The L-Mount Alliance, announced at Photokina in 2018, continues to expand. Astrodesign, Inc and Samyang Optics Co become the sixth and seventh companies to join the group based on the Leica L-Mount standard. The newcomers join Leica Camera AG, Panasonic, Sigma, Ernst Leitz Wetzlar GmbH and DJI. The companies use their own brand names and market their respective products as competitors.
Stephan Schulz, Head of Product Management Professional Camera Systems, said, “The L-Mount is an up-to-date lens interface that unifies photo and video applications in the best possible way and allows for innovative optical designs due to the shallow flange depth.
“With Astrodesign, the L-Mount Alliance gains a member that is undoubtedly an innovator in advanced professional video. This underlines the versatility of the L-Mount Standard and the high-level ambition of the L-Mount Alliance. With Samyang, we welcome an agile lens maker that has undoubtedly developed within a short period of time an impressive lens portfolio for photography and cinematography.”
Press release
Rear more on the L-Mount Alliance
Starter kit to enter the L-Mount Alliance group of products
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Just adding that Blackmagic has also been rumored as a potential new L-mount alliance member, which again would point towards the alliance getting more video-focused.
Again, I think it would be a good move for Zeiss!
The more the merrier but I don’t see Samyang and Astrodesign joining having a big impact and as the camera market is a shrinking market so I do not see any newcomers joining either . Realistically only OM Systems and Ricoh/Pentax could potentially join but honestly, why would they? I see the alliance getting more video-centric which is also Panasonic’s ultimate goal, i.e. to make the L-mount the universal video mount. As such I see a future for a hybrid camera like the SL2-s but less so for the SL2. And in the last 4 years we have only seen one “true” Leica lens… the APO Summicron-SL 28mm, all the rest were rebadged Sigma and Panasonic lenses, that for me is a huge reason for concern.
Part of the appeal – no; much of the appeal – of the micro-four-thirds OM cameras and lenses is their small and light lenses and (relatively)small and lightweight camera bodies.
As m4/3 sensors are a quarter the size of ‘full-frame’, so the lenses can be made smaller than full frame lenses, and that means smaller – and thus lighter – pieces of glass.
Lighter total weight of glass means that the elements which move can be moved faster than those in full frame lenses, so m4/3 cameras focus really fast! (..and accurately, too).
Also, the smaller – and thus lighter – sensors mean that integral stabilisation – moving the sensor to counteract camera shake and wobble – can also be faster than using larger, full frame sensors.
It’d be folly to give up these advantages just to join an alliance of larger-sensor camera makers, or larger, heavier lens makers.
Moving lighter-weight lenses also uses less battery power, and stabilising smaller, lighter sensors uses less battery power, and gives greater ‘running time’ per battery charge than batts which need to heave heavier glass and move larger sensors.
I really can’t see OM Systems giving up their advantages to join this particular party.
On the other hand, Samsung will be happy to gain access to another lens mount, and Astrodesign ..goodness knows what they’ll do, but perhaps challenge BlackMagic Design in the ever-burgeoning semi-pro (or pro) video market.
I wasn’t suggesting OM would give up on MFT, David. I understand those advantages of MFT. I think I would prefer MFT to APS-C, for instance, for all the reasons you list. I meant that this could be an opening for OM to expand into FF if that’s what they would like to do.
My reading of the press release was that Samyang (not Samsung, I think you mentioned) and Astrodesign are both concentrating not he cine market. But Keith James tells me he has had a good look at the Samyang North America website and sees several attractive full-frame lenses that could add to the list for Leica/Panasonic users.
Ah ..glad you caught that: I think it was the auto-correct which turned my typing from Samyang (..there it goes again!..) to ‘Samsung’!
Great news! A brilliant move. L-mount has a healthy future.
What is missing from the LMA is a fourth (stills) camera manufacturer (or a third if we discount the Sigma fp as a niche product). But all the big companies are committed. A newcomer from China is one possibility. Another could be OM Systems if they sense a slowing of the MFT market and a need to expand in another direction. This would be a great fillip for the L-Mount Alliance. Does anyone have views on this?