D said:


> I have no doubt that the major lens manufacturers factor in the cost of all that plastic, machined metal bits and pieces, some wires, and the glue. _*All *_of it goes into the BoM...



I don't know anything about lens manufacturing...
but, I know that the company I work for has a dollar amount that is billed for pretty much everything. even equipment usage for stuff LONG paid for in full. 
I dont know how much is charged, if that charge is scaled in any way, or even how they come to those numbers....but i DO know that there is a specific dollar amount charged for monitor use every time a PT needs a cardiac monitor even though our Lifepacks  have already paid for themselves 10 times over or more.
This kind of charging could be industry specific....i really dont know. however, I dont see any reason why a company would stop factoring in equipment usage just because a machine is paid off. I would imagine that to be kind of the point. the machine pays itself off, then actually makes the company money.


----------



## imagemaker46 (Aug 19, 2013)

The manual world of photography has pretty much run it's course, technology changed to make it easier and faster for anyone with a camera to produce simple images without having to worry about really having to know much about photography.  I believe it's safe to say 99% of the people using digital cameras right now couldn't focus a manual lens with any kind of consistency, if they had to use one on a moving object the delete rate would be close to 100%.  It is a skill that requires a lot of practice to get really good at.


----------



## Steve5D (Aug 19, 2013)

imagemaker46 said:


> The manual world of photography has pretty much run it's course, technology changed to make it easier and faster for anyone with a camera to produce simple images without having to worry about really having to know much about photography. I believe it's safe to say 99% of the people using digital cameras right now couldn't focus a manual lens with any kind of consistency, if they had to use one on a moving object the delete rate would be close to 100%. It is a skill that requires a lot of practice to get really good at.



 I would posit that it's a skill which one could easily get by without. I honestly can't remember the last time I used manual focus...


----------



## gsgary (Aug 19, 2013)

imagemaker46 said:


> The manual world of photography has pretty much run it's course, technology changed to make it easier and faster for anyone with a camera to produce simple images without having to worry about really having to know much about photography.  I believe it's safe to say 99% of the people using digital cameras right now couldn't focus a manual lens with any kind of consistency, if they had to use one on a moving object the delete rate would be close to 100%.  It is a skill that requires a lot of practice to get really good at.



I get more in focus with my manual M4 leicas than i got with Canon


----------



## imagemaker46 (Aug 19, 2013)

Steve5D said:


> imagemaker46 said:
> 
> 
> > The manual world of photography has pretty much run it's course, technology changed to make it easier and faster for anyone with a camera to produce simple images without having to worry about really having to know much about photography. I believe it's safe to say 99% of the people using digital cameras right now couldn't focus a manual lens with any kind of consistency, if they had to use one on a moving object the delete rate would be close to 100%. It is a skill that requires a lot of practice to get really good at.
> ...



I agree to a point, but I still use manual focus all the time.  For the new world of photography and the average camera owner, it is not something they will ever have to learn, for most there simply is not need.


----------



## amolitor (Aug 19, 2013)

How do you manage to manual focus? Modern AF-based cameras give you truly miserable support..

Do you use the AF system to tell you when it's right? Or did you pony up for third party screens with proper focusing aids? Something else?


----------



## slow231 (Aug 19, 2013)

HA at comparing AF and aperture selection to IS. Even on a manual lens, focus + aperture selection must eventually be translated to just rotating a single dial. figuring out how to actuate that single mechanism isn't rocket science. can you conceive of a single dial that would handle IS? not only are there multiple directions/angles of motion (for potentially multiple elements), but incorporating this feature means that the lens must also be able to determine the appropriate directions to move! it's not at all as simple as just moving a single degree of freedom to known positions (or positions as determined by the body AF sensor).

and ROFL at the prototyping comment.


----------



## imagemaker46 (Aug 19, 2013)

amolitor said:


> How do you manage to manual focus? Modern AF-based cameras give you truly miserable support..
> 
> Do you use the AF system to tell you when it's right? Or did you pony up for third party screens with proper focusing aids? Something else?



On my 70-200 and my 300mm, I have no trouble switching off the auto focus. I have a manual 400 2.8 FD that I use to shoot some sports, it works just great. I like the challenge from time to time.


----------



## Derrel (Aug 19, 2013)

Gavjenks, others: Not sure if ya'll read Rorger Cicala's columns over at the lensrentals.com site, but he and the crew there have some good articles recently showing pictures from teardowns of AF lenses. Modern autofocus lenses are JAM-PACKED with stuff,and are very complex machines! Last week they did their traditional post on lens failure rates, located at LensRentals.com - Lensrentals Repair Data: 2012-2013

I bring this up vis a vis the comments made earlier about the inexpensive manual focus lenses marketed under the *Rokinon* brand name in the USA. The four Rokinon models that Lensrentals.com stocks have in 2012-13, lead their list of "quickest to fail" lenses. Eight weeks, 11 weeks, and 19 weeks are the average failure times for their 35mm. 24mm, and 14mm manual focus lenses. If I am not mistaken, these Rokinon manual focus lenses are also marketed under the Bower brand, and the Samyang brand, depending on country of sale. I know Roger considerers these lenses to fall under what he has referred to on several occasions as the "SamyRokiBow" lenses; lenses which have good stats, good optics, but which are, for the folks at Lensrentals "disposable lenses" that they throw away instead of repair; Lensrentals does not have any factory repair connections with the makers of these lenses.




Anyway...I guess this shows another piece of the puzzle that is lens manufacturing. Rokinon lenses, 3 of the 4 Lensrentals.com has offered this past year, tend to break down at an astonishingly high rate. I mean, eight weeks to failure, on AVERAGE? And 11 weeks to failure? Wow...that seems like very shoddy manufacturing, or utterly craptastic engineering.


----------



## Steve5D (Aug 19, 2013)

imagemaker46 said:


> I agree to a point, but I still use manual focus all the time. For the new world of photography and the average camera owner, it is not something they will ever have to learn, for most there simply is not need.



There's really no need for pros, either.

For instance, when I use my 70-200mm f/2.8L, I use it in AF. 

Exclusively.

I've not shot a single frame with that lens in which I used manual focus, and I've owned the lens for over seven years.

I'm having a difficult time coming up with a scenario in which I would want, or need, to manually focus...


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 19, 2013)

> Manufacturers are in the business to sell stuff for a profit, not to make it more affordable for the 1% that might care.


The Canon technical R&D people are ALREADY working on exactly the sort of stuff I'm talking about: diffractive optics, aspherics, etc. This is not some wild goose chase side project that would distract them from their main profit makers. It's just capitalizing on whatever they are already researching with a few more iterations to capture a larger market share.

What I'm suggesting does not require any huge industrial research initiatives or other major up front costs compared to other lenses.  It involves designing some already existing technology into a metal tube and then sending it to the factory.  And there are no electronics, remember, so it really is pretty much a metal tube with a focuser (trivial to design when there aren't electronics in the way) and an iris aperture (similarly).  This should be absolute child's play for companies like this and take almost no resources compared to the huge upfront costs already invested in factories and tech. 

You're acting as if physical lens design is somehow the bottleneck at companies like Nikon or Canon. It's, um, not. They could probably roll out 50 new lenses next year if they felt like it.

And since lens design is such a tiny marginal cost to their whole business, they should be able to justify it even with tiny increases to profits. In other words, if redesigning a simimlar lens without the electronics only represents a 5% marginal increase in overall costs, then it can be justified with 5% of normal revenue increase.  And if it snags a new customer to your brand (niche folks), then you can justify it for WAY WAY less, because they'll also be buying other things most likely.

*If that weren't true, do you think Canon would be selling any $2500 tilt shift lenses?* No, they wouldn't. These are vastly more complex to design than a standard fixed manual lens, and appeal to a probably even smaller market (I for one have a few friends who commonly shoot manual, and don't know anybody who owns a non-lensbaby tilt). Yet they sell multiple versions of them.




> One additional note on the high price items or luxury items. Manufacturers usually want or need to maintain that status.


I quite understand and agree.  But please note that I'm not suggesting they make cheap, terrible lenses. Just because it's manual doesn't mean it can't have world class near-perfect optics, weather sealing, magnesium body, whatever you want in a luxury lens. In fact, the whole point is that by not having electronics, all the rest of the stuff can be even MORE luxury than normal.

Just... different.  Which doesn't hurt a company's high class reputation at all.



