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Canon and Nikon have entered the full-screen camera market in recent weeks, after years of giving way to Sony. Leica has been hanging around for a few years, with her full-frame SL autofocus, anchoring the system.
But the others were not slow in getting into the fray. Today, Leica announced the L-Mount alliance, a partnership with a long-time collaborator, Panasonic, as well as Sigma, better known as a lens manufacturer, but also a company with its own system. cameras.
It is not surprising to see Leica working with Panasonic. The two companies have a long history of collaboration, ranging from Panasonic Lumix pocket cameras to the D-Lux range, or the more concrete role Leica played in the development of the LX100, also sold as D-Lux. .
Sigma brings something more to the table. The company has eliminated third – party brand albatrosses and is reinvented as a manufacturer of affordable high quality lenses, under the leadership of CEO Kazuto Yamaki. Having a manufacturer whose main business is making lenses on board will help develop the lens library faster than Leica and Panasonic could do it themselves.
Cameras
Leica has not announced a new version of the SL this morning. The current edition dates back about three years, but still competes with the new models in terms of image quality. Panasonic has shed light on its first two full-frame cameras.
The Lumix S1R and S1 are Panasonic's first two L-mount cameras. The S1R is the 47MP high resolution model, while the S1 has a more modest 24MP image sensor. In addition to the size of the sensor, the cameras appear to be physically identical, although details are scarce at this stage. We do not yet have a technical sheet, price or a solid shipping date, but we expect the cameras to be launched in the first half of 2019.
We know that cameras will record 4K images up to 60 frames per second, are fully waterproof, and have two memory card slots, an SD and an XQD. Panasonic also featured a high flash sync speed, an electronic viewfinder that promises to provide an image close to what our eyes perceive and a stabilization of the image in the body.
The company is still using contrast-based autofocus technology, combined with the DFD (Depth From Defocus) system to speed up its operation. Most competitors use a mix of phase detection and sensor contrast, but Panasonic is sticking to its weapons. I found that DFD focused quite quickly in practice, but I had better results when tracking moving subjects with phase detection. We will reserve our judgment on S1 and S1R until they exist and we will be able to test them, of course.
I am happy to see a monochrome LCD information display on the top of the S1 series case. We have seen similar displays in the recently announced Nikon Z and Canon EOS R mirrorless systems. Sony has not yet included this feature in its mirrorless models.
It is not yet known if Sigma will develop his own mount camera. Yamaki hinted that he was working on one at the press conference announcing the system. When asked how she was involved in the partnership, Yamaki said the company's original plans for mirrorless solutions involved creating its own support. Perhaps this is why his Quattro H mirror-less camera used the existing SLR lens mount rather than the one designed specifically for short-edge lenses.
A full frame Sigma L camera would probably bring something incredible to the table, a Foveon image sensor. Layered sensor technology, which captures image information inherently different from that of most other cameras, delivers photos with an incredible amount of detail, as well as medium format systems. It has an Achilles heel – the image quality will drop when you go above ISO 400 – but it's an attractive system for many, including landscape photographers . We will just have to wait and see – Sigma has not yet made its first set of L-mount ads.
Lenses
Leica already has a half-dozen L-frame full-frame lenses, as well as a range of APS-C optics, which can be used with the larger sensor, but with a heavy harvest and a reduced resolution.
Full-frame options currently include the Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90mm f / 2.8-4 ASPH., The Super-Vario-Elmarit-SL 16-35mm f / 3.5-4.5 ASPH. , -280mm f / 2.8-4, Summilux-SL 50mm f / 1.4 ASPH, APO-Summicron-SL 75mm f / 2 ASPH and APO-Summicron-SL 90mm f / 2 ASPH. They are not cheap – prices range from $ 4,750 to $ 6,395.
It plans to launch five other key objectives, all of f / 2, over the next two years. The Summicron-SL 35mm f / 2 ASPH. and Summicron-SL 50mm f / 2 ASPH. will come in 2019. They will be joined by the Summicron-SL 21mm f / 2 ASPH., Summicron-SL 24mm f / 2 ASPH., and Summicron-SL 28mm f / 2 ASPH. the following year. Prices have not been announced yet.
Panasonic brings three lenses to the table. Its 50mm f / 1.4 will certainly be cheaper than the Leica option, and we also get 24-105mm and 70-200mm zooms. He promises to deliver seven more lenses in the year following the launch of the S series.
Sigma has not yet announced what it brings to the table, but we expect it to provide quality objectives at affordable prices based on its recent track record.
What about Micro Four Thirds?
What should not be lost in the buzz around something new and brilliant is that Panasonic has already invested a lot in a mirrorless camera system. With Olympus, it's the engine of the Micro Four Thirds system.
The Micro Four Thirds sensors are smaller than the full screen – they use a size of 17 x 13 mm, while the full screen is 24 x 36 mm – and it looks like the industry is hitting a wall in the sensor resolution . The largest number of pixels we saw stuck in the small image is 20MP, which limits the video resolution, a significant concern for Panasonic's customers.
Panasonic promises to release an 8K compatible camera in time for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. A 20MP sensor does not cut it – each 8K sequence image measures approximately 33.2 MP. The 47MP resolution offered by the S1R is revealing: it is dense enough to provide a resolution of 8K, so it is enough to push faster speeds of processing and reading sensors to reduce the costs of a new model to 8K.
This does not mean that Micro Four Thirds is going away. Panasonic promises that it will coexist with the L-mount. To reassure owners of M43 systems, the company announced this morning a new Micro Four Thirds lens. It is a zoom of 10 to 25 mm (20 to 50 mm in full screen mode) with a constant maximum aperture of f / 1.7. The company promises to provide world-class image quality and lenses at all focal lengths. This is a great lens for the format, and although it does not offer the same level of shallow depth of field as Canon's ambitious 28-70mm f / 2 zoom lens for its full screen system, it offers a brighter opening.
In the meantime, we are waiting to see if Olympus reacts to the news. He is not involved in the development of the L mount, so all his eggs are proverbial. The Olympus Photokina press conference will be held later today at 5:30 pm. in Germany – 11:30 am EDT.
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