What is the History of The “L”mount alliance.

[Spencer Gorman]

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I understand that Leica, Panasonic, and Sigma all make L mount lenses and all make cameras that use “L” mount lenses. 

What I am uncertain about is just how universal the L mount lenses are and how these lenses cross perform using the different cameras.
I would think lenses are developed to perform the best on the cameras they are designed for.  At least this has generally been the case for SLR film cameras  and why systems were developed to sell lenses. I.e. Leica M and R mount, Canon FD, Nikon F mount. 
  I don’t quite understand this “alliance”. I know Panasonic and Leica worked on projects together  but I do not understand the Sigma connection although Sigma is known for new ideas in lens technology.  My interest is in the history of the L mount and how this “alliance” came about. With mirrorless cameras and the ability to use nearly any lens with an adaptor as long as your shooting using the lens manually. As well as so many converting old SLR lenses for cinema to avoid the  considerable expense of the high grade  lenses made for digital cameras. I don’t understand  this “alliance” which I assume is a business alliance. Business alliances are formed to make profit that benefits all members of the alliance. Assuming this is true it would seem that in order to sell more product the “L” mount lens alliance would seemingly be formed to use all “L” mount lenses across all the cameras made by each member of the alliance. 

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[Babylonia]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb Spencer Gorman:

My interest is in the history of the L mount and how this “alliance” came about.....

....I don’t understand  this “alliance” which I assume is a business alliance. Business alliances are formed to make profit that benefits all members of the alliance. Assuming this is true it would seem that in order to sell more product the “L” mount lens alliance would seemingly be formed to use all “L” mount lenses across all the cameras made by each member of the alliance. 

Much of the history of the L mount alliance can be found already by reading the information that each brand itself is giving,
Or can be found by Google.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-Mount_Alliance

https://l-mount.com/
https://l-mount.com/en/q-and-a

https://help.na.panasonic.com/answers/features-and-specifications-all-about-l-mount-alliance/

https://leica-camera.com/en-int/Company/Press-Centre/Press-Releases/2018-not-urgent-translatable/Press-Release-The-L-Mount-Alliance-a-strategic-cooperation-between-Leica-Camera%2C-Panasonic-and-Sigma

Sigma itself is not giving that much information.
https://www.sigma-global.com/en/history/

In a nutshell.
- Leica stands for their classical approach and their distinguished quality in "photography".
   The best lenses you can get "optically", (but bulky and expensive).

- Panasonic to help Leica by their digital and electronical system development.
  Panasonic itself much of it is focused to "video". (Specially the latest camera models)
  And their video history already before L-mount.
  Many L-mount lenses have about the same weight and size to optimised balance for "video", when used with a gimbal.

- Sigma specially devoted to high quality lenses in general, and affordable prices.

Because it's generally a difficult market for a camera or lens manufacturer to survive. (Especially for Leica itself).
Various Panasonic lens designs are also used for Leica.
Leica uses more lightweight metal components, compared to the lenses Panasonic produces by more high quality "plastic" parts.
And Leica do charge a considerable "Leica" premium for that difference.

Sigma also produces several "Leica" branded lenses.

Keep in mind that many modern camera and lens manufacturers collaborate with each other.
They have been acquired or form a holding company of "older" known brands and factories.
-

Edited 4 hours ago by Babylonia

[hoolyproductions]

4 hours ago, Spencer Gorman said:

how these lenses cross perform using the different cameras.

 I don’t understand  this “alliance” which I assume is a business alliance. 

For cross performance, it is generally very very good but some annoying glitches in some cases. E.g. some of the Panasonic lenses use a 'clutch' to go to manual focus mode and this does not work well with the SL cameras (you cannot use back button focus).

Regarding the alliance, I am not an industry expert but L mount is a proprietary mount. They do not share specifications with other manufacturers and you need to be part of the alliance to make and sell L mount lenses, and by these three companies coming together around the same mount design they can together offer a wider range of lenses with a wide range of price/quality, whilst still competing with each other. (I think there are some exceptions of smaller companies that anyway produce limited amounts of L mount lenses, even though they are not part of the alliance). 

To my understanding that is the essence of it

[LocalHero1953]

Leica developed the L-mount and it predates the alliance by a number of years. The alliance is built around the common lens mount standard. There have been discussions over the years as to just exactly what the standard includes - hence uncertainty about whether it covers matters such as MF/AF switches mentioned above. I guess some omissions may be intentional, and some may be accidental ("we didn't think of that at the time").

The incentive for all members is to employ a common modern mount that can compete with the other major brand mounts: Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji. If they had retained independent mounts, the choice of lens within each brand would have been small, and it's likely there would have been a drift to the larger brands. As it is, the L-mount allows customers to choose from a wide range of lenses, and so have an incentive to stay with the alliance bodies and grow the L-mount market as a whole.

Other alliance members include DJI and Samyang.

Edited 1 hour ago by LocalHero1953

[Babylonia]

Check which lenses are available that do have an L-mount.
Regardless of whether they are "official" members of the L-mount Alliance or not.  (Back engineered).
AF-lenses,  as well  Manual focus lenses.

Current number of lenses in the table:   157   (by date of this message = 2025 December 2 ).

Interactive L-Mount Lens Table:   https://www.endlesslycurious.net/lenses/

The list is made as a hobby project by    Jan Wedekind    (Spanish L-mount photographer)
https://www.endlesslycurious.net/about/

Edited 56 minutes ago by Babylonia

[adan]

Leica has had a LOT of ad hoc "alliances" over the decades. Mostly because it is less expensive (and often faster in a competitive market) to do so that than try to carry the entire "weight" of a single system/lens-mount all by themselves. "Less expensive" is another route to increased profits, in addition to "more sales."

Examples: quickly adopting the Schneider (or Taylor-Hobson: choose your own mythology) 5cm Xenon f/1.5 lens design, when arch-rival Zeiss brought out the original 50mm f/1.5 Sonnar in the 1930s for their Contax. Having Schneider design most of Leitz/Leica's super-wide lenses prior to 1975-1980 (21mm, and 35/28 perspective-correcting PC Super-Angulons/Curtagons). The more famous alliance with Minolta to produce first the CL film camera (in Japan), followed by the Minolta-based R3-R7 cameras to replace the expensive-to-build and complex all-mechanical Leicaflexes (as the world turned to electronic camera controls), and Minolta-based R lenses (16mm fisheye, 24 Elmarit, several zooms in the 70-200 range). An alliance with Angenieux for shorter R zooms. 

And of course the involuntary "alliance" when Leitz/Leica (and Zeiss) lost all their patents as reparations after WW2 - allowing Canon and Nikon and others to "muscle in" with their own M39 lenses, with no great benefit going to Leitz/Leica.

The L Alliance is just an "organized and pre-planned" way of doing the same things, rather than making it up ad hoc as time passes.

Leica does not have to go to the expense of designing and/or building: 100-400 f/5-6.3, 24/28-70 f/2.8, 70-200 f/2.8 or 14-24mm f/2.8 zooms; or inexpensive 35 and 50mm non-"APO" Summicron-L ASPHs. Leica just transplants the Sigma products, and badge-engineers them as Leica products.

Nor do users have to mess around with adapters - the Alliance means Leica et al all use the same agreed-upon specs for everything critical in the lens/camera interface.

[hoolyproductions]

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50 minutes ago, adan said:

Leica et al all use the same agreed-upon specs for everything critical in the lens/camera interface.

Thanks for the very informative post as always. An exception to the above is back button focus, which I at least consider to be critical