> The answer is profoundly simple: They won't sell enough of them to make the investment, on their part, worthwhile.


It might be that, but like I was musing above, it's hard to imagine how the marginal R&D cost of such a type of lens would amount to much of anything at all to Canon or Nikon. I mean, without electronics, we're talking maybe a month's work for like one guy to design it, and then some testing and industrial optimization.

And the marginal production cost is less irrelevant, because if you make 10,000 units, you only pay for 10,000 lenses worth of materials in exchange for your 10,000 lenses of revenue.  Setting up a factory would add overhead to this, but I'm imagining they have fairly flexible and automated assembly lines for a standard tube lens design.

it would make much more sense to me if they were choosing not to for *marketing* reasons of some sort.  More similar to the quote above this one about "luxury name brand street cred" but not exactly from the luxury angle. Something similar perhaps, though, about how they want to present themselves or something.  But I can't quite put my finger on it.




> HA at comparing AF and aperture selection to IS. Even on a manual lens, focus + aperture selection must eventually be translated to just rotating a single dial. figuring out how to actuate that single mechanism isn't rocket science. can you conceive of a single dial that would handle IS?


Uh yes, actually. IS is not nearly as complicated as you seem to be making it out to be.  The core concept is like a high school science fair project level of complexity. It's basically a lens with some magnets and then another ring of magnets around it, and they turn on the magnets in the opposite direction that is detected by angle sensors, in 2 dimensions.  The end, pretty much.

It is in a very real sense, a sort of electronic single "ring" that is spun to whatever the opposite of the resultant vector of motion is at any given time. Pretty much a 1-dimensional actuation if you think in polar coordinates, very similar to aperture or focus.



> There's really no need for pros, either [to manually focus].


The idea of the thread isn't that MF is better. It's pretty clearly not, on average.  It's that it's cheaper, and not usually strictly necessary.  It's nice to have the option to not pay for unnecessary creature comforts sometimes, and choose performance instead.


----------



## Steve5D (Aug 19, 2013)

Gavjenks said:


> It might be that, but like I was musing above, it's hard to imagine how the marginal R&D cost of such a type of lens would amount to much of anything at all to Canon or Nikon. I mean, without electronics, we're talking maybe a month's work for like one guy to design it, and then some testing and industrial optimization.



There's no "might" about it. 

That's the reason.

You've grossly oversimplified the question about R&D. Any significant change (and this would be one) is going to be met with a need to do R&D. It's not as simple as putting optics into a metal tube. Since all of the AF stuff is taken out, what will now fill the physical space once occupied by the AF stuff? That has to happen, and it's going to happen through R&D. 

Everything affects everything else, regardless of how slight that impact might be. And, above all else, there has to be a significant enough market for something for a manufacturer to put something into production. 

A manual focus only lens? I just don't see a significant enough customer base for such a thing to entice a manufacturer to change things up, especially when all someone has to do, if they want manual focus bad enough, is to switch AF off on an already available lens...


----------



## table1349 (Aug 19, 2013)

There is a simple solution to your dilemma.  Contact Canon tell them what you want, send them a check to cover the costs and they will make it for you.  Hold on to our wallet thoght cause it is going to make the cost of Leica lenses look like the average lens you can pick up in any quicky mart along with you cigaretts, beer and porn.  

Do you  really think the Canon 5200mm f14 was a production lens. It was a speciality lens that was made to order.  The 1200mm f5.6 is no longer in production either.  It was another speciality lens that died from Lack of Demand.  

If  you want some off beat speciality lens then you pay the price to have it made.  R&D costs money, Re-tooling also costs money as well as time.  In the manufacturing world, time IS money.  

If you are confident enough that there is a market for what you suggested, I am sure that Canon will gladly produce all you want and you can be the supplier of this revolutionalry new lens.  Remeber anything can be done if you have the money.


----------



## amolitor (Aug 19, 2013)

Gavjenks has demonstrated repeatedly that he's a smart dude without a shred of understanding about manufacturing and the R&D machinery that goes behind it.


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 19, 2013)

The Canon 1200mm f/5.6 L sold maybe a couple of dozen copies ever, at $80,000 each.  And it wasn't a failing proposition for Canon, because they continued to manufacture more over the course of years.  They wouldn't do that if they were losing money.

So that means that the 1200 5.6L only ever grossed a revenue of a couple of million dollars over the whole production run, and this was enough to justify it to Canon. Considering that 10% of the revenue of a product being R&D is really high even for a high tech camera company, this especially weird lens might have required let's say 15% R&D, or $300,000.

Even if a normal consumer run of the mill lens cost as much to design and prototype as that ridiculous thing (unlikely), and if it sold for about a normal $300, then you would only have to sell 10,000 units for R&D to be down to 10% of the revenue.  Niche market is just fine at those amounts.




Plus, we already know that there are companies who DO sell brand new manufactured fully manual lenses. Like the aforementioned Rokinon. So there's obviously a market for them.  And if Rokinon lenses fall apart in less than a year, then not only is there a market, but there's a market that could be serviced much better / taken over mostly by a more competent manufacturer for just a tad more money.


----------



## imagemaker46 (Aug 19, 2013)

Steve5D said:


> imagemaker46 said:
> 
> 
> > I agree to a point, but I still use manual focus all the time. For the new world of photography and the average camera owner, it is not something they will ever have to learn, for most there simply is not need.
> ...



Like I said I do focus manually quite often.  It all depends on the situations.  Bottom line is "whatever works for the individual"  Some people have enough trouble using AF.


----------



## amolitor (Aug 19, 2013)

Gavjenks said:


> So that means that the 1200 5.6L only ever grossed a revenue of a couple of million dollars over the whole production run, and this was enough to justify it to Canon. Considering that 10% of the revenue of a product being R&D is really high even for a high tech camera company, this especially weird lens might have required let's say 15% R&D, or $300,000.



Where do you even come up with this stuff? On what basis are you throwing around "R&D budget of 10% of revenue is really high"? An outfit like Nikon is going to have wildly varying ratios across their product line. Just as a for instance, the annual report from Nikon in 2011 suggests R&D of $730M on revenues of $10B, or 7.3 percent overall, for the entire company, across all product lines.


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 19, 2013)

So in other words, I was pretty much spot on that 10% would be on the high end, and 15% would be especially high

Only rough numbers matter here anyway.  The point is that the production runs would only have to be in the low ten(s) of thousands, which is appropriate for a somewhat but not entirely niche lens.

Go ahead and guess that it's 20% or 30%, even, if you want to go crazy.  Still only translates out to low tens of thousands of units.


----------



## table1349 (Aug 19, 2013)

Gavjenks said:


> The Canon 1200mm f/5.6 L sold maybe a couple of dozen copies ever, at $80,000 each.  And it wasn't a failing proposition for Canon, because they continued to manufacture more over the course of years.  They wouldn't do that if they were losing money.
> 
> So that means that the 1200 5.6L only ever grossed a revenue of a couple of million dollars over the whole production run, and this was enough to justify it to Canon. Considering that 10% of the revenue of a product being R&D is really high even for a high tech camera company, this especially weird lens might have required let's say 15% R&D, or $300,000.
> 
> ...



Well there you go then buy a Rokinon.  Apparently Canon doesn't perceive that there is the market you feel there is.  And if there is that market then you would be poised to develop it yourself and make millions.


----------



## amolitor (Aug 19, 2013)

Gavjenks said:


> The Canon 1200mm f/5.6 L sold maybe a couple of dozen copies ever, at $80,000 each.  And it wasn't a failing proposition for Canon, because they continued to manufacture more over the course of years.  They wouldn't do that if they were losing money.
> 
> So that means that the 1200 5.6L only ever grossed a revenue of a couple of million dollars over the whole production run, and this was enough to justify it to Canon. Considering that 10% of the revenue of a product being R&D is really high even for a high tech camera company, this especially weird lens might have required let's say 15% R&D, or $300,000.




Spoken by a guy who's clearly never brought an electronic device to market. Passing various required RF emissions and immunity tests for an electronic device in all the different markets Canon sells into could cost $300,000 right there. I can flatly guarantee you that AFTER you have FULLY DESIGNED the lens and verified that the design works and is manufacturable, you have more than $300,000 in R&D expenses just to get from the prototype to a shippable, testable, legal product in a global market.

