Panasonic Lumix and Sigma L-Mount Prime Lenses: You can’t go wrong

Photographers inhabiting the L-Mount ecosystem have it pretty good these days. It’s a land of plenty. Plenty of manufacturers, cameras, and lenses, that is. But, undoubtedly, the stars of the show are the system’s constellation of Lumix and Sigma L-Mount prime lenses. They cover a diverse focal-length range, are optically impressive, and are well-priced. When choosing among them, you just can’t go wrong.

The pages of Macfilos are littered with articles referring to the L-Mount Alliance. In large measure, this is driven by Leica’s pre-eminent position in the L-Mount ecosystem. Its SL-series cameras and lenses occupy the high ground in terms of prestige, cost, and, unfortunately, weight¹This is in relation to the 24MP Lumix S5 models. The Lumix S1 cameras are as heavy as the SL series.

Die-hard Leica fans, devoted to SL-series cameras, might find it difficult to imagine using a Lumix or Sigma L-Mount camera. But, even those long-term Leica devotees are increasingly tempted to equip themselves with third party, rather than Leica, lenses. The reason? Panasonic Lumix and Sigma L-Mount lenses offer a truly compelling alternative.

Panasonic Lumix and Sigma L-Mount prime lenses

The line-up of L-Mount lenses from these two manufacturers is astonishing. Between them, they offer over thirty prime lenses, and over twenty zoom lenses. In comparison, Leica offers ten prime L-Mount primes and five zooms.

Significantly, the vast majority of the Lumix and Sigma L-Mount prime lenses offer maximum apertures of less than f/2.0, with many at f/1.8 and f/1.4. And, these are typically lighter than their Leica counterparts. Here is a summary of specifications for the popular 50mm focal length.

Lumix f/1.8 S-series

The Lumix 50mm in the table above is part of a unified offering from Panasonic. The series encompasses focal lengths of 18mm, 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm, all with a maximum aperture of f/1.8. They all use a 67mm filter and are similar in size and weight, between 300 and 350g. The Macfilos team have first-hand experience with the 50mm and 85mm lenses, which are superb.

The impressive and very useful 100mm Macro is also very similar in styling, weight and size (including the use of the 67mm filter), but is the odd one out with its maximum f2.8 aperture. Again, though, this is a sensible trade-off to keep this powerful lens down to size.

The 35mm and 50mm lenses appear closely related to their Leica Summicron SL counterparts. Some suspect the optics are identical, with the Leica versions differing only in their metal versus composite barrel. Others suggest that Leica is a little more picky in its glass selection. But what is beyond doubt is that the Leica versions are around 70g heavier (that metal body again…) and around four times as expensive. Here is a video comparison of their vital statistics.

Sigma prime lenses

The Sigma L-Mount prime lens line up is even more expansive than the Lumix series.

Sigma has three main lens lines: Art, Contemporary, and Sports. The Art series comprises their high-end lenses, whereas the Contemporary series emphasizes smallness and affordability. This is achieved at the cost of the last bit of aperture, but without compromising on image quality. Sports stands for telephoto lenses, almost all of them being zooms.

Within the Contemporary line, the I-series consists of primes with a special manufacturing quality. These lenses have all-metal barrels and lens hoods, and a manual-electronic aperture ring. The I-series is available for L-Mount and Sony E-Mount, and consists of the following lenses: 17/4, 20/2, 24/2, 24/3.5, 35/2, 45/2.8, 50/2, 65/2, and 90/2.8.

Although the focal lengths of these Sigma I-series lenses inevitably overlap with that of the Panasonic series, they also feature orthogonal options. Thus, the 17mm, 20mm, 45mm, 65mm, and 90mm lenses offer interesting and non-traditional focal lengths.

It’s also worth noting that Sigma offers L-Mount APS-C lenses: primes of 16mm, 23mm, 30mm, and 56mm, all with f/1.4 (and zooms of 10-18mm and 18-50mm, both with f/2.8). This is important for all the mourning Leica CL and TL2 users out there. And, of course, they can be used on full-frame cameras such as the Panasonic S-series and the Leica SL-series, with some restrictions in image size.

Within the Art series, there are even two f/1.2 lenses (35mm and 50mm). The Sigma 50mm f/1.2 will take you into the rarefied, shallow depth-of-field range of Leica Noctilux M-lenses. Although, in this case, via a much less expensive, autofocus lens. Here is a video review of this intriguing piece of kit.

One significant difference between Sigma lenses and their Leica/Lumix siblings is the presence of an aperture ring on most of the lenses. Both Leica and Lumix have “gone soft”, whereas Sigma remains traditional with more physical controls. For some photographers, however, the physical aperture ring is indispensable.

Lumix and Sigma L-Mount prime lenses — which are better?

The problem with having choices is that you have to choose. Imagine you are in the market for an ultra-wide L-Mount prime lens for those architectural shots. Should you pick the Lumix 18mm or the Sigma 17mm option? In this very entertaining video from Josh Cameron, one of our favourite L-Mount YouTubers, he digs in to a comparison of several Lumix and Sigma lenses.

Josh likes the small size, clickable aperture ring, and metal barrel of the Sigma lenses. But, he also likes the colour rendering, rapid autofocusing, and lighter weight of the Lumix lenses. For video shooting, he strongly favours the Lumix lens for its almost complete absence of focus breathing.

So, when forced to make a choice, I suspect he would select the Lumix 18mm f/1.8 (£719 | $763 | 305g) over the Sigma 17mm f/4.0 (£499| $599 | 225g).

Lumix and Sigma L-Mount prime lenses: you can’t go wrong

Even though there are slight differences in size, weight, and cost, both Lumix and Sigma L-Mount prime lenses offer excellent performance at a reasonable cost. It is difficult to imagine that between them, apart from specific telephoto options, there is a commonly used focal length that is not available.

Based upon experience within the Macfilos team, we can thoroughly recommend the Lumix f/1.8 S-series lenses. They represent a superb way of cost-effectively building up a prime lens collection for your Leica SL-series camera, or your Lumix S-series camera.

However, we have also used the Sigma I-Series primes, most extensively the 35/2. Jörg-Peter uses it regularly on his L-Mount cameras and is more than happy with size, weight, image quality and the exceptional build. He has also used the 45/2.8 of which he says the same, but he finds it less attractive for its focal length and maximum aperture.

So, we can’t offer a final verdict on which brand is better. It seems you can’t really go wrong with either!

A future article will look in more detail at the Lumix and Sigma zoom lens line-ups.

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