In a curious interview, the pinnacle of Leica appeared to take a swipe on the Sigma BF digicam – and seemingly taking a jab at APS-C sensor expertise on the identical time.
Throughout a sitdown with the Phoblographer, Dr Andreas Kaufmann – chairman of Leica’s supervisory board, and the person who rescued the corporate from the brink of chapter 20 years in the past – made what felt like some fairly pointed remarks about his L-Mount Alliance accomplice, and made clear that Leica is completed with APS-C.
“At one level, he introduced up the Sigma BF digicam – which he agreed (in some very difficult statements) that it was mainly the Leica T,” wrote the outlet, alluding to the conceptual similarities between the BF and the extremely conceptual TL collection, final seen in 2017’s Leica TL2.
I identified these similarities in my Sigma BF evaluation (and I used to be on no account the one journalist to note them!), however you needn’t learn the entire thing to determine what they’re – simply have a look at the picture above and you may see fairly clearly.
Whereas it is not expanded on, the phrase “very difficult feedback” means that Kaufmann feels a bit spiky about Sigma’s digicam. Nonetheless, there was one key distinction to the TL: the BF is a full-frame digicam, slightly than Leica’s APS-C physique.
So the Phoblographer requested Kaufmann why Leica did not make a full-frame model of the digicam itself. “Andreas didn’t reply on to the query, however mentioned that Leica needed to maneuver away from APS-C.”
This does not come as an enormous shock, provided that the corporate’s final APS-C physique was the Leica CL in 2017 – which launched a number of months after the TL2. Certainly, when it discontinued these cameras in 2022, it famous that:
“The general images market has seen a decline in gross sales of compact and system cameras with smaller sensors… Going ahead, the corporate will primarily focus its consideration on the manufacturing of full-frame cameras.”
The curiosity, after all, is that certainly one of Leica’s most enduring merchandise is the D-Lux line – a collection of Micro 4 Thirds cameras whose sensors are even smaller than APS-C.
Whereas I am assuming that Kauffman’s newest remark was directed towards APS-C interchangeable lens cameras, you’ll be able to definitely infer that the corporate has no real interest in upgrading the Leica D-Lux 8 successor with an APS-C sensor.
I extremely advocate studying the remainder of the interview, which touches on every part from Leica’s subsequent medium format digicam to the corporate’s first implementation of digicam AI in 2019.