I would be very very surprised to learn that a product like this can be brought to market for less than $1M total R&D. Figure another few hundred grand for tooling and manufacturing setup, minimum, which is billed I dunno where. Then there's hinky inventory costing because you're clearly building this thing in small batches and storing stuff up. We'd probably all be astounded at how little of that $80,000 was actually spent on parts that went into the lens.

It's also quite possible that Canon lost their shirts on this thing. Look up "Halo Product".


----------



## amolitor (Aug 19, 2013)

Gavjenks said:


> So in other words, I was pretty much spot on that 10% would be on the high end, and 15% would be especially high



You're making wild and unjustified assumptions about distributions here, and you know it. You're assuming something resembling a normal distribution (so that 'high end' end means something) with a very small standard deviation (so that 10 is 'on the high end' relative to a mean of 7.3). You're almost certainly wrong on both those counts.


----------



## TCampbell (Aug 19, 2013)

I'm trying to understand your point in these manual-focus lenses... 

Since you can just flick a switch on any of the auto-focus lenses and happily manual focus to your heart's creative content... what would the point of building dedicated manual-focus only lenses be?  Are you thinking there would be a cost savings?

The thread has covered the end-user practical problems -- users have come to trust and expect lenses to auto-focus.  As you pointed out above, Canon does make some lenses that aren't intended to sell in volume... but also remember that those lenses that don't sell in volume have fairly high price tags.    When you buy an expensive tilt-shift, part of what you're paying for is that you're sharing not just the R&D costs... but also the productization costs with not very many other customers. 

I've had this conversation numerous times in the auto-industry (this is an industry I grew up in.)  Ford (we'll just pick on Ford) makes a Mustang and a Focus.  The base price on a strip down Mustang is about $22k.  The base price on a strip-down focus is about $16k.  Here's the question:  Do you believe it COSTS Ford an extra $6k to produce the Mustang?

The answer, it turns out, is absolutely not. The vast majority of the "cost" of the car is the loaded cost of overhead, salary, benefits, design time, testing (including crash testing where they have to destroy hand-made vehicles because the vehicle isn't yet approved for "production" yet.)   It's not just the vehicle parts that have to be designed and engineered... there's an enormous amount of engineering that goes into developing the assembly line tooling that will be used to "build" the car.   So even the amount of space in a plant, the number of machines and tooling, and staff to put it all together isn't actually significantly different.  Yes... the Mustang does technically require more raw material to produce ... but it's not that much more.  Turns out the auto-industry is a bit special in that they have to satisfy government "CAFE" standards and to do that they practically have to bribe people into buying the very fuel efficient cars (if all cars were sold at a profit, then the vast majority of consumers would only pick the gas guzzlers because most consumers want as much "power" as they can get.)  So yes... technically the low-end cars made by your favorite auto-makers are actually sold at a loss, and those buying higher end cars are technically subsidizing the purchase of low-end vehicles to help the CAFE average of the "fleet".  

Alas I digress.  

The point of all that was this:  the sum of the parts that go into making a "thing" are really just a tiny overall part of the actual costs to bring a product to market.

I suspect that a dedicated manual focus lens would require similar expenses to bring to production, but due to selling in low quantity, it would need to be expensive to make it worthwhile and thus probably not meet what I think your objective was... which was to make lenses that were less expensive.

If saving money is the primary objective... there are a number of 3rd party lenses that cost much less than the Canon and Nikon branded products.


----------



## table1349 (Aug 19, 2013)

TCampbell said:


> I'm trying to understand your point in these manual-focus lenses...
> 
> Since you can just flick a switch on any of the auto-focus lenses and happily manual focus to your heart's creative content... what would the point of building dedicated manual-focus only lenses be?  Are you thinking there would be a cost savings?



Tim,  There is no room for common sense in a thread like this.


----------



## amolitor (Aug 19, 2013)

I have heard that the BoM cost of a basic cheap GM sedan and a high end BMW sedan of similar size are actually within a few bucks of the same, just to underline that point. I think I read that in a statement from an auto industry exec who's worked both sides of the Atlantic, so I feel pretty good about its veracity. The costs are always elsewhere. BoM cost is important, especially with high volume stuff, but not really because it's where the money is going -- it's just the part of the money that's easiest to manage, predict, shrink and expand.


----------



## amolitor (Aug 19, 2013)

I'm pretty sure Gavjenks wants Nikon et al to start building cheap manual focus lenses again.

Why is a bit of a mystery. If I want an MF Nikon lens, for instance, KEH has them by the container-full already.


----------



## Stevepwns (Aug 19, 2013)

OK, so I dont have the experiance you guys have or the background or the knowledge... but I can address a couple things that you guys overlooked.
|


imagemaker46 said:


> The manual world of photography has pretty much run it's course, technology changed to make it easier and faster for anyone with a camera to produce simple images without having to worry about really having to know much about photography. I believe it's safe to say *99% of the people using digital cameras right now couldn't focus a manual lens with any kind of consistency*, if they had to use one on a moving object the delete rate would be close to 100%. It is a skill that requires a lot of practice to get really good at.





Derrel said:


> The biggest issue with manual focus lenses on autofocus bodies is accurate focusing. In many shooting scenarios,* manually focusing is pretty inaccurate for many shooters, due to the viewfinder screens most cameras have nowadays. The fine-grained, smooth, sometimes artificially brightened viewfinder screens AF bodies come with do not show the ACTUAL shallow depth of field, due to the way the viewfinder screens are ground;* an f/1.2 lens for example, has depth of field that visually appears to be about f/4 on an AF viewfinder screen, give or take a bit, so focusing is VERY dicey on something like an f/1.2 lens. Of course the same caveat applies when using an autofocus 1.2 lens on an AF body equipped with an AF viewfinder screen. Canon's Chuck Westfall said that the new Canon viewfinder system in one of their modern-era DSLR models had an effective DOF representation of f/4.2, which was causing a ton of focusing issues for people using their 50/1.2 and 85/1.2-L models and trying to manually focus them...the human error in focusing is now a huge PITA...




Now personally I agree with the premise of the thread. I have found myself manually focusing more and more and don't have 1000 dollars to slap down on a lens just because I feel like it.  I know that Sony is the red headed step child of photography but the referenced comments above, have been addressed by Sony.  One,  EVF, although not perfect but, you see what you get ( about 95% )  anyways.  Two, My A77 has a feature that's called peaking,  when in manual focus mode it highlights the FOV or the parts in focus with white highlights (or what ever color you choose).  As you rotate the focus ring you can watch the band of highlights go father away or get closer.  Effectively allowing you to watch the field of view travel across the EVF of the LCD on the back of the camera in real time.  I would be a huge fan of manual focus lenses, the Sony also has the SteadyShot in body, not the lens, which allows for less BS in the lens also dropping the price.  My Tamron 70 - 200 2.8 would be 1300 but because I don't need the stability function in lens, it only cost me 750.  So they could offer an affordable tack sharp lens for those of us that don't need or don't want the electronics in it.  I think its a very valid point.


----------



## Kolia (Aug 19, 2013)

To echo Stevepwns's comment. 

Sony's G lenses do not have IS yet still cost pretty much the same as their Nikon and Canon counter part. 

As an automotive engineer myself, I find the speculative cost comparisons made yearly in the topic hilarious. I'm glad some managed to chime in with real experience.


----------



## table1349 (Aug 19, 2013)

Kolia said:


> To echo Stevepwns's comment.
> 
> Sony's G lenses do not have IS yet still cost pretty much the same as their Nikon and Canon counter part.
> 
> As an automotive engineer myself, I find the speculative cost comparisons made yearly in the topic hilarious. I'm glad some managed to chime in with real experience.



So what ever happened to that flying car idea that some people were touting back in the 60's?  Seemed simple enough, just add an extra crank shaft for a propeller and some wings that fold up.  Couldn't be that expensive.


----------



## Kolia (Aug 19, 2013)

Lol !

Super convenient things these were !

My opinion on the manual lens topic is that CaNikon probably thinks that the niche market of high quality manual lenses is already used up by the likes of Leica and Zeiss. 

Like mentioned earlier, the reason AF lenses are so cheap is probably because they make so many of them. A comparatively limited series of MF would cost more to produce.


----------



## table1349 (Aug 19, 2013)

There is a guy here that has and old Aero car that he found somewhere and completely restored.  He doesn't fly it, but it is neat to look at when he has it put together.


