I've only had my S5 for a month or so, but I'm noticing a definite lack of activity across the internet photo forums for L-Mount. This thread here is pretty quiet compared to the other gear forums, Cameraderie have decided to wrap L-mount in with other Leica mounts (LTM, M etc) and, despite there being a number of dedicated L-mount fora, they all seem to be pretty dead.
I'm trying to figure whether this means that L-mount really is still a very minority sport, or whether the owners are just too busy taking photos/videos to care!
This forum has around 3,000 threads. That's very little compared to the Sigma Camera Talk forum, which has almost 65,000 threads, but then again this forum is much newer. Many of the Foveonites are quite active in forums too, I believe. I am, I think, and some of the others have posted far more than I have. The thing is L mount is about as old as Z mount, and there are more than 18,000 threads in the Z mount forum. I guess that's because Nikon just has a lot more customers. No doubt the same goes for Canon.
I think it might take a bit more time before a crowd of regulars inhabits this forum, like has happened in many other forums. Some more commitment from Panasonic is likely to be required too. Panasonic is the big player in L mount, and while Sigma is a company that makes quite a variety of lenses, and Leica is a really serious company, which has been a leader in the photographic world for far longer than the others, Panasonic is big (bigger than Canon, bigger than Sony, bigger than Fuji, bigger than any other company in the photography world), and they can afford to make a bigger commitment than they have. I don't know what's going on with them, but they need to make more cameras for L mount. They've shown a reasonable level of commitment by creating a good set of lenses, though they don't have an 800mm f4 or f5.6 yet for some reason, and it seems like Panasonic doesn't even care about macro photography, but just one camera per year in the beginning, when everyone is trying to gain market share from Sony, just doesn't cut it! Apparently Sigma can't handle making a lot of new camera models, and Leica is just Leica. It probably really doesn't matter much what they do. Their cameras (and lenses) are so expensive that they probably won't bring a lot of photographers into L mount anyway.
The fact is there are very few adopters of L mount so far, and the reason for that is the other systems just look more attractive right now. L mount has to compete with Sony E mount, or everyone will just pick Sony E mount. Canon is trying, and so is Nikon, and they sure seem to be doing a better job than Panasonic and Sigma seem to be doing together in the L mount world. Unfortunately Leica does not offer anything to compete with the likes of the Nikon Z9 or the Sony A1. THAT is what Panasonic needs to make, or they need something with a super-high-resolution sensor (i.e. 80 MP or more), like what Sigma did with the fp L, but failed to bring many users, because the camera has a few flaws, so L mount will be more attractive than it is currently, only when Panasonic makes a greater commitment. Otherwise L mount will just languish, and never become what it could. Who knows though? Maybe Sigma will get more into making cameras, find more success, and start making a couple new camera models each year, and Panasonic will be the little player in the L mount, while Sigma is the big player, and Leica makes just as many new cameras as Panasonic, while charging twice as much for them (or three times as much).
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Scott Barton Kennelly
https://www.bigprintphotos.com/
