Third party lenses that cannot be updated by the camera body will include a USB port.

Why would this be a good idea to break away from the norm of what has been done before? The mechanism of updating the lens through the camera exists. Why reinvent the wheel? It only increases the BOM for the lens to include the USB and the electronics involved.

Because third party lenses cannot leverage the camera body to update.

Sigma has a dock that allows updates to their lenses in this fashion however.

Only for their old "Art" lenses, the modern "Contemporary" lenses can leverage the camera body update mechanism and only need a file on the SD card containing the firmware update.

"Contemporary" lenses aren’t more modern that "Art". The monikers were introduced at the same time, along with "Sports". Rather, "Art" is Sigma’s high-end line, similar to Canon’s "L". "Contemporary" on the other hand is a somewhat euphemistic term for "consumer" or "affordable".

You can update sigma lenses through Sony camera bodies but it requires running a program on your desktop with the camera plugged in and it’s a bit of a pain. Especially on macOS where it requires enabling kernel extensions.

Would have been nice if Sony just let you drop a file on the sd card to load an update.

Didn't realize this, thanks!

I suppose it depends on the system? I have updated Sigma, TAMRON, and XiaoYi lenses on my Panasonic and Olympus MFT bodies, as well as Panasonic and Olympus with each other: https://support.jp.omsystem.com/en/support/imsg/digicamera/d... (Sadly not an exhaustive list. I have firmware for several more lenses stashed away in my archive, but the upgrade mechanism is the same.)

I shoot the m43 system (have since the GH2, then E-M5, E-M1, and now a G9 II) and didn't realize this.

I only have one lens tight now (I tend to stay small on my system but this is a low point) but I'll keep it in mind.

Thanks for the info!

Here's a counter-example, too: Metabones EF↔MFT speedbooster that has its own USB port and update+config app: https://i.ibb.co/t7mDFLJ/image.png https://i.ibb.co/PsSH2M3R/image.png

That one I'm aware of. I used to own one!

Ok, that makes actually sense.

First party lenses will be handled by either camera firmware or by the camera - for your lens (I'm in the Canon RF system heavily) you can do the "download to SD from canon.com" and the firmware update on the camera will recognize it as a lens firmware, not a camera firmware. And sometimes camera firmware will also bundle lens firmwares that get updated when you attach the lens (usually these are reserved for issues that have a potential to damage the lens or camera - like excessive hunting wearing the motor, etc., not 'nice refinements').

Yep. Sony lenses are the same. You can update the firmware on a sony lens by attaching it to a sony camera.