----------



## slow231 (Aug 19, 2013)

Gavjenks said:


> > HA at comparing AF and aperture selection to IS. Even on a manual lens, focus + aperture selection must eventually be translated to just rotating a single dial. figuring out how to actuate that single mechanism isn't rocket science. can you conceive of a single dial that would handle IS?
> 
> 
> Uh yes, actually. IS is not nearly as complicated as you seem to be making it out to be.  The core concept is like a high school science fair project level of complexity. It's basically a lens with some magnets and then another ring of magnets around it, and they turn on the magnets in the opposite direction that is detected by angle sensors, in 2 dimensions.  The end, pretty much.
> ...



uhh why do you constantly talk about things you clearly have no clue about.   first off to describe what you're doing you need two pieces of information, a direction and magnitude (ie which way to move and how much to move it). this not something you can represent with a single 1-D dial you simply turn from 0-10.  a dial indicating direction doesn't tell you how far to move it.  2d motion needs 2 pieces of information, you're fundamentally not understanding that concept.    your attempt to drop "polar coordinates" doesn't work either.  polar coordinates (...being as how they represent a position in 2D...) are fundamentally 2 dimensions, direction and magnitude.  it's like you're trying to go over everyone else's head by going over your own head.

Still all of this is ignoring the fact that the lens needs to be able to detect motion and properly compensate, and this needs to happen very fast. not at all the same as a focus or aperture motor where all the lens needs to do is respond to directions from the body to turn left or right (requiring no in-lens measurements, computation + compensation, or high speed).

LOL @ "high school science project". by your description of how they work, you've clearly never touched an electromagnetic actuator in your life let alone try to control one with any degree of precision. yet you seem to feel comfortable enough to proclaim it at such an accessible level for implementation! keep "prototyping" bro.  i remember you dropping a "simple high school physics" reference in another thread. you were completely wrong there too.

I guess i've just seen you talk out your a$$ more than enough that i really can't take your threads seriously. some really come off as BS half-ass attempts at trying to flaunt your delusional grasp of all things (photographic and not).  my gripe about IS/VR vs. aperture/focus motors may just seem like a specific digression in the overall thread, but in a way maybe it's not.  I question the intent in posting up this "question" to begin with. It really doesn't seem like you actually care about finding out why manufacturers don't produce these types of lenses (there were actually plenty of valid reasons given...), it kinda comes off like you just wanted a soapbox to voice some carelessly thought through speculation.


----------



## Steve5D (Aug 19, 2013)

gryphonslair99 said:


> There is a simple solution to your dilemma. Contact Canon tell them what you want, send them a check to cover the costs and they will make it for you.



Doubtful.

The belief that if someone is willing to pay enough money that a manufacturer will make something is actually kinda' silly. They rarely, if ever, will...


----------



## table1349 (Aug 20, 2013)

Steve5D said:


> gryphonslair99 said:
> 
> 
> > There is a simple solution to your dilemma. Contact Canon tell them what you want, send them a check to cover the costs and they will make it for you.
> ...


They made this one.  Never was a production lens.


----------



## manaheim (Aug 20, 2013)

Fewer and fewer car companies are making cars with manual transmissions.  Even in the low-end.

Why?

Customers, as a whole, don't want them.

It's the same thing.

BTW, you raise this issue, Gav... but let me ask you... do YOU a manual focus lens?  Have YOU researched the ones available to see if they meet your needs?

Also, let me ask you another question... you seem to be asking for manual focus, but you want image stabilization and advanced glass and materials.  Why?  Why do you want all the benefits of so many other technologies but then do not want the benefit of what is probably the most commonly available one?  Esp. when you can (as someone else pointed out) just turn it off?

As Amolitor suggested... there's also costs.  What makes you think that production of a lens with all of those capabilities but WITHOUT autofocus will cost LESS?  Fewer of them will likely be sold.  That means that the R&D costs will be passed on to fewer consumers, potentially making the cost the same... and potentially even making them cost MORE.


----------



## usayit (Aug 20, 2013)

manaheim said:


> Fewer and fewer car companies are making cars with manual transmissions.  Even in the low-end.
> 
> Why?
> 
> Customers, as a whole, don't want them.



The opposite is true in other markets (ex European).  It bugs me because the car w/ manual transmission I want is often just on the other side of the world...

But yeh.. companies that make goods or services that so few want usually end up going out of business.


----------



## table1349 (Aug 20, 2013)

usayit said:


> manaheim said:
> 
> 
> > Fewer and fewer car companies are making cars with manual transmissions.  Even in the low-end.
> ...




Here I always thought that Delorean, DeSoto and AMC went out of business because they just had lousy paint colors.


----------



## manaheim (Aug 20, 2013)

Delorean has the best paint color evah.


----------



## table1349 (Aug 20, 2013)

It was true selective coloring, cause the done forgot to select a color to put in their paint.:mrgreen:


----------



## Steve5D (Aug 20, 2013)

gryphonslair99 said:


> Steve5D said:
> 
> 
> > gryphonslair99 said:
> ...



And I'd be willing to bet that it was built because someone at Canon stood up in a meeting and asked "You know what would be cool? If we built a one-off 5200mm lens."

Companies do one-off stuff all the time, and they do it because they want to, not because someone calls them up and says "But I have enough money"...


----------



## KenC (Aug 20, 2013)

usayit said:


> manaheim said:
> 
> 
> > Fewer and fewer car companies are making cars with manual transmissions.  Even in the low-end.
> ...



I found this out about a year and a half ago when I was looking for a new car.  I had to contact about half a dozen dealers to find one manual transmission car.  I was happy to get it and even happier when I read that manuals get stolen a lot less than automatics because most of the car thieves these days don't know how to drive a stick shift.


----------



## table1349 (Aug 20, 2013)

Steve5D said:


> gryphonslair99 said:
> 
> 
> > Steve5D said:
> ...


The first two were built at the request of the Chineese Government, reportedly to use to watch activities on the island of Tiawan.  It is also believed that the US govenment has two or three of these things squirreled away somewhere as well.


----------



## Steve5D (Aug 20, 2013)

gryphonslair99 said:


> The first two were built at the request of the Chineese Government, reportedly to use to watch activities on the island of Tiawan. It is also believed that the US govenment has two or three of these things squirreled away somewhere as well.



Perhaps, but that doesn't negate my point at all. We're talking about an individual consumer, wanting a particular product, and believing that enough money will get it for him.

Quite often, it won't...


----------



## Steve5D (Aug 20, 2013)

Gavjenks said:


> Putting image stabilization in Canon's 70-200mm 2.8 lens apparently adds about $700 to the price.
> 
> It's not unreasonable to estimate that by removing autofocus and autoaperture, you could shave off another $500-$600.



I don't know how you arrive at that.

My experience is with high-end guitar manufacturing. 

In the high-end acoustic guitar world, Brazilian Rosewood is the holy grail. A manufacturer might spend $2,500.00 on a set of this wood for a guitar, but that wood can carry a retail upcharge of, sometimes, five figures.

To say that a $20,000.00 Brazilian Rosewood guitar should be only $10,000.00 if made out of another wood just wouldn't be accurate...


----------



## Derrel (Aug 20, 2013)

For a better look at the 5200mm Canon lens, see this page. They have a video of the lens, as well as a bit of video shot through the lens.

Ginormous 5200mm Canon Lens on eBay






My question would be, "Why do Nikon, and Sony, and Sigma, and Pentax, not make 5200mm f/14 lenses?"

I bet there's one heck of a market for a Cosina-made model that's faster, like say f/13.9, or maybe a slightly longer model that's say, 5289mm.


----------



## runnah (Aug 20, 2013)

Gavjenks said:


> [h=2]Why do major manufacturers like Canon, Nikon, Sigma not make manual lenses?[/h]



Because it's not the 1960's.


----------



## gsgary (Aug 20, 2013)

manaheim said:


> Fewer and fewer car companies are making cars with manual transmissions.  Even in the low-end.
> 
> Why?
> 
> ...




Probably just true for the US but not for Europe we want manual gearboxes


----------



## table1349 (Aug 20, 2013)

Steve5D said:


> gryphonslair99 said:
> 
> 
> > The first two were built at the request of the Chineese Government, reportedly to use to watch activities on the island of Tiawan. It is also believed that the US govenment has two or three of these things squirreled away somewhere as well.
> ...


