End of the Line for Sigma K-Mount Lenses

[Bill De Jager]

Sigma has announced it will stop producing K-mount lenses

While these lenses are practically an afterthought in recent years, at one time the Pentax K mount was one of the major 35mm film SLR mounts along with Canon, Minolta, Nikon, and Olympus.  The bayonet mount itself has remained the same since 1975 and all K-mount lenses can attach to all K-mount cameras.  However, modifications to later versions of the mount and lenses limited compatibility between early and late versions of these cameras and lenses.

[F2F3F6]

My first reflex camera was a Pentax, the MX, manual mode and compact. A good classic camera with some professional qualities : Motor drive (5images/s) or motor winder, some 20 different focusing screens, a good automatic bellows and many lenses (40 and more)...Then came the LX, with his unique electronic and mechanic "hybrid shutter" (like 20 years after the FM3A or Leica M7 shutter)...but then came the FM2 and I bought one and changed for Nikon !

It would be sad if Pentax-Ricoh abandoned the K (KAF-2) bayonet but alas, Pentax has a very strange camera line, from DX to FX and MF (645D and Z) and with Canon, Nikon and Sony leading Full format and hybrid mirrorless cameras, Fuji and Hasselblad Mirrorless medium Format (Fuji also leading DX hybrid X-series)...where is the place for Pentax ?

That's probably why Sigma, but also Tamron don't make anymore K-bayonet lenses...(Tokina does, but not Tokina badged, rather Pentax, because of the Ricoh company proprietary of Pentax, Tokina and perhaps also Hoya ?)

[ColinM]

Like Didier, I grew up with an MX in the 80's , followed by an LX ( and then a 6x7). I loved them.

There's an interesting article about how Sony may be slowly forcing Nikon & Canon out of the current market. As for the K mount....well sadly that seems part of evolution, however many fond memories we have.

[beryllium10]

I too started out with a Pentax MX in the late 1970s.  A great, rugged manual camera, as were the 50, 28 and 135 mm f/2.8 Takumar lenses.  Not quite as tough, however, as the FM2 that succeeded it in 1999.  After Antarctic fieldwork in 1997-98 I got my slides back and discovered that the MX had been functioning as a thermometer.  Above -15C all went well, but on colder days something had gone wrong with the exposure mechanism and a part of the frame would remain black.  The colder the temperature, the less of the photo appeared on the film. Somewhere around -25C it just produced black, unexposed film.  Fortunately I didn't lose too many pictures.  The next season (in a warmer part of Antarctica) the light meter began to get unreliable and a lot of photos came back under-exposed.  So I decided it was time to move to an FM2, which had an even better reputation for ruggedness and dependability. 
Cheers,  John

[Hugh_3170]

Are Ricoh/Pentax still producing K-Mount lenses?

[Bill De Jager]

Are Ricoh/Pentax still producing K-Mount lenses?

Yes, but they are an insignificant part of the market.

[Ilkka Nissilä]

Yes, but they are an insignificant part of the market.

Are you saying that Sigma made most of the K mount lenses made recently rather than Ricoh/Pentax?

The title would be more accurate if the word "Sigma" was added to it.

[F2F3F6]

"The title would be more accurate if the word "Sigma" was added to it."
Yes, the title should say "End of the Line for K-Mount Sigma Lenses" !

Pentax is not already dead...yet !

[pluton]

Isn't Tokina the shadow lens producer for Pentax?

[Bill De Jager]

Yes, I messed up with the title.  Fixed now on the original post.