Lack of L-mount Activity on Forums?

[pdk42]

The funny thing about camera chat by gear heads is that the more they suggest the more the pseudo designs of cameras get to be much the same.

The Panasonic self smack-down would have all cameras with IBIS instead of good Lens-IS, larger, ever larger evf sizes, PDAF instead of developed CDAF.

Eventually all camera bodies from all brands will be about the same size as a large M4/3 body, shaped like a faux dslr, and with a side hinged flip out lcd. IBIS is now mandatory and it will be difficult to sell any camera body that does not include this in specifications.

Soon enough one type/shape will suit all and we will be down to fussing about chromed fins and swoopy shapes with distinctive grilles on the cooling fans necessary for the inevitable blazing fast video.

Inevitably fashion outs unique innovation ....

I sad this sadly in jest ....

That's so true. Some might argue it's part of the process of refinement by natural selection - but it does have the potential to stifle innovation.

 

[nameless0ne]

Why you care about this? Forums are for nerds or for cases where people have issues. So, tbh, it's nothing bad if there is low activity. But I don't think this particular forum has low activity tbh.

 

[pdk42]

Why you care about this? Forums are for nerds or for cases where people have issues. So, tbh, it's nothing bad if there is low activity. But I don't think this particular forum has low activity tbh.

Well, I think "care" is a loaded term. I'm just musing about an observation and inviting comments from like-minded people. I don't "care" in the sense that it changes my world view, but OTOH, community is worth having.

 

[Pete_W]

L-mount is a small corner of the FF camera world compared with other brands/mounts.

That said, I think this forum is great! The members here are knowledgeable and helpful, the posts are interesting, and the volume of posts is easy to keep up with.

Compare this with the MFT forum where the volume of posts every day is quite high but most of it is puerile. It's like wading through treacle trying to find anything useful. Great place to go if you want to argue for the sake of it.

I suppose it is best to be quiet and intelligent than busy and puerile. Does this suggest that the L-Mount forum will be less attractive when the mount system becomes more popular?

I do think that it's a possibility. The bigger the crowd, the more likely there will be bad behaviour.

The MFT forum is truly a basket case - overwhelmingly an Olympus forum where self-satisfied members assert brand superiority over everything else, including high-level FF cameras. They think no other brand is better and anyone who questions this is rounded on by the usual suspects who are listed in the Top Posters sidebar. Posts about equivalence usually set off a major bout of paranoia until the thread is locked.

Edit: as an example of the point that Olympus is better than everything else, here is a post just in the last few hours that epitomises the default attitude:

My Testing The Sony A7R5 Against the OM-1 is OVER. The winner is: Micro Four Thirds Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

It must do your head in having to moderate that forum!

--
Pete

 

[Cychen]

The forums here at Dpreview is gear-driven so without a new camera or lens, it's bound to be pretty stagnant. Not to mention L-mount users being a minority among the minority and a lot of them are more video-focused.

 

[Peteo]

L-mount is a small corner of the FF camera world compared with other brands/mounts.

That said, I think this forum is great! The members here are knowledgeable and helpful, the posts are interesting, and the volume of posts is easy to keep up with.

Compare this with the MFT forum where the volume of posts every day is quite high but most of it is puerile. It's like wading through treacle trying to find anything useful. Great place to go if you want to argue for the sake of it.

I suppose it is best to be quiet and intelligent than busy and puerile. Does this suggest that the L-Mount forum will be less attractive when the mount system becomes more popular?

I do think that it's a possibility. The bigger the crowd, the more likely there will be bad behaviour.

The MFT forum is truly a basket case - overwhelmingly an Olympus forum where self-satisfied members assert brand superiority over everything else, including high-level FF cameras. They think no other brand is better and anyone who questions this is rounded on by the usual suspects who are listed in the Top Posters sidebar. Posts about equivalence usually set off a major bout of paranoia until the thread is locked.

Edit: as an example of the point that Olympus is better than everything else, here is a post just in the last few hours that epitomises the default attitude:

My Testing The Sony A7R5 Against the OM-1 is OVER. The winner is: Micro Four Thirds Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

It must do your head in having to moderate that forum!

 

[Peteo]

The forums here at Dpreview is gear-driven so without a new camera or lens, it's bound to be pretty stagnant. Not to mention L-mount users being a minority among theadd to minority and a lot of them are more video-focused.

I believe in time that will change. The L Mount hasn't been around that long but is excellent in it's function and we're seeing more quality lenses being introduced. Add to it that Lumix makes some of the best bridge cameras which makes an L Mount a possible next step for those customers. By comparison the Pentax K mount was introduced in 1975 and is still used today so you can see why they have so much activity.

