Three big names in the optics industry have partnered up in a corporate alliance centered on the famed Leica L-Mount. In a bid to bring products compatible with the Leica L-Mount to market, Leica, Panasonic, and Sigma are going to work together to launch new L-mount compatible full-frame and APS-C mirrorless cameras, lenses, and accessories in a bid to dominate the mirrorless segment with a robust and deep ecosystem.
Image via Markus Spiske temporausch.com from Pexels.com.Dr. Andreas Kaufmann, Leica’s chairman, offered a glowing appraisal of the alliance’s future, saying, “For photographers, the ability to choose from a wide range of lenses for their system of preference is extremely important…Especially in the strongly growing market for mirrorless system cameras, users seek increasingly greater product diversity to fulfill a wide range of different photographic needs. We have therefore decided to work together with prominent partners in the photographic segment as an immediate response to these needs.”
As PetaPixel points out, the L-Mount was previously exclusive to Leica cameras but in the future will expand compatibility to makes in the partnership. This isn’t the first time companies in the optics industry have partnered together to streamline and standardize across a product line. Indeed, the history between Leica and Panasonic in particular is quite long with the former often repurposing the latter’s models and slapping their branding as well as a higher price tag on it. The Leica L-Mount is used with full-frame and APS-C sensors.
A press statement describing the new alliance and outlining its contours reads in part: “The ‘L-Mount Alliance’ is a previously unparalleled form of collaboration that will particularly benefit the customers of all three partners…As a joint effort of all three partners, this alliance will increase the importance of the L-Mount technology to the world of photography even further.”
Panasonic’s recently announced S1 and S1R will be the first cameras in the L-Mount alliance from that company and Sigma will be bringing the full-frame Foveon camera out as part of their leg of the collab.