If the customer is willing to pay the cost of R&D, trials and development, tooling cost, materials costs, construction costs, and pay the company a nice profit on top.  They will build it.  Happens all the time. You and I just don't see it since at least I don't have that kind of money to spend.  Keep in mind, this was business a couple of hundred years ago or so and a profit is still a profit.


----------



## table1349 (Aug 20, 2013)

gsgary said:


> manaheim said:
> 
> 
> > Fewer and fewer car companies are making cars with manual transmissions.  Even in the low-end.
> ...


Yeah, but you people still eat Periwinkles, Stargazey Pie and Laver Bread.  We won't even discuss Spotted Dick.:mrgreen:


----------



## Derrel (Aug 20, 2013)

gryphonslair99 said:
			
		

> If the customer is willing to pay the cost of R&D, trials and development, tooling cost, materials costs, construction costs, and pay the company a nice profit on top.  They will build it.  Happens all the time.



Yes. Such was the case when Sheikh Saud Bin Mohammed Al-Thani, the former Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage in the middle eastern nation of Qatar payed the fine folks at Leica to build him a very fast, long lens, a 132-pound,* Leica APO-Teleyt-R 1600mm f/4*, in Leica R mount. This was a $2 million lens, apparently.

Another massive lens, the Zeiss APO Sonnar T* 1700mm f/4 was commissioned by another uber-rich customer, who has always gone unidentified. He was also apparently from the nation of Qatar, according to this article which says the lens had Arabic markings and a Sate of Qatar emblem on the side. THis monstrous lens was made in Hasselblad mount.

5 Biggest Lenses Ever Built - YugaTech | Philippines, Tech News & Reviews


----------



## Helen B (Aug 20, 2013)

Derrel said:


> For a better look at the 5200mm Canon lens, see this page. They have a video of the lens, as well as a bit of video shot through the lens.
> 
> Ginormous 5200mm Canon Lens on eBay
> 
> ...



I want one that runs on standard gauge railway track, not narrow gauge.


----------



## table1349 (Aug 20, 2013)

Helen B said:


> Derrel said:
> 
> 
> > For a better look at the 5200mm Canon lens, see this page. They have a video of the lens, as well as a bit of video shot through the lens.
> ...


There needs to be a way that we can not just like, but multi like a post.  Best one of the entire thread. :thumbup: :lmao:


FYI Just so you know, it hurts bad enough when a post makes you laugh so hard you snort coffee through your nose.  You have no idea how bad it hurts when you snort a McDonald's  french fry instead.  It brings a whole new meaning to the word Ouch.


----------



## Overread (Aug 20, 2013)

gryphonslair99 said:


> You have no idea how bad it hurts when you snort a McDonald's  french fry




I just.... I just .... I have no idea what to say to that!


----------



## table1349 (Aug 20, 2013)

Overread said:


> gryphonslair99 said:
> 
> 
> > You have no idea how bad it hurts when you snort a McDonald's  french fry
> ...




Well you could say that there are times when Helen is the funniest thing in the Western Hemesphere.  I know about 3 1/2 hours ago I would.  :mrgreen:


----------



## HughGuessWho (Aug 20, 2013)

Retail prices are not based on what the production cost is. Rather they are based on what the market will stand. If company X came up with a lens that cost them $100 less to produce, do you actually believe that they would lower the price $100? No. In fact, they would derive some marketing scheme to justify charging $100 MORE.


----------



## table1349 (Aug 20, 2013)

You mean something like this?  Hybrid Camera Revolution: SHAME - Second Tier Profiteers Mark Panasonic G6 up by $100


----------



## manaheim (Aug 20, 2013)

HughGuessWho said:


> Retail prices are not based on what the production cost is. Rather they are based on what the market will stand. If company X came up with a lens that cost them $100 less to produce, do you actually believe that they would lower the price $100? No. In fact, they would derive some marketing scheme to justify charging $100 MORE.



Perhaps you mean not EXCLUSIVELY, but production/r&d and other business costs are absolutely a part of the equation.


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 21, 2013)

I had a whole big notepad file with responses to various things, but it got too long and cumbersome.  So I will address only three overarching points:

*1) Some people thinking I'm annoying in how I discuss things*

My goal is not to just fight without any care as to learning anything. Quite the contrary, if I didn't push people about things, indeed often outside my experience, then I wouldn't learn as much!  It's quite effective at finding and understanding answers to questions, actually.  I have found this much more effective than just asking and then politely nodding your head. Because if you just ask and then walk away or don't push at all, the only thing you get an answer to is whatever you asked, which is usually not the right question if you didn't know what was going on to begin with.  Devil's advocacy steers a conversation several steps in the right direction beyond that.

This is why, for example, scientific journals are much more likely to print your articles if you say "This theory is the best thing since sliced bread, and these other 3 are totally wrong" even if you only actually give about a page of explanation why for each one and only disprove 30% of their theory with data. That sort of rivalry and effectively devil's advocacy advances science more rapidly, by lighting fires under people's butts and making them engaged in firing back with more experiments conducted at fever pitch about precisely the weakest parts of their theory, thus everybody strengthens their understanding.

This is how I have been trained to learn things. It does however piss some people off.  Others not as much.  I'm old enough now to have learned that in a recreational setting like this, there's no reason to please everyone though, and instead I should just focus on the people that the core nature of my being does not piss off (overly much).  If you (or anyone else this applies to) are not one of those people, by all means avoid my threads.  

I will not be insulted or anything!

*2) The actual issue of the thread, and various arguments about economies of scale:*

All of these arguments about overhead, and how small runs might offset any cost benefits that were the original goal, etc. are all very convincing, in and of themselves. But there is one major loose end that has not IMO been sufficiently addressed at all and that sort of undermines all of it:

Rokinon currently manufactures half a dozen NON-luxury, extremely affordable (~$300-$500) fully manual lenses brand new for DSLRs. So we don't need to sit around and muse about whether it is a feasible or profitable venture or not.  It's a FACT that it is.  This is not a halo product or a random experiment by Rokinon. It's their main bread and butter product line, and they have been steadily rolling out new models for years.

So the question that I still don't see any real answer to, and that has nothing to do with the economies of scale arguments, is *"Why is Rokinon doing this over and over, but Canon/Nikon don't do it at all? What stops major manufacturers from participating in that market (and quite possibly stealing it by doing a more competent job) on top of everything else they do?"*


*3) Most importantly of all: the issue of Deloreans*

Deloreans did temporarily go out of business, but they are back now (possibly under new owners, but still), and you can in fact buy a 2013 newly made Delorean.


----------



## amolitor (Aug 21, 2013)

Why doesn't Nikon start making cars? It's working quite well for Nissan, Honda, and Toyota. Why doesn't Canon start selling snack products? It's working quite well for Frito-Lay.

Answer these questions, young padwan, and you will learn much about item #2 in your previous.


----------



## Derrel (Aug 21, 2013)

Rokinon is in lens making to make affordable lenses that sell to people who cannot afford the prices charged by the older brands. The sad fact is that at Lensrentals.com, one of the largest lens rental shops in the USA, FOUR of the FOUR WORST lenses as far as shortest average time to malfunction are...Rokinon manual focusing lenses.

Rokinon is in the business of slam-banging out lenses that are shoddily built, and which can not withstand much use. The fact that they make two lenses that averaged eight weeks, and 11 weeks, before malfunctioning, speaks to atrociously poor quality.

I have some Nikon manual focusing lenses that were made in the mid-1970's...and ALL of them still work. Flawlessly. Bringing Rokinon into your arguments as some kind of "example" seems to me to be a fool's errand.


----------



## runnah (Aug 21, 2013)

Gavjenks said:


> *"Why is Rokinon doing this over and over, but Canon/Nikon don't do it at all? What stops major manufacturers from participating in that market (and quite possibly stealing it by doing a more competent job) on top of everything else they do?"*



Because it's a very niche market. There is not enough money in it to justify the expense of production.

Pretty simple actually.


----------



## Kolia (Aug 21, 2013)

I would go farther and suggest that Canon, Nikon etc are unwilling to make the quality sacrifices needed to lower the costs that much.

In other words, they probably do have the capability to manufacture Rokinon lenses. But don't bother as its not what they are in for.


----------



## table1349 (Aug 21, 2013)

Gavjenks said:


> I had a whole big notepad file with responses to various things, but it got too long and cumbersome.  So I will address only three overarching points:
> 
> *1) Some people thinking I'm annoying in how I discuss things*
> 
> ...




