At PMA 2010, IR publisher Dave Etchells and Senior Editor Shawn Barnett had a chance to sit down with Kazuto Yamaki, Chief Operating Officer of Sigma Corp., one of the world's largest manufacturers of accessory lenses for SLRs. Yamaki-san has an unusual perspective on the photo industry in general and the lens business in particular, having been involved in the management of Sigma for 17 years now.

Read on to learn how modern computer ray-tracing software does the work of 10,000 1980's-era people. :-)

Dave Etchells, Imaging Resource:
SLR sales have really skyrocketed, compared to several years ago. As SLR sales have gone up, has there been an increase in lens sales? Or are the people that are buying SLRs as a step-up from from point and shoot cameras just sticking with the kit lenses?

Kazuto Yamaki, Chief Operating Officer, Sigma Corp.:
The interchangeable lens, including the kit lens, has grown significantly compared to five years ago, let's say. But as you said, in most of the entry growth, these users stick to the so-called kit lens. So that's the problem for the industry I think, because they do not buy the second lens or third lens for better photographs.

IR:
And those people that do buy accessory lenses, is there a difference in the type of lens that you sell now? Are there more zooms or fewer primes, or particular type of lens that you see? How's the product mix?

Yamaki:
Since the mid 90s, we started to focus on the high-end lenses. Before 1995, we had been mainly making the kit lenses for film cameras. At that time, the camera manufacturers did not bundle the kit lens themselves, so that was the market for us - we offered the kit lens for the dealer, and the dealers make a kit with the camera and our inexpensive lenses.

IR:
Oh, that's interesting. So it was a completely different market then?

Yamaki:
Yes, actually Sigma started the idea of the kit lens - the single kit zoom lens, and also the twin zoom lens kits. If I remember correctly, we started that business at the end of the 80s, and we sold tons of kit lenses for film cameras. The camera manufacturers watched how we were doing business, and they started making kit lenses once they started selling digital SLRs. They started shipping in the box together, the camera and a single zoom lens, or two zoom lenses. So since they started that business, we lost that part of our business. So we changed our strategy since the mid 90s, and started to focus on the high end lenses, such as prime lenses, telephoto lenses, wide angle lenses, macro, things like that. Of course, we had these kind of lenses in the past too, but we're more focused on the high end now. So our current main customers are older enthusiast users, basically - maybe 10% of DSLR customers. So 90% of DSLR customers are entry-class users, and just buy the entry-class camera with kit lenses.

IR:
Very long zooms have become popular, and that's an area you've been very strong in: 18-200mm, 18-250mm, etc. Are those the lenses that are more appealing to some of the step-up users, the point-and-shoot people coming into SLRs, do you think?

Yamaki:
Yes. There are two types of photographers for such super-high zoom lenses. One is as you said, entry class users. They don't like changing lenses depending on the situation, so they like one single super-zoom lens. But the super zoom lens is also popular for the photo enthusiasts, those who have a bunch of lenses, but who sometimes need a super zoom lens for occasions where they cannot move around and they need to go from wide to telephoto. Honestly speaking, super zoom lenses in the early days were not good in terms of quality, but since we innovated in optical design, current super zooms perform very well - even professional photographers can use them. So super zooms have a high demand for every type of customer.

IR:
Are you seeing divisions of the type of lenses different groups of people buy - for example, is there a soccer mom market and they're buying telephoto zooms for kids' sports, or families where there's a niche market for fast wide angle zooms? Other than the super zoom, have you seen other segments of your product line increase in recent years?

Yamaki:
Each category has its own market, so for example those who like landscape photography buy wide angles, those who like to take pictures of wildlife buy long zooms. Those like soccer moms - I don't know if its a worldwide phenomenon, but in Japan, amateur photographers have started buying very fast prime lenses, like 30mm F1.4 or 50mm F1.4. I don't know the situation in the US, but blogs are very popular in Japan, and they always have very nice pictures. They want to take pictures with very shallow depth of field, but they don't know how to make them. They fir t try with a compact camera but they fail. So they buy the DSLR with kit lens because it is said that DSLR creates a very good picture, but they never achieve it because of the great depth of field with a kit lens. Finally, they find that the lens makes a differerence. So sometimes I see that amateur photographers come to the store and they buy the entry-class DSLR plus our 30mm F1.4, or our 50mm F1.4. It's not a big trend, but it's a new thing. It's especially very good to take pictures of kids with a very shallow depth of field, very pretty.

