Leica reveals L-Mount Alliance
panasonic and Sigma will build full-frame mirrorless cameras and lenses based on Leica’s L-mount
In the biggest news of Photokina 2018, Leica, Panasonic and Sigma have jointly announced the ‘L- Mount Alliance’ for the production of full-frame mirrorless cameras and lenses. this development sees Panasonic and Sigma formally licensing Leica’s existing L-mount, giving them a shortcut into this rapidly expanding sector of the market without having to develop an entirely new mount. Panasonic says that it’s developing two new full-frame mirrorless ‘Lumix S-series’ cameras along with three lenses (see right for full details).
Sigma says it will produce a full-frame mirrorless camera with a Foveon sensor, along with matched L-mount lenses early next year. As a result, it won’t make any more cameras using its long-running SA mount; however, it will continue to produce new SA- mount lenses. Initially it will make its highly regarded Art-series full-frame primes in L-mount, along with its existing APS- C format Dn lenses. But in the future we can expect to see new full-frame optics specifically designed to take full advantage of the mirrorless architecture.
the firm also intends to produce mount adapters that will allow Canon eF and Sigma SA-mount lenses to be used on L- Mount cameras. the potential benefit in driving uptake of the system is considerable, just as the existence of eF adapters encouraged adoption of the Sony e-mount.
As for Leica, it already makes the SLR-like full-frame mirrorless SL (typ 601) along with six matched lenses. In addition, it revealed that 35mm f/2 and 50mm f/2 primes are about to enter full production, while 28mm f/2, 24mm f/2 and 21mm f/2 lenses are on their way. these won’t come cheap though; prices range from £3,750 to £5,100 for the current range. What does ‘alliance’ mean? While the three companies are in ‘alliance’, strictly speaking they’re not working together. Instead, they will independently make cameras and lenses to meet their customers’ needs.
the L-mount is still owned by Leica, and the firm will control all of its specifications and communication protocols. the alliance members have promised that cameras and lenses from each firm will be seamlessly crosscompatible; however, the standard doesn’t extend any further than the mount, meaning that they won’t adopt the same flash interface or remotecontrol terminal. the rationale is that this would make the development of new products and technologies unnecessarily slow. Leica says that other firms could join the alliance, with the proviso that they would have to be the ‘correct fit’ with the existing members. The technical bit Leica’s L-mount was introduced in April 2014 with the APS- C Leica t, and went full-frame with the appearance of the Leica SL 18 months later. It has an internal diameter of 48.8mm, a flange distance from the sensor to the mount of 20mm, and uses 10 pins for communication between the lens and camera body. Like the nikon Z mount,