Would somebody please PM me when this is made into a mini-series.  That way I will get the story in a third of the time.


----------



## 480sparky (Aug 21, 2013)

gryphonslair99 said:


> Would somebody please PM me when this is made into a mini-series.  That way I will get the story in a third of the time.



I can sell you the Cliff Notes version for $25......


----------



## table1349 (Aug 21, 2013)

480sparky said:


> gryphonslair99 said:
> 
> 
> > Would somebody please PM me when this is made into a mini-series.  That way I will get the story in a third of the time.
> ...


Does that cover your R&D, set up costs, materials and allow for a bit of profit?


----------



## runnah (Aug 21, 2013)

gryphonslair99 said:


> 480sparky said:
> 
> 
> > gryphonslair99 said:
> ...



Sorry won't make it past the editors because only 2 people would read it.


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 21, 2013)

amolitor said:


> Why doesn't Nikon start making cars? It's working quite well for Nissan, Honda, and Toyota. Why doesn't Canon start selling snack products? It's working quite well for Frito-Lay.
> 
> Answer these questions, young padwan, and you will learn much about item #2 in your previous.



So your explanation is that the difference between a manual focus and automatic focus camera lens is the equivalent of the difference between a potato chip and a camera lens?

(Yet the difference between a manual and automatic transmission -- which all three of those companies make both of -- apparently doesn't bother you at all)



> Rokinon is in lens making to make affordable lenses that sell to people  who cannot afford the prices charged by the older brands. The sad fact  is that at Lensrentals.com, one of the largest lens rental shops in the  USA, FOUR of the FOUR WORST lenses as far as shortest average time to  malfunction are...Rokinon manual focusing lenses.
> 
> Rokinon is in the business of slam-banging out lenses that are shoddily  built, and which can not withstand much use. The fact that they make two  lenses that averaged eight weeks, and 11 weeks, before malfunctioning,  speaks to atrociously poor quality.
> 
> I have some Nikon manual focusing lenses that were made in the  mid-1970's...and ALL of them still work. Flawlessly. Bringing Rokinon  into your arguments as some kind of "example" seems to me to be a fool's  errand.



Yes, but the only way that this would be an argument against Canon or Nikon making manual lenses would be if there was a very strong correlation between people who were interested in newly made manual lenses and people who are extremely frugal with their lens purchases.

I don't see any particularly obvious reason why that would be the case.  And if they are not highly correlated, then that means Rokinon is capturing the frugal portion of new manual lens interested people, while the high-quality-demanding portion of new manual lens people is an untapped market, which one would expect to be of similar size (or probably larger... I don't know many people who prefer easily broken lenses, no matter how cheap).

Just because that's exactly what Rokinon is making does not mean that is exactly what the market is.



> Would somebody please PM me when this is made into a mini-series.  That way I will get the story in a third of the time.



I used bold font to highlight the most important 2 sentences for you, since I knew it was a long post. No need to be snarky.


----------



## runnah (Aug 21, 2013)

Gavjenks said:


> while the high-quality-demanding portion of new manual lens people is an untapped market



A market small enough to not justify the expense of bringing a new product to market.

It's super simple.


----------



## Kolia (Aug 21, 2013)

Gav, you claim to argue for the sake of learning. 

Yet you are totally close minded to anybody's opinion and/or informed point of views that differ from whatever conclusion you have came to before you started the topic. 

Not trying to be mean here.


----------



## amolitor (Aug 21, 2013)

No, Gavjenks. I mean that if you understand why Canon does not make potato chips, you will be well on the way to understanding why they do not make manual focus lenses.

I don't mean that a potato chip is the same as a lens. Nor do I mean that you are the same as an ass. I just mean that by thinking through the ONE question, which is probably pretty easy since it brings the relevant issues into clear focus, you will learn much about the answer to the OTHER question.

If, on the other hand, you continue to be flippant and dismissive, you'll probably learn very little.


----------



## Kolia (Aug 21, 2013)

Aha ! "Clear focus" !  Well placed...


----------



## table1349 (Aug 21, 2013)

Apparently it is not only raining in Iowa, but there is a guy there named Noah building an Ark.:mrgreen:

Jenksie, here is a little common sense thought for you.  If you really want an answer to your question call or write Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, Sony, Fuji or any other lens manufacturer you feel like and ask them your question. While you are at it ask them how and why the come to develop what they do.  

If however you are just trolling for an argument under the guise of "learning" well just keep posting.  We will all know the truth here real soon.


----------



## 480sparky (Aug 21, 2013)

gryphonslair99 said:


> 480sparky said:
> 
> 
> > gryphonslair99 said:
> ...



Yep.  R&D is $0, set up is $0, materials is $0.  Profit is $25.


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 21, 2013)

I didn't ignore Derrel's point. It explains everything, but only *IF *frugal people are correlated with manual focus people.  I doubt that's the case, but if somebody has a decent reason why, then okay.



> A market small enough to not justify the expense of bringing a new product to market.
> 
> It's super simple.


Again this is only true if most of the people who are interested in new manual lenses happen to also be the extremely frugal people.



Here, I'll do some tables to make it clearer in general
GREEN here is the market Rokinon is catering to.
BLUE is an untapped market.

Derrel's argument works out if the chart looks something like this:


Refuse to buy lenses that fall apartWilling to buy lenses that fall apartWill consider manual lenses1%4%Will only buy autofocus lenses90%5%

But why on earth would the green people outnumber the blue people? It makes little sense to me that just because you are interested in manual focus lenses, you suddenly stop caring if they fall apart...

It's much more likely that the top two rows mirror the bottom two rows, and look something like this:


Refuse to buy lenses that fall apart
Willing to buy lenses that fall apartWill consider manual lenses4.75%0.25%Will only buy autofocus lenses90%5%


Which would mean that the untapped market is much larger than the Rokinon market, so if they can make a profit, somebody fulfilling the untapped one should be able to as well.


Or if you have no predictions at all, then you should just assign equal proportions to each:


Refuse to buy lenses that fall apartWilling to buy lenses that fall apartWill consider manual lenses2.5%2.5%Will only buy autofocus lenses90%5%

And still, even here, the untapped market is equal in size to Rokinon's.





The only way it doesn't add up is if for some reason, quality preference reverse when you move from autofocus to manual focus market.  Which would be utterly bizarre.


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 21, 2013)

> If you really want an answer to your question call or write Canon,  Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, Sony, Fuji or any other lens manufacturer you  feel like and ask them your question. While you are at it ask them how  and why the come to develop what they do.


That's a decent proposal. I will do that. I doubt they will just hand over marketing strategies for the asking, but worth a try I guess.

I'm not sure gramatically what your second question there means/is though.  "Why they come to develop what they do?"


----------



## table1349 (Aug 21, 2013)

480sparky said:


> gryphonslair99 said:
> 
> 
> > 480sparky said:
> ...



That is not possible.  I want the Cliff Notes with an automatic page turner, and automated voice reading them to me using Zooey Deschanel's voice. If that is not possible I want to know Why....why....why.....why.....why!!!


----------



## amolitor (Aug 21, 2013)

You sure like to pull numbers out of your butt. Bayesian models require SOME actual measured input. Bayesian thinking cannot produce valid conclusions from completely random, and indeed thoughtless, inputs.

What reasons are there to purchase a manual focus only lens? How would those reasons correlate with other aspects of a potential buyer? One actually can make some intelligent guesses here, you're just not making any of them.


----------



## 480sparky (Aug 21, 2013)

gryphonslair99 said:


> That is not possible.  I want the Cliff Notes with an automatic page turner, and automated voice reading them to me using Zoe Deschanel's voice. If that is not possible I want to know Why....why....why.....why.....why!!!



Oh, well..... then you want the hellogiggles version as well as the APT upgrade option.  Those two are bundled in the IWIA Package, available for a mere $18,750.00 US.


