L mount

The announcement of the L mount by Panasonic + Sigma + Leica was probably the most unexpected news from Photokina. And hours later Sigma confirmed what the Foveon fans were dreaming of for years: the full-frame Foveon body.

I have been urging Sigma for that move for years. Citing the (discontinued) Fuji S5Pro as an example: open the Foveon opportunity by making it compatible with a wider array of lens (and bodies).

Foveon is a great concept and it produces phenomenal results in good light. Unfortunately due to its multi-layered construction it has not been able to keep the pace with the sensitivity advances of bayer CMOS sensors. Frankly speaking, there is nothing that unleashes creativity better than a high ISO camera coupled with wide aperture lenses: the Nikon D850 coupled with the Sigma 14mm f/1.8 behaves almost like a black hole - sucks all the light in, making it possible to shoot Milky Way hand-held.

But in a good light nothing comes close to the Foveon sensor - it produces amazing images with amazing resolution.

I'm not saying I'll be jumping on the FF Foveon bandwagon. But at least this option may appear less extreme for some... Having Leica and Sigma support, the selection of L mount lenses should be very good. And having an option to use CMOS or Foveon body, depending on lighting conditions makes a lot of sense. Especially as Sigma outputs now raw DNG straight from the camera, so yet another non-standard obstacle (a special desktop software to convert X3F Foveon files) was removed.

Good move! We need less standards that do more!