Hi all,
Apologies for the length of this post, I have time on my hands and this thread brought up so many interesting points, I decided to try to add my slant on most of them...
To Edward's original Q..the answer IMO is NO. I hear that even Canon are struggling to make any meaningful profit from it's FF cameras, so IFF this is true, then you can see why no-one else has entered the arena yet and may never do so...by the way Edward, good luck bidding on the 35/1.4 of mine on the evil place..
To Robert.A..you say Kyocera has been painted as very much the villain when it should not be..could you tell us why? do you have facts to support this, or hearsay?
Marc..you ask why so many people have this burning desire to bin so much lovely gear and turn digital?...I have the simple answer IMO..humans like to belong, they are social beings and want to be liked, they do not like to feel 'out of it', they have a herding mentality, much like sheep...that is why. I do not want to offend any users on here, but this is the reason why so many amateurs in particular have migrated to the pixels. The advertising mongrels also have done a great job. When CD appeared 23 years ago, the initial players were frankly rubbish as well as very expensive, but it did not stop them taking over.
I do see that digital has both advantages & disadvantages compared to film, which also has up & down sides. In the early 1980's I trained at photo college full time to hopefully become a professional photographer. I achieved this and became a studio advertising photo'er. I earned my living shooting mainly product shots on large format, mostly 5x4 and occasionally 10x8. I also did some location work with 6x7 medium format; my point is that I do know what a top quality photograph should look like. I left the pro world some years back to do other things and did not pick up a camera at all for about 12 years, until I bought a Canon F-1 about 7 years back. I just shoot personal work on 35mm slow transparency film and have looked at digital work ever since it first appeared. I have seen much amateur work and also many very large display prints by pro's using the highest quality digital gear, but 99% of it simply looks 'wrong' to my eyes. A lot of it is very impressive at first glance, but the closer and the longer I look, the more I dislike most of it.
Matt in particular has a good point, I can see for wildlife and action shots it has large advantages, but it is not yet for me...although I do believe it will be at some point.
The post by Richard made me laugh long and hard! I am surprised anyone on here rose to the bait. This kind of post is so common on other forums, especially photo.net. The usual quote used on these occasions is "never argue with an idiot".
Re the new Zeiss ZF range, it would seem obvious to produce manual focus lenses for use with MF cameras, so the choice of Nikon AI is an obvious one. However I still am amazed that Zeiss thinks EOS users will buy M42 ZS lenses with adaptors..weird! I cannot see more than a handful selling.
From a business point of view, surely it would make sense to make EOS lenses? or do Zeiss have some mental block making MF lenses for AF cameras? are they too purist?
Their 'arguments' for not also making EOS variants are not IMO real. As others have said, both Tamron and Sigma do, so why cannot Zeiss? the EOS mount is not out of patent, so I believe Zeiss would have to pay Canon to produce EOS lenses..so did Canon refuse? or are Zeiss cheapskates and did not want to pay the asking price? or did they not see enough selling to make profits?
The real interesting point here for me, is one that I have not seen anyone else make yet; Cosina are making the new ZF & ZS lenses. Cosina used to make until recently their own range of MF SLR lenses..the Voigtlander SL range. Many on this forum will be familiar with these, since amongst the mounts they were made in was Nikon AI, Canon FD, Minolta MD, Olympus OM, M42 screw and Contax C/Y. However I also think I am correct in saying that these lenses were also made in Canon EOS mount!...so the current production house making the ZF lenses has experience in making EOS mount lenses.
But the real question is this..if Cosina thought it profitable to make small volume EOS lenses AND were willing to pay Canon the required price, then why do Zeiss think differently?
cheers Steve.M.