Will the SL ever become a full system?

[Archiver]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

As has been stated, the R system included a lot of collaboration with other brands like Minolta, Sigma, Angenieux etc to create the complete system the OP speaks of. The L mount alliance appears to be an overt logical development of that strategy. It offers high quality lenses of almost all types, with the exception of tilt-shift and bellows lenses, just from different companies.

The L mount alliance also offers bodies for all situations, from small and discreet like the Panasonic S9 and Sigma fp and BF, to full fledged pro bodies like the Panasonic S1H for video, S1 II and S1R II for hybrid shooting, and the SL3 and SL3-S for the Leica minded. And if I can shoot sports successfully with earlier gen Panasonic S5 and S1 bodies, then the latest gen bodies with phase detection AF like the SL3-S, S1 II and S1R II can shoot sports even better.

My only gripe is that the L mount alliance never stipulated a zoom lens ring direction, as I'm very used to the direction that Panasonic lenses turn, and get thrown off when using lenses that turn in the direction of the majority of Sigma zooms.

[Archiver]

On 10/4/2025 at 1:00 PM, beewee said:

Panasonic owns the patent for the 90-280. Minolta owns the patent for the SL 16-35. It’s not clear if Leica owns the 24-90 design but the optical formula has Sigma’s fingerprints all over it.

The Leica SL 16-35mm is based on a Minolta patent? That's surprising, given that Minolta's IP was sold to Sony in the medieval period of digital cameras.

[jaapv]

Konica Minolta is a separate entity in the Sony conglomerate. 
They are owned by Sony and operate as a multinational company  

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konica_Minolta

[Archiver]

20 hours ago, jaapv said:

Konica Minolta is a separate entity in the Sony conglomerate. 
They are owned by Sony and operate as a multinational company  

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konica_Minolta

That's a surprise, thank you for that. I've sometimes wondered what might have happened if Leica had been able to acquire the camera division of Konica Minolta instead of Sony. They probably didn't have the budget, but imagine if they had. 

[Dazzajl]

On 10/5/2025 at 6:50 AM, Archiver said:

My only gripe is that the L mount alliance never stipulated a zoom lens ring direction, as I'm very used to the direction that Panasonic lenses turn, and get thrown off when using lenses that turn in the direction of the majority of Sigma zooms.

This is a small point but has probably made more difference to photographs over the years than the tiny percentile shifts in the detail rendering of a given lens at a given f value that we discuss.

[jaapv]

52 minutes ago, Archiver said:

That's a surprise, thank you for that. I've sometimes wondered what might have happened if Leica had been able to acquire the camera division of Konica Minolta instead of Sony. They probably didn't have the budget, but imagine if they had. 

Interestingly the camera section was sold off into Sony but the lens section, it seems, was kept in the original company. 

[helged]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

At present, available L-mount bodies (SL included) show quite a diversity, certainly for the type of shooting I do, with a few, notable exceptions: The sensor read-out time is (still) too long for the electronic shutter to be used to the full potential, that continuous tracking is greatly lagging what's out there. 

I fully understand that the above wishes aren't shared by all, possibly only by a few Leica users, but I do think that forthcoming bodies will show improvement (*).

And I believe that (mostly) accurate and reliable cAF would get more users over to Leica. Certainly among the photographers I am in contact with.

(*) SL3 is still on 'Animal detection (beta)', which is underwhelming.

[Archiver]

11 hours ago, Dazzajl said:

This is a small point but has probably made more difference to photographs over the years than the tiny percentile shifts in the detail rendering of a given lens at a given f value that we discuss.

My formative DSLR years were with Canon, giving me significant muscle memory with their zooms. Switching to Panasonic was aggravating at first because of the opposite zoom ring direction, but I got used to it. Sigma can't quite make up its mind, producing zooms that rotate in either way, which is annoying when I work with their 18-35 (Nikon direction) and 24-105 (Canon direction) on the same job.