Sigma’s New 500mm f/5.6 Lens is So Popular, It Can’t Keep Up With Orders
Sigma’s latest compact telephoto optic, the 500mm f/5.6 DG DN OS Sports lens is so popular that the company can’t keep up with pre-orders.
The 500mm f/5.6 is a very impressive lens and is already on PetaPixel‘s shortlist for lens of the year. It should not, therefore, come as a particular surprise that it is very popular.
Announced in Japanese on the company’s website, Sigma says that orders for the 500mm f/5.6 exceeded expectations and as a result, not everyone who has pre-ordered the lens will receive it when it starts shipping on March 15.
Thank you for using Sigma products.
Regarding the “SIGMA 500mm F5.6 DG DN OS | Sports” scheduled to be released on March 14, 2024 (Thursday), we have received orders that exceed our expectations, and we are currently unable to keep up with demand. We now have. Therefore, some customers may take some time to receive their products.
We apologize for the inconvenience and inconvenience to our customers and related parties who are waiting for the product, but we are currently working diligently to produce the product, so we ask for your patience.
We appreciate your continued patronage of our company and our products.
These types of comments are not uncommon for Japanese manufacturers as they are required to disclose any disruptions to their production schedule that might affect product availability. The benefit isn’t just for Japanese customers, though, and photographers who were interested in the lens may want to put in an order for it sooner rather than later to assure they get it in a somewhat timely fashion.
One cause for insufficient supply might be that the individual glass elements that make up larger telephotos like Sigma’s new 500mm f/5.6 are just harder to make within tolerance limits, meaning there are more failed attempts during the optics’ production process. Tolerances don’t scale up, so it becomes an exponentially more challenging thing to do as the lens becomes larger.
The $3,000 lens is expected to start shipping on March 15, but any photographer placing an order now very likely will have to wait longer than that.
It’s not all bad news though, as Sigma has managed to catch up on production of the 56mm f/1.4 DC DN Contemporary lens for Fujifilm X-mount, which also was more popular than the company anticipated. That lens should be more readily available starting this month.