IR:
So that's a trend that you've seen, that people are becoming aware of depth of field and they're buying fast lenses?

Yamaki:
Yes, as far as I know - the Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese customers, they care very much about shallow depth of field. And another trend is macro lenses, beacause one of the trends in blogs is cooking. They cook very nice dishes, and then take pictures of them to put in the blogs. But they don't know how to take good pictures with a compact camera, so they study by themselves and find they need a DSLR with a macro lens. I think it's a new trend. Traditionally, our market consists of photo enthusiasts who have a great knowledge about photography. But the new people entering photography have no interest in the camera gear itself; they're interested in the photographs, or hobbies like cooking and kids, and they pick up the specific gear for their own purposes.

IR:
Are there any "undiscovered gems" in your product line? What are the lenses you have in your lineup that are really good lenses that people don't know about, or aren't aware of what they can do for their photography?

Yamaki:
Honestly speaking, I think the customers are much smarter than the manufacturer at finding ways of using specific lenses. When we develop a specific lens, we aim for some target customers and guess how it will be used. But after we release the product, the customer finds ways to use those lenses, that are beyond our expectations. One thing: I think that current customers are very smart, but for some reasons their focal length lens spec is very conservative. Even though most DSLRs use APS-C size sensors, so new focal length ranges could be popular, people still buy 70-200 F2.8, 70-300, things like that. For example we have the 50-150 F2.8 which is a very nice lens for APS-C format size, which is equivalent to a 70-200 F2.8, but it's not so popular. Even though people have an APS-C sized camera, they still buy a 70-200 F2.8.

IR:
That's interesting - so they're still thinking in the old focal lengths.

Yamaki:
Yes. I don't know if they choose those lenses intentionally by multiplying the focal length [by the sensor crop factor - ed.], or they just think of the traditional lenses.

IR:
Many people have started taking more pictures now that digital is here instead of film, and many of those people are stepping up from point and shoots. Do you see digital as growing the enthusiast part of the market too? Are there more people becoming enthusiast photographers than you think was the case five or ten years ago?

Yamaki:
Yes. Compared to ten years ago, we have many more photo enthusiasts. My belief is that part of the reason is the Internet. By using the Internet, they have the opportunity to show their works in blogs or photo sharing sites, things like that. Photos have become the easiest art to share with the public. Even if you can play a musical instrument, it's difficult to have the opportunity to show it to the public, or drawing, painting... it's tough to have an exhibition. But in the case of photos, there's a very good harmony with Internet technology, so people can show their own works very easily. Once they show their work on the Internet, they want to make even better pictures - so it drives the enthusiasm.

IR:
It seems like lens quality in general has really improved in the last five or ten years.

Yamaki:
Yes, very much.

IR:
What actually has driven that? Are there certain key factors - the design capability is more advanced, or there are new manufacturing technologies, new materials, the glass is better - what can you say about what's made lenses so much better?

Yamaki:
Technical innovation has always been driven by demand, so the demand cycle creates innovation. Basically, customers want better equipment. For example, DSLRs have been increasing in pixel count, so they require better lenses to deliver the resolution. If you use the latest full-frame DSLR with a lens from ten years ago, you see that the lens is not capable of good results with such high pixel counts; it requires better performance. Also, by using big monitors, people can check the performance side by side. If you look at 100% pixel enlargement on a monitor, and translate that to a print, it would be a huge print which no one ever experienced with film cameras. So we're under a lot of pressure to make really good optics. In the film era there was always discussion which was more important - contrast, or resolution. Some people said resolution was more important, and some said contrast was better. Today, there's no question - contrast and resolution are both important.

IR:
. What changes have you had to make to meet the higher quality requirements?

Yamaki:
Many things. First of all, engineers need a lot of study to make better updates, and honestly speaking, higher performance PCs have helped with better optical design. The design process requires a lot of iterations, so by using a better-performing PC we can do ray-tracking simulations hundreds or thousands of times. It helps to make better optics. Also, we've started using a new glass type, FLD, for these new optics. These innovations in materials also help with better optics.

