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More 3rd party lenses coming
- Thread starter pdk42
- Start date
Travis Butler
Well-Known Member
Depends on pricing and performance!
The Z version of the 50 is $228 US; about half the list price of the Panny, but the Panny's currently on sale for $300, so not as attractive right at the moment.
The Z version of the 50 is $228 US; about half the list price of the Panny, but the Panny's currently on sale for $300, so not as attractive right at the moment.
Lsake
Active Member
7artisans? Do they have AF license?
I think it will be tough for the Chinese brands to make headway. Between Sigma and Panasonic we’ve already got great lenses at competitive prices. maybe if they are super low cost they’d be good options for focal lengths you’re not going to use much.
I think it will be tough for the Chinese brands to make headway. Between Sigma and Panasonic we’ve already got great lenses at competitive prices. maybe if they are super low cost they’d be good options for focal lengths you’re not going to use much.
Here is an extensive tech test on the 50mm if you are interested... Also mentions AF isn't silent which I kind of expect nowadays.
https://phillipreeve.net/blog/review-7artisans-50mm-1-8-af
https://phillipreeve.net/blog/review-7artisans-50mm-1-8-af
We have to think not only at our own needs. The L-Mount needs more third party lenses in different price categories, which seduce new costumers into the L- Mount system.
Sooner or later many of them will upgrade to more expensive Sigma, Lumix or Leica lenses. But first they need to enter the mount at all.
Contax/Kyocera made this very smart. They had two different brands with the same C/Y lens mount. Yashica and Contax.
Yashica was for the lower budget. Good quality, very good price performance ratio, low margins. All with the Yashica brand on it, but with C/Y lens mount.
Contax was high end like Leica. Zeiss lenses and excellent Contax bodies. All with C/Y lens mount.
Therefore you start cheap and have a great upgrade path if you need better in the future within the same lens mount. At the same time Kyocera did not destroy the more expensive brand "Contax" and its price level.
This is what almost killed Leica with its Leica R4s etc. experiments.
Therefore the more third party lenses, no matter how good, the better for L-Mount and its market share.
Sony would have never had the market share of today, if they would not have allowed everyone to use their mount.
The solution for today's problems are often already there, if you only look back in history. Many brands do not get this - not only in the photo industry. Learn from the past, learn from others. Be modest and listen to your custormers or you will run out of business. Simple as that.
Yeah really? Where are they now? More than 20 years since they made anything
Yeah really? Where are they now? More than 20 years since they made anything
This has other reasons. The CEO of Kyocera at that time was a photo enthusiast. He was the one who decided to buy Yashica and to push the cooperation between Zeiss and Kyocera. Contax is a Zeiss owned brand and Zeiss licenced the name to Kyocera to offer Contax cameras.
There was an internal "fight" within Kyocera when DSLRs were introduced about the future strategy. First Kyocera decided to try it and they introduced a new mount (Contax N mount) with autofocus and mainly for digital use.
The Contax N1 and Contax NX were introduced and als the worlds first fullframe DSLR called Contax ND. Yes, the ND was introduced before Canon's first fullframe DSLR.
They introduced at the same time also a Medium Format system with AF for film and digital backs of other brands, which was far ahead of other MF systems at that time (645) with great lenses etc.
But they chose the wrong sensor for the full frame N-system in the Contax ND. A.sensor originally designed to be used in medium format cameras, which produced a lot of heat in smaller 35mm bodies and which was very power hungry. This technological hurdle mixed with a terrible marketing for that new Contax N system and wrong decisions about which lenses to introduce first for this new 35mm product line, resulted in a bad start and many discussions internally.
At that time the Kyocera CEO's thinking was, that they only want to offer fullframe and always only the best. But they did not have the knowledge in sensor production, which makes this goal impossible to reach. At the same time they refused to use cheaper/easier to implement APS-C sensors like Nikon et alii did. They made their own life unnecessary complicated in a fast moving market.
After this experience it was decided that photography shall not be among their product line anymore and they closed it.
That was a hard time. I was running the biggest Contax community worldwide (Contaxinfo.com) and had very good relationships to Kyocera UK and Japan. Very disappointing to watch these internal fights and the outcome of it. We even designed a special edition Contax camera with our forum logo engraved on it.
If they would have made better marketing, a slightly different lens line at the beginning and above all APS-C sensors instead of way too expensive fullframe sensors, they could have achieved a big market share.
Jonathan-Mac
Well-Known Member
This seems very odd - Leica lowering itself to copying lenses that don't come from first-party, quality, established names like Panasonic or Sigma. Sounds dubious.
I welcome the newer Chinese brands like /Artisans, TTArtisans and Viltrox, they provide a good quality budget end for the system, but imagination doesn't seem to be their strong suite.
Richard Wong
Well-Known Member
Some of the Chinese brands do seem a bit too conservative. But there are good reasons. Lenses like 50 1.8 or 85 1.8 are just a lot easier to create in terms of both optical design and other things like autofocus motors. Fast and quiet autofocus motor is not easy for lenses like full frame f/1.4. It requires a lot of R&D , manufacturing cost would also increase a lot, which would be a problem when the brand doesn't have enough recognition/quality to raise the price to cover the extra cost.
But some of these brands are improving really fast and starting to create some pretty interesting and special lenses. Just last year we saw the Viltrox 28mm f4.5 that really could be a killer kit lens for the S9. The Viltrox 135 1.8 LAB is like 98% as good as the Sony GMaster 135mm f/1.8 but half the price and it even has a customisable colour screen, TTArtisan AF 75 f/2 is compact, metal build quality and very good image quality. Laowa AF 10mm f/2.8 is arguably the best super-duper-ultra wide angle autofocus lens in the market. These are just some of the examples.
I already heard some really exciting lenses coming from some of these brands in 2025 that is even better than what we saw last year.
And yes there will be more third party L-mount lenses from companies other than Meike and 7Artisans!
Jonathan-Mac
Well-Known Member
Yes, the advances from very basic, low quality, manual focus to fully-fledged, high quality AF optics has been extremely fast for some of these companies and shows they're working hard to advance in the market. I'm looking forward to see what else they bring in 2025!
28mm, 28mm, 28mm, 28mmm, 28mm pleeeeeeeeaaaase...
Nevyn72
LMF-Patron Gold
Anamorphic with AUTOFOCUS (which won't break the bank) pleaaaseeeeee
Jonathan-Mac
Well-Known Member
I was just wondering if the Viltrox 28mm f/4.5 will come to the L-mount. I'm sure it's not everyone's ideal 28mm but it's something...
Yes please40mm AF pancake pleeeeeeeaaaaaaaase
Yes please, though I can't see any of the third-party makers producing something this complex at this stage though if they did, across a lot of mounts and at a decent price, it would be a big seller. Or even just a 24-135mm.
pdk42
Moderator
Last time I looked that wasn't available in L-mount.
Richard Wong
Well-Known Member
Oh sorry Paul I didn't mean those autofocus lenses are available in L mount because so far laowa, viltrox and ttartisan all havent release any af lenses for L mount. I just mean there are some really interesting lenses from chinese manufacturer that is not just another boring 50 1.8.
But the Laowa 10mm is available in L mount, just a manual focus version. The AF version is only for E and Z mount
pdk42
Moderator
I wonder if Laowa are formally signed up to L-mount.
JohnnyMauser
Member
Probably not, otherwise the lens would have af in l-mount, don*t you think?