L-mount news roundup…


Is the Panasonic S1H Worth Buying? First Week Review!

Plenty of L-rumors readers images on our L-mount Facebook Group.
We Hope Sigma Is Making More F1.8 Zooms for APS-C and M4/3 (ThePhoBlographer).
Sigma ART 24/70 f:2.8 L Mount Autofocus en continu en video avec les Lumix S, est-ce que c’est bon ? (Emmanuel Pampuri)
NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical III on the Sigma FP by Fujiablog.

Links:
Panasonic S1R at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto. In Europe at Calumet DE, ParkCameras, Jessops.
Panasonic S1 at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto. In Europe at Calumet DE, ParkCameras, Jessops.
Panasonic S1H at Amazon, BHphoto. Adorama. FocusCamera. Park UK.
Panasonic 24-70mm f/2.8 S lens at Amazon, BHphoto. Adorama. FocusCamera. Park UK.
Panasonic 50mm f/1.4 S at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto. In Europe at Calumet DE, ParkCameras, Jessops.
Panasonic 24-105mm f/4.0 S at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto. In Europe at Calumet DE, ParkCameras, Jessops.
Panasonic 70-200mm f/4.0 S at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto. In Europe at Calumet DE, ParkCameras, Jessops.

 

The SIGMA fp has won the “Red Dot Award: Best of the Best Product Design 2020”

Press text:

The SIGMA fp has won the “Red Dot Award: Best of the Best Product Design 2020”

The SIGMA Corporation is pleased to announce that SIGMA’s new full-frame digital mirrorless cameras, the SIGMA fp received the highest distinction in the Red Dot Award: Product Design―the Red Dot: “Best of the Best”―1.2% of the objects entered from 60 countries more than 6,500 products in the competition.

While focusing on the pursuit of further imaging performance, we will continue to strive to develop customer-focused products that inspire a wide range of possibilities.

Professor Dr. Peter Zec, founder and CEO of the Red Dot Award: “Our experienced jury only awards the Red Dot: Best of the Best to the most convincing products in a category. This is why only a small percentage of the objects entered win this award. It is proof that every detail of the design is coherent and well thought through. Consumers can trust our experts’ decision entirely and can rest assured that the products are of top quality. I want to congratulate the laureates very sincerely on their wonderful success”

About the Red Dot Design Award:

In order to appraise the diversity in the field of design in a professional manner, the Red Dot Design Award breaks down into the three disciplines of Red Dot Award: Product Design, Red Dot Award: Communication Design and Red Dot Award: Design Concept. The Red Dot Award is organized by Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen and is one of the world’s largest design competitions since 1955. In the 1990s, Red Dot CEO Professor Dr. Peter Zec developed the name and brand of the award. Ever since the sought-after Red Dot award has been the revered international seal of outstanding design quality. More information is available at https://www.red-dot.org/.

Sigma CEO Yamaki: Sigma FP not selling as well as expected, new compact FF lenses coming

Sigma chief Kazuto Yamaki was interviewed by Dpreview:

Focus on lens design for mirrorless system:

It’s simply because we’ve had higher demand for mirrorless lenses. The mirrorless camera market is stable compared to DSLR. If you look at the market statistics you’ll see that the decline in DSLR sales is quite significant. This decline gets steeper every month.
We’re also seeing a decline in sales of our DSLR lenses, so naturally we have to focus our efforts on the development of mirrorless lenses.

Strong DN Full Frame lens sales:

They’re doing very well, especially our 24-70mm F2.8. It’s been very well-received. We’re still catching up to demand for that lens. We’ve been enhancing our manufacturing capacity, continuously, but we still can’t meet demand. Even in the current difficult situation, demand for that lens is still very strong.

About the Sigma FP sales:

It sold quite well at the beginning. Early adopters were very interested, and purchased the camera immediately. We’ve received a lot of emails from customers, which I’ve read, and we have a lot of customers who are very happy and satisfied with the fp. We’ve also been monitoring feedback online, through Facebook and Twitter; things like that.
To be honest though, sales have declined considerably [since launch], especially in Europe and America. It’s still selling well in Japan, but overall sales have been lower than expected.

Development of small FF lenses:

Going forward, we will still try to deliver the highest-possible quality products. But we will have two main streams of products. One is for very serious photographers, like our existing ‘Art’ series. But another line will be high quality, premium lenses, but much more compact. And very stylish, like our 45mm F2.8, with metal housings, and high quality aperture and focus rings. We will expand that kind of range for street photographers, or those who need smaller, stylish, high-quality products.

About the Sigma Foveon L-mount camera:

The development of the sensor has been significantly delayed. We are still working on it, but there are still several technical problems we need to overcome. If everything goes well, we should be able to release the camera next year. But if we continue to face technical problems the camera may be delayed further. We haven’t stopped developing the camera, but without the sensor we can’t move very fast.

I damn hope to see this new Foveon camera next year!!! 🙂