Scott

 

[Pete_W]

The MFT forum is truly a basket case - overwhelmingly an Olympus forum where self-satisfied members assert brand superiority over everything else, including high-level FF cameras. They think no other brand is better and anyone who questions this is rounded on by the usual suspects who are listed in the Top Posters sidebar. Posts about equivalence usually set off a major bout of paranoia until the thread is locked.

Edit: as an example of the point that Olympus is better than everything else, here is a post just in the last few hours that epitomises the default attitude:

My Testing The Sony A7R5 Against the OM-1 is OVER. The winner is: Micro Four Thirds Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

It must do your head in having to moderate that forum!

That's actually hilarious and the poster makes himself look like a pompous #$#@.

Yes, even his signature line is pompous. The entire thread is laughable.

 

[Rags_and_Old_Iron]

Not much useful feedback comes about typically. Saw your post on 11mm and was going to offer feedback from owning two that are used for stereocopic video and other ultrawide with matching S1R and S1 bodies, and compared to the EF 11-24mm, but historically the effort has been lost in comments. The few L mount users I actually know are doing professional work and do not even look at forums so far as I know.

 

[yysc]

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).

Panasonic Group is big but under the direction of the current CEO, Kusumi san, all Business Units must be profitable. There is no appetite for money pits that's why some division have been axed recently (LCD manufacturing, TV).

Lumix falls in the weakest of the 4 main companies of the group, I think the strategy for them is to keep going hoping to break even.

It is unrealistic to expect Panasonic to make a huge investement in a low profitability business unit operating in a very competitive market. The cadence of new bodies and lenses seem to reconfirm this.

The S Pro line of lenses appears to be semi abandoned, clearly they were expecting S1 and S1R to perform commercially much better than they did catering Pros but that failed, so they adjusted strategy with the S5 and consumer grade lenses.

I think the future for them is S5 II and S1H II (both without PDAF) so they are going to remain niche for the foreseeable future.

 

[MrQuimper]

Hasn't everyone else slowed down on releasing bodies though? Sony has switched to a 3 years release cycle instead of 2, and Panasonic is on a four (?) years cycle

 

[pdk42]

Panasonic Group is big but under the direction of the current CEO, Kusumi san, all Business Units must be profitable. There is no appetite for money pits that's why some division have been axed recently (LCD manufacturing, TV).

Lumix falls in the weakest of the 4 main companies of the group, I think the strategy for them is to keep going hoping to break even.

It is unrealistic to expect Panasonic to make a huge investement in a low profitability business unit operating in a very competitive market. The cadence of new bodies and lenses seem to reconfirm this.

The S Pro line of lenses appears to be semi abandoned, clearly they were expecting S1 and S1R to perform commercially much better than they did catering Pros but that failed, so they adjusted strategy with the S5 and consumer grade lenses.

I think the future for them is S5 II and S1H II (both without PDAF) so they are going to remain niche for the foreseeable future.

Overall, I agree - but the talk on the streets is that PDAF is coming in the S5ii.

 

[Scottelly]

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).

Panasonic Group is big but under the direction of the current CEO, Kusumi san, all Business Units must be profitable. There is no appetite for money pits that's why some division have been axed recently (LCD manufacturing, TV).

Lumix falls in the weakest of the 4 main companies of the group, I think the strategy for them is to keep going hoping to break even.

It is unrealistic to expect Panasonic to make a huge investement in a low profitability business unit operating in a very competitive market. The cadence of new bodies and lenses seem to reconfirm this.

The S Pro line of lenses appears to be semi abandoned, clearly they were expecting S1 and S1R to perform commercially much better than they did catering Pros but that failed, so they adjusted strategy with the S5 and consumer grade lenses.

I think the future for them is S5 II and S1H II (both without PDAF) so they are going to remain niche for the foreseeable future.

I certainly hope you're wrong about that. If that's their level of commitment, then they should never have entered the full-frame market in the first place. If they pull out of L mount, then L mount will indeed be just a niche lens and camera range.

 

[yysc]

Panasonic Group is big but under the direction of the current CEO, Kusumi san, all Business Units must be profitable. There is no appetite for money pits that's why some division have been axed recently (LCD manufacturing, TV).

Lumix falls in the weakest of the 4 main companies of the group, I think the strategy for them is to keep going hoping to break even.

It is unrealistic to expect Panasonic to make a huge investement in a low profitability business unit operating in a very competitive market. The cadence of new bodies and lenses seem to reconfirm this.

The S Pro line of lenses appears to be semi abandoned, clearly they were expecting S1 and S1R to perform commercially much better than they did catering Pros but that failed, so they adjusted strategy with the S5 and consumer grade lenses.

I think the future for them is S5 II and S1H II (both without PDAF) so they are going to remain niche for the foreseeable future.

