Your discussion becomes unnecessarily ugly... sorry...

overniteman wrote:paulski66 wrote:Al Giordano wrote:I think the reliability and durability concerns is a huge factor in lens consideration.  I think Sigma has really stepped up their game in this regard.  And I would also give Tamron the benefit of doubt with recent lenses as the big three are competing head on for quality and value.I wish someone would do an analysis of the big three lens makers quality, reliability, and performance; in addition to all the great articles on sharpness, vignetting, CA, etc....what are the "Big 3" lens makers?Nikon, Sigma, Tamron?Tamron, Sigma, Tokina?Tamron, Sigma, Zeiss?Canon, Nikon, Sony?For units sold , Nikon, Canon (those two interchangable, pardon the pun) and Sigma?.That could be true - if you look at DSLR lenses only.If you look at lenses in general, Tamron is by far the biggest of the those mentioned above (including Canon and Nikon). Keep in mind they subcontract a lot of the compact camera and camcorder lenses for several brands, make cell phone lenses, build most of Sonys lenses (compact, DSLR, Nex) and also do much lenses for example for surveillance cameras and for industrial uses.Sigma is by comparison a small company, even though they are often referred to as the worlds biggest independent lens maker. This is since Tamron is not considered entirely independent (Sony owns a part and they cooperate a lot). To get some notion of company sizes, Sigma have less then 900 employees, while Tamron have more then 7000Tokina is in terms of camera lenses even smaller, but is a division of the big (employing over 30000 people) optical company Hoya, so in terms of company size, it is huge.Zeiss do a lot more optics then camera lenses, but if we look at the DSLR market, they are fairly small.