----------



## Derrel (Aug 21, 2013)

Well, back to the original question. As I posted early on, Nikon currently makes 11 different manual focus lenses. Until about five years ago, Nikon made I think it was 23 different manual focusing lenses in 35mm. Nikon QUIT making ALL large-format lenses during the decade of the 2000's. Just not enough market share to bother pursuing for Nikon to even want to compete for its tiny slice of the pie. Sooo...Nikon still makes and sells 11 manual focus lenses, three of which are tilt/shift models. In this, the second decade of the 21st century, manually focusing lenses are quite simply, less-desirable than autofocusing lenses, in almost all product categories. History is filled with examples other* obsolete items, which were at ONE TIME, considered *mass-market items. Straight razors once ruled; now "safety razor" blades dominate. Hand-cranked cars once dominated; now cars are started by electric motors. At one time, radios and TV sets used vacuum tubes, but today solid-state components dominate. At one time, there was a pretty good trade in slide rules, but electronic calculators took over. At one time, pagers were all the rage, but today the cool kids all have smart phones. At one time, cribs filled with corn cobs had value; the year 1865 or so marked the year of the first toilet paper. At one time, salted pork and salted codfish were the sailor's food supply; today sailor's world-wide eat freeze-dried or vacuum-packaged foods of ALL types. See how this works?

How about some hand-cranked cars, some salt pork snacks, some corn-cob TP, and an old tube-fired radio? You could borrow my 1974 Pickett slide rule to figure out the costs, and the per-unit expected return on investment, and so on. Working of course, by a nice whale-oil lamp.


----------



## table1349 (Aug 21, 2013)

480sparky said:


> gryphonslair99 said:
> 
> 
> > That is not possible.  I want the Cliff Notes with an automatic page turner, and automated voice reading them to me using Zoe Deschanel's voice. If that is not possible I want to know Why....why....why.....why.....why!!!
> ...


 I am quite excited to see that you are willing to step outside of your usual business model and manufacture something to my requested specifications.  Considering the amount of work your R&D people will have to do, the cost of retooling and the special materials required I feel that your price is quite fair.  In fact, I would like to order 2 at $18,750.00.  The check is in the mail.


----------



## 480sparky (Aug 21, 2013)

Go out and try to buy an icepick.

Or a buggy whip.


Heck, even NASA admits they no longer have the technology on the shelf to go back to the moon right now.


----------



## jake337 (Aug 21, 2013)

I thought you could still buy a Nikkor 50mm f1.2 ais new.


----------



## runnah (Aug 21, 2013)

jake337 said:


> I thought you could still buy a Nikkor 50mm f1.2 ais new.



Oh man you just divided by zero!


----------



## Derrel (Aug 21, 2013)

jake337 said:


> I thought you could still buy a Nikkor 50mm f1.2 ais new.



Yes, you CAN; it is still in the lineup. Official Nikon price from their website this week is $724.95 for the 50mm f/1.2 Ai-S.


----------



## amolitor (Aug 21, 2013)

It's possible that Nikon is selling the MF lenses from existing inventory, I can't imagine they're flying off the shelves. Or, they may still be building them. Surely they are still building the PC lenses. Regardless, unlike Canon, Nikon's manual focus lens designs from the 1970s are still perfectly functional on their current model cameras. The R&D and tooling costs are probably all off the books at this point, so anything they can sell is, well, it's not pure profit but it's a lot more like it.

If they're sharing lens elements with the AF lenses, it gets even cheaper. Not sure that's the case though. The 50/1.4 designs, for instance, seem to be different.


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 21, 2013)

Yes, I understand that buggy whips and ice picks and whale oil lamps are obsolete.

The point is though that there is a company that is currently manufacturing manual only lenses and seemingly selling quite a few of them. I'm not aware of any companies that publish specific lens sales amounts, but a look at Amazon, for instance, shows 104 reviews for the manual Rokinon 14mm f/2.8, and 22 reviews for the ultrasonic fully autofocus, etc. Canon 14mm f/2.8.

(Also, incidentally, only *ONE *of the reviews mentioned the lens breaking after purchase. So I'm a little less convinced now after looking that up that these are in fact slap-shod lenses. Quality control seems lower than Canon, but not terrible in terms of number of people sending their first copy back and then being happy with the second).



If I went to Walmart and saw 4x as many whale oil lamps being sold as GE 60 watt lightbulbs, then i wouldn't be so quick to say that whale oil lamps were in fact obsolete.


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 21, 2013)

> Bayesian models require SOME actual measured input.


No they don't.  I have been studying Bayesian models for about 4 years, and wrote my comps exam on the topic (equivalent of a master's thesis), and I assure you, Bayesian modelers use flat prior distributions and flat likelihood distributions all the time, in published works too.  Not just that by itself, usually more like as a starting point for a discussion to compare other more informed models to.  But the only reason it's not done by itself is because it's boring in and of itself. Not because it's invalid.  If you have no information at all, in fact, a flat distribution is just as valid as any other.

In other situations, people will sometimes publish models where the ONLY distribution they are ever given is just some generic normal distribution or something, which was not measured for that particular case, but is merely guesstimated from an armchair based on a general understanding that biological things often tend to be normally distributed, or similar.

Some Bayesians play it pretty fast and loose.  Others are more careful and empirical.  But the Bayesian theory itself doesn't really apply more to one or the other or anything.  It's just a statistical formula that can take anything as input, and only guarantees outputs as good as what you gave it.

Kudos on picking up on the (unstated) Bayesian vibe there, by the way.



Edit: real human beings do the equivalent of no-input Bayesian models too, by the way, "in the field." Any time you've ever had no idea what an answer was and flipped a coin or just randomly chosen a multiple choice answer, that's what you were effectively doing, from a Bayesian perspective.


----------



## 480sparky (Aug 21, 2013)

Gavjenks said:


> Yes, I understand that buggy whips and ice picks and whale oil lamps are obsolete............




Seems you DON'T 'understand'.  They *AREN'T* obsolete.  They CAN be purchased, even here in the US of A.  The reason YOU don't see them for sale in the stores is the stores you shop at don't carry them because the vast majority of their customers aren't wanting to buy them.

But if you go to a tack shop, I'll bet you can buy buggy whips to your heart's content.  Ice picks?  Go to one of the old-time Mom & Pop one-of hardware stores.  Oil lamps?  Heck, even I own *two* of 'em!


Now if you'll excuse me, I have Zooey Deschanel's agent on the line.....


----------



## slow231 (Aug 21, 2013)

Gavjenks said:


> I had a whole big notepad file with responses to various things, but it got too long and cumbersome.  So I will address only three overarching points:
> 
> *1) Some people thinking I'm annoying in how I discuss things*
> 
> My goal is not to just fight without any care as to learning anything. Quite the contrary, if I didn't push people about things, indeed often outside my experience, then I wouldn't learn as much!  It's quite effective at finding and understanding answers to questions, actually.  I have found this much more effective than just asking and then politely nodding your head. Because if you just ask and then walk away or don't push at all, the only thing you get an answer to is whatever you asked, which is usually not the right question if you didn't know what was going on to begin with.  Devil's advocacy steers a conversation several steps in the right direction beyond that.



it's not really devils advocacy to just turn a deaf ear and make incorrect statements and baseless arguments.  best case i chalk it up to ignorance, but the manner and absolution in which you make incorrect statements is annoying and undermining to the pursuit of actual knowledge.



Gavjenks said:


> This is why, for example, scientific journals are much more likely to print your articles if you say "This theory is the best thing since sliced bread, and these other 3 are totally wrong" even if you only actually give about a page of explanation why for each one and only disprove 30% of their theory with data. That sort of rivalry and effectively devil's advocacy advances science more rapidly, by lighting fires under people's butts and making them engaged in firing back with more experiments conducted at fever pitch about precisely the weakest parts of their theory, thus everybody strengthens their understanding.



here's a damn good example. i'm a phd engineer and have my share of journal papers under my belt.  your statement is clearly from someone who has never published in an academic journal or even anything remotely close.  you do realize that journal papers are peer reviewed don't you?  meaning that upon submission the editor or associate editor will ask several other researchers in the field to review your paper and make recommendations for acceptance, rejection, or revision.  the reviews carry a lot of weight and the revision process can be quite detailed and can last a while (even > 1 year).  Needless to say making bold unjustified statements (aside from making you sound like an idiot) is an almost surefire way to get your paper nixed off the break.  there is absolutely no point or need for sensationalism, and some statement about objectiveness is included in basically all journal guidelines.  the point is to document and communicate your research to the field in order help steer future research in the pursuit of deeper understanding.  false claims or sensationalized impact are never in line with this.  the idea or need to "light a fire under people's butts" is a laughable, ignorant, and pedestrian.  again you're just talking out your a$$.  you have to be aware of the fact that you don't know what you're talking about, but it's like you make these statements in the hopes that no one else knows what you're talking about to call you out on it.