Overall, I agree - but the talk on the streets is that PDAF is coming in the S5ii.

 

[xaviergut]

I am relatively new to this forum, so I don't know if this has been discussed before, but my question is this:

If you enter the forum "L-mount (Panasonic/Sigma/Leica) Talk" and choose the option "Filter by product", it is not possible to find Sigma and Leica cameras that belong to the L-Mount System (Leica SL, SL2, SL2-S, CL, TL, TL2 and Sigma FP and FP-L). I know there is already a "Leica Talk" forum and a "Sigma Camera Talk" forum, but do the comments about those cameras also appear on the "L-Mout Talk" forum?

If the comments about the Leica SL (for example) are repeated in the two forums/fora, I am sorry to have asked the question, and if not, perhaps the comments could bring a little more information and activity to this "L-Mount Talk" forum.

 

[SUPER-ELMAR]

Also, some clique's have developed that praise crappy, substandard work and totally ignore great work.

Examples of this? I have found that generally great work is praised as such.

 

[Tom Caldwell]

L-mount is a small corner of the FF camera world compared with other brands/mounts.

That said, I think this forum is great! The members here are knowledgeable and helpful, the posts are interesting, and the volume of posts is easy to keep up with.

Compare this with the MFT forum where the volume of posts every day is quite high but most of it is puerile. It's like wading through treacle trying to find anything useful. Great place to go if you want to argue for the sake of it.

I suppose it is best to be quiet and intelligent than busy and puerile. Does this suggest that the L-Mount forum will be less attractive when the mount system becomes more popular?

I do think that it's a possibility. The bigger the crowd, the more likely there will be bad behaviour.

The MFT forum is truly a basket case - overwhelmingly an Olympus forum where self-satisfied members assert brand superiority over everything else, including high-level FF cameras. They think no other brand is better and anyone who questions this is rounded on by the usual suspects who are listed in the Top Posters sidebar. Posts about equivalence usually set off a major bout of paranoia until the thread is locked.

Edit: as an example of the point that Olympus is better than everything else, here is a post just in the last few hours that epitomises the default attitude:

My Testing The Sony A7R5 Against the OM-1 is OVER. The winner is: Micro Four Thirds Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

It must do your head in having to moderate that forum!

Well Panasonic has not released (needed to release?) a M4/3 mainstream camera for a while, and only a trickle of (quite good) lenses. Nothing much to talk about there - only history lessons ....

Furthermore I have to admit that those who made urgent issues of doom, gloom and utter finality of the end of M4/3 when Olympus exited stage left seem to now think that OMDS is just an unnecessary alias for the real Olympus. OMDS - who are they?

The reality is that Panasonic can be the big fish that dominates a much smaller L-Mount forum with Sigma's lenses as second fiddle. Leica people probably tend to politely stay on Leica-specific forums.

If they really wanted to be big-fish on M4/3 they could easily flood it with new product. OMDS is a minnow by comparison and only gets the chance to yodel new product because Panasonic allows them to do so.

Honestly - my G9 and GX9 are still pretty good product - today. Just as much as my S1 will suit me for quite some time more. It has also been a while now since the S5 and if Sigma were to release their FF Foveon body real soon now (it has been a while of being just over the horizon) then maybe the hot gossip on L-Mount will be Sigma, Sigma, Sigma .... how boring?

--
Tom Caldwell

 

[Tom Caldwell]

The funny thing about camera chat by gear heads is that the more they suggest the more the pseudo designs of cameras get to be much the same.

The Panasonic self smack-down would have all cameras with IBIS instead of good Lens-IS, larger, ever larger evf sizes, PDAF instead of developed CDAF.

Eventually all camera bodies from all brands will be about the same size as a large M4/3 body, shaped like a faux dslr, and with a side hinged flip out lcd. IBIS is now mandatory and it will be difficult to sell any camera body that does not include this in specifications.

Soon enough one type/shape will suit all and we will be down to fussing about chromed fins and swoopy shapes with distinctive grilles on the cooling fans necessary for the inevitable blazing fast video.

Inevitably fashion outs unique innovation ....

I sad this sadly in jest ....

That's so true. Some might argue it's part of the process of refinement by natural selection - but it does have the potential to stifle innovation.

Paul, when the ability to innovate starts to run out they call in 'fashion' (my chrome fins and swoopy designs). In the case of camera bodies it seems that great video is the next 'fashion' frontier and we are going to get camera bodies made for the very best video and stills photography becomes merely 'you can also do that'.

Which effectively means that the best stills camera body is probably the one you are holding today. That is if the market doesn't just buy these super-video camera because they must update to something/anything.

If the video-magic camera bodies don't sell then the marketing dept will excuse it as the fault of the ever encroaching mobile phone camera.