IR:
That's interesting. So you're saying you do the ray tracing thousands of times - that means you trace the path of light through the lens, and then you make a little change in the lens design and do it again, see how it works, then make another little change and so on. Is that kind of how the process works - you iterate like that?

Yamaki:
Yes. When we didn't have PCs, all the camera manufacturers had to have a very large room - say 50 or 70 people would sit together, and typically they were ladies. One optical designer sat in front of the ladies, and asked them to do calculations for the ray tracing - they would repeat it all manually. Since we have PCs, it has accelerated the speed of calculation. The powerful PCs are as if we are using a thousand or ten thousand ladies to perform the calculations. <grins>

IR:
You have a really unusual perspective, in that you've been in the lens business your whole life really. How old were you when you joined the firm? Your father started it, it's a family business...

Yamaki:
My father started the business in 1961, and I joined in 1993.

IR:
So seventeen years now. In the time that you've been involved, what changes in the lens business have most surprised you?

Yamaki:
Of course, digital imaging changed optics. The basic technology hasn't been changed drastically, but the market has become much larger than before, and the requirement from the customers for quality has become much higher. It's had a huge impact, so those who couldn't improve the quality or production capacity by themselves became the losers, and only those who could continuously improve their capabilities could survive in the industry.

IR:
It's a very cutthroat business, and tough to survive. What are you surpris d is still the same after all that time? What's changed the least that you would have thought would have changed more?

Yamaki:
Even though we changed the material from film to digital, good photography is still good photography - the definition hasn't changed. Achieving high contrast, high resolution, reducing ghosting flare as much as possible - the goals haven't changed. We didn't have to be so careful with ghosting flare in the age of film, because the surface of the film was matte: Although it has reflections, it scatters in every direction. The sensor has glass on it which is very smooth, so it reflects light back to the lens, and creates very severe ghosts and flare, so we have to be very careful about this. It changed the way the optics had to be designed. Now we simulate all the way, to reduce ghosts and flare.

IR:
Oh, so you can't just simulate the raytracing through the lens, you have to put the sensor back there and see what comes back...

Yamaki:
Yes, and we also simulate how the light goes if it hits the internal mechanical parts of the lens; we simulate it all. We didn't do this in the age of film.

IR:
Two questions about the economy. The economy has been down in the last year - has that led to changes in your production? Have you had to shift production to different plants in other countries, or has that not really happened?

Yamaki:
We only have factories in Japan. Right now Sigma is the only Japanese [lens] company that has just a single factory in Japan. All the other companies, their main factories are in other countries. But we have approximately 1,400 workers at our factory, so we have a real responsibility for them. Actually, it's really tough to keep such a facility in Japan, because the Japanese Yen is so appreciated, so it's easier to move the factory to China or other countries. Maybe we could be more profitable if we did that, but we have to protect those employees. So that's one of the reasons we shifted our business from the cheap kit lenses to the high-end lenses. We needed more added value.

IR:
Finally, this is a question we're asking everybody. We're trying to gauge what industry executives think is going to happen with the economy; trying to get a feeling for what their projections are. The global downturn has been hard everywhere, but I think imaging hasn't been hit as hard as some areas of the economy. What do you see coming up for the next year - are we in a fast recovery, a slow recovery, a double-dip, what do you think will happen?

Yamaki:
Actually, I want to ask you the same question! [laughs] I don't know; nobody knows what will happen this year, but my personal view is that probably it will be a very tough year for compact digital cameras. Probably the unit price will go down further, and total volume will be decreased. The DSLR and interchangeable lens market will increase slightly, but probably we'll see some price drop because the competition will become very great. But as you said, the photo business has not been so influenced by the general economy. It's a hobby business, so people save the money to use for their hobbies. Once the economy becomes bad, they try to save money - they stop eating at nice restaurants, stop going abroad for sightseeing, those kinds of things -- but they want to reserve the money for their hobbies even in a bad economy. So I'm not too pessimistic about the future. I think manufacturers hold the key. If we innovate and supply very attractive products, customers will keep opening their wallets for new products.