Gavjenks said:


> This is how I have been trained to learn things. It does however piss some people off.  Others not as much.  I'm old enough now to have learned that in a recreational setting like this, there's no reason to please everyone though, and instead I should just focus on the people that the core nature of my being does not piss off (overly much).  If you (or anyone else this applies to) are not one of those people, by all means avoid my threads.
> 
> I will not be insulted or anything!



this part i'm going to have to agree with. you are free to think and say what you want. and i don't normally respond to someone not interested in hearing feedback.  but this is getting pretty annoying.  Perhaps not voicing that viewpoint is why you are so comfortable with continuing.  and although i might be the only one openly annoyed in this thread, i know for a fact that there are others that see through your bs as well.


----------



## Overread (Aug 21, 2013)

Image is part of the factor as well as streamlining ones market range. Yes you could sell everything, but sometimes you have to cut back and simplify your line up for new users. You also have to consider that the combination of DSLR and lens is designed to be a single operating unit; if you then throw in a wildcard of a manual focusing lens line up you'd have to then also throw in additions to your DSLRs to support that intended use. 

In the end Canon and Nikon don't want to make these lenses in the current market; they'd much rather focus their production toward a different market. Yes that means they are leaving a market segment out, but they are not trying to chase every market segment


----------



## amolitor (Aug 21, 2013)

Gavjenks said:


> In other situations, people will sometimes publish models where the ONLY distribution they are ever given is just some generic normal distribution or something, which was not measured for that particular case, but is merely guesstimated from an armchair based on a general understanding that biological things often tend to be normally distributed, or similar.
> 
> Some Bayesians play it pretty fast and loose.  Others are more careful and empirical.  But the Bayesian theory itself doesn't really more to one or the other.  It's just a statistical formula that can take anything as input, and only guarantees outputs as good as what you gave it.
> 
> Kudos on picking up on the (unstated) Bayesian vibe there, by the way.



The key is in the guesstimating. It's an extremely powerful way of looking at the world, but it cannot produce information from nothing. It's a good way of thinking that can extract the good stuff a lot of the time, but there has to BE some good stuff.

My favorite example is the guy who was trying to figure out where the submarine that had been lost actually WAS. He asked a bunch of experts what they thought. The answers clustered around two areas. So he looked exactly in between those two areas, where exactly zero experts has guessed. The wrecked sub was right there within some absurdly tiny radius of the dot he put on the chart. The point, though, is that the experts were providing masses of actually really great data. They just were not averaging away their personal sources of error very well. The Bayesian way of thinking about it did.

If the guy had asked 1000 randomly selected 5th graders where they thought the sub was, it wouldn't have gone nearly as well.


----------



## Derrel (Aug 21, 2013)

OMG, this thread makes me wanna just...just...just...

End it all! End the madness!


----------



## JacaRanda (Aug 21, 2013)

Opportunity Cost - Opportunity Cost Definition | Investopedia


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 21, 2013)

slow231 said:


> your statement is clearly from someone who has  never published in an academic journal or even anything remotely close.


I am about to turn in my 2nd revision on a paper to  Cognitive Science later this very week. So yes, considering I was working on peer review amendments about an hour and a half ago,  I am aware that papers are peer reviewed. I'm not sure what the point  of you bringing that up was, other than to be, as you say,  "sensationalist" and to fit with all of your other extremely professional-sounding swearing and personal attacks.

Anyway, I can't speak to Engineering journals,  but in Psychology and other cognitive sciences I follow (neuroscience,  linguistics, etc.) make super unjustified claims all the time.  A  typical example would be ruling out that connectionist models are  capable of capturing XYZ behavior, and then giving one or two examples  of specific connectionist models that they tried and that couldn't  capture it, without addressing the other 800 out there.

I can give you specific citations for papers that have done that in PMs, if you like.


Whether this is a productive thing or not -- now that part is just my opinion.  But the fact that it *happens *is plain.  And yes, if that author had a connectionist as a reviewer, they'd be screwed.  But most of the time, you don't have a connectionist, especially if it's just one of 3 or 4 contrasting models you are looking at, for instance.  The non-specialists will mostly have heard of the 1 or 2 specific examples you did include, and will nod their heads and move on, thus it gets published.



Overread said:


> Image is part of the factor as well as streamlining ones market range. Yes you could sell everything, but sometimes you have to cut back and simplify your line up for new users. You also have to consider that the combination of DSLR and lens is designed to be a single operating unit; if you then throw in a wildcard of a manual focusing lens line up you'd have to then also throw in additions to your DSLRs to support that intended use.
> 
> In the end Canon and Nikon don't want to make these lenses in the current market; they'd much rather focus their production toward a different market. Yes that means they are leaving a market segment out, but they are not trying to chase every market segment


That's a fair and convincing description.


----------



## Overread (Aug 21, 2013)

Derrel said:


> OMG, this thread makes me wanna just...just...just...
> 
> End it all! End the madness!
> 
> View attachment 53348



WHERE'S THE BACON?!


----------



## Gavjenks (Aug 21, 2013)

> The key is in the guesstimating. It's an extremely powerful way of  looking at the world, but it cannot produce information from nothing.  It's a good way of thinking that can extract the good stuff a lot of the  time, but there has to BE some good stuff.



The actual data being inputted is in this case:
1) Amazon review numbers
2) The majority of personal photographers I know who would mostly recoil in horror at the idea of buying a lens that is likely to fall apart, even within warranty
3) The same from everybody I know on this forum. I don't recall any regulars here ever suggesting people buy a lens that might fall apart, just because it's cheaper and protected by warranty.  I DO recall the opposite being suggested many times.

#1 (as well as Rokinon's rolling out of new models consistently and seeming expansion) is being used as evidence of some reasonably sized manual market, and #2-3 are being used as evidence that most people prefer non junky lenses.

Combine the two together, and you get a set of prior distributions like what I said the most likely table was of those 3. (a sharp, but not completely one-sided gradient from auto to manual, and a sharp, but not completely one-sided gradient from quality to junky)




But anyway, as mentioned in the above post, I think the "streamlining market" is pretty convincing, which a few people have jabbed at in the last page or so.


----------



## table1349 (Aug 21, 2013)

480sparky said:


> Now if you'll excuse me, I have Zooey Deschanel's agent on the line.....



*HELL YEAH BABY!*.....That's what I'm talking about.   :bounce: :hail: :thumbsup: :smileys:


----------



## table1349 (Aug 21, 2013)

Overread said:


> Derrel said:
> 
> 
> > OMG, this thread makes me wanna just...just...just...
> ...


The Heck with the Bacon.................*WHERE IS ZOOEY DESCHANEL???*


----------



## table1349 (Aug 21, 2013)

I do believe that I have discovered the problem with this and several other threads.  

The object of discussion:



Our definition of the object of the discussion:   _COW_

As Gavjenks would define the object of the discussion: 

_A completely automatic milk manufacturing machine.  It is encased in untanned leather, and mounted on four vertical, moveable, supports. One on each corner.
The  front end contains the cutting and grinding mechanism, as well as light  sensors, an air inlet and exhaust, a bumper, and a foghorn.  At the rear is the dispensing apparatus and an automatic flyswatter.
The  central portion houses a hydro-chemical conversion plant. This consists  of four fermentation and storage tanks, connected in series by an  intricate network of flexible plumbing. This section also contains the  heating plant complete with automatic temperature controls, pumping  station, and main ventilating system.  The waste disposal apparatus is located at the rear of this central section

In  brief the extremely visible features are: two lookers, two hookers,  four stand-uppers, four hanger-downers, and a swishy-whishy._

:mrgreen:


FYI....Credit goes to the late great Jerry Clower, a truly intelligent individual as ever did live.


----------



## Derrel (Aug 21, 2013)

^^ OMFG, I spit coffee onto my screen when I read that! Damn you, g-99!


----------



## table1349 (Aug 21, 2013)

Derrel said:


> ^^ OMFG, I spit coffee onto my screen when I read that! Damn you, g-99!



Well it could have been a McDonalds French Fry!  I have taken a solemn vow never to read any of Helen's posts when I have food or drink in my mouth.  She has the makings of a great Smart @$$!


----------



## Overread (Aug 21, 2013)

And I think we are done least we end up with way too many CSC appearing in the thread for the good of peoples health and keyboards/monitors. Now off you all scamper and get some photos




CSC = Coffee Spitting Comments


----------