Nothing wrong with great video cameras for those that need more than casual video, but lest not throw out still shooter's needs with the bathwater.

I remember the 'high riser' bikes sold for children when standard shaped bikes had become passe. Awful things for use as working bicycles but the kids were happy enough with them for a while even if it was just riding around in circles for exercise. Didn't last more than a few years .... But every young kid with bragging rights needed a high riser when it was the only thing to be seen cool on around the 'burbs.

 

[Jonathan Mac]

I think a lot of people using the S5 are using it for video, at least that's the impression I get from the number of reviews and YouTube videos that are about shooting just video with it. That's a shame because when I looked at all the options within my budget the S5 was really the stand-out for stills and I don't think it gets anything close to the attention it deserves for photography - it's all about the video features.

I've also found that there's not much forum activity, anywhere, for the L-mount. That's a bit disappointing but I still hang around the Pentax forums, mostly as I use a lot of adapted Pentax lenses on my S5. In fact I recently posted there that forum posts have gone down a lot in the last few years and it was pointed out that many people these days don't use forums - they prefer to post on Reddit, Instagram, FB etc, and I think that's correct.

Gear releases are few and far between, so not much to discuss there. It would be nice if Panasonic and Sigma would get a move on plugging the holes in the system (I-series 50/2 and 50/2.8 macro, 24-135 f/3.5-5.6, a cheaper 70-210 or 70-300 f/3.5-5.6).

I've only had the S5 for eight months but I love it and the lenses I have for it, they're fantastic, so the lack of discussion is a minor issue.

 

[SUPER-ELMAR]

L-mount is a small corner of the FF camera world compared with other brands/mounts.

That said, I think this forum is great! The members here are knowledgeable and helpful, the posts are interesting, and the volume of posts is easy to keep up with.

Compare this with the MFT forum where the volume of posts every day is quite high but most of it is puerile. It's like wading through treacle trying to find anything useful. Great place to go if you want to argue for the sake of it.

I suppose it is best to be quiet and intelligent than busy and puerile. Does this suggest that the L-Mount forum will be less attractive when the mount system becomes more popular?

I do think that it's a possibility. The bigger the crowd, the more likely there will be bad behaviour.

The MFT forum is truly a basket case - overwhelmingly an Olympus forum where self-satisfied members assert brand superiority over everything else, including high-level FF cameras. They think no other brand is better and anyone who questions this is rounded on by the usual suspects who are listed in the Top Posters sidebar. Posts about equivalence usually set off a major bout of paranoia until the thread is locked.

Edit: as an example of the point that Olympus is better than everything else, here is a post just in the last few hours that epitomises the default attitude:

My Testing The Sony A7R5 Against the OM-1 is OVER. The winner is: Micro Four Thirds Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

It must do your head in having to moderate that forum!

Well Panasonic has not released (needed to release?) a M4/3 mainstream camera for a while, and only a trickle of (quite good) lenses. Nothing much to talk about there - only history lessons ....

Furthermore I have to admit that those who made urgent issues of doom, gloom and utter finality of the end of M4/3 when Olympus exited stage left seem to now think that OMDS is just an unnecessary alias for the real Olympus. OMDS - who are they?

The ones with all the buzz in M43 land. The OM-1 was a resounding success. It was the second best selling camera across all brands at MAP (Japan).

Loading…

digicame-info.com

Notice no Lumix on that list. Not surprising as Panasonic is unknown in Asian markets.

The reality is that Panasonic can be the big fish that dominates a much smaller L-Mount forum with Sigma's lenses as second fiddle. Leica people probably tend to politely stay on Leica-specific forums.

If they really wanted to be big-fish on M4/3 they could easily flood it with new product. OMDS is a minnow by comparison and only gets the chance to yodel new product because Panasonic allows them to do so.

OMDS is not limited by corporate priorities of a conglomerate with many layers like Panasonic. It does not appear that Panasonic will allow low end M43 to be developed. It is GH only which means a new body every 4 years with maybe some variants along the way (GH5s).

"Little" OMDS launched two cameras last year. Panasonic launched one across both mounts.

Honestly - my G9 and GX9 are still pretty good product - today. Just as much as my S1 will suit me for quite some time more. It has also been a while now since the S5 and if Sigma were to release their FF Foveon body real soon now (it has been a while of being just over the horizon) then maybe the hot gossip on L-Mount will be Sigma, Sigma, Sigma .... how boring?

Sigma bodies are rather niche. Leica bodies are beyond the realm of Lumix shoppers. There is tremendous middle ground for Panasonic to occupy but L-mount is a distant 4th among FF market share. They need something to attract from Canon, Sony, Nikon user base but playing catch up with technology like PDAF is not the way.