Okay, so couple of points to note here: 1. Yes, the L-mount has “also ran” status behind the bigger manufacturers, but that is when looking at the entire base of users. We are talking about an anamorphic lens here, and when seen against the entire base of lenses, that is a very niche area. Panasonic is unique among the mirrorless camera base for the extreme amount of support it gives to anamorphic lenses. It offers a very wide variety of anamorphic squeeze factors, which, coupled with open gate, make it the most anamorphic-friendly cameras out there. Coupled with that is its anamorphic mode for its best-of-class stabilization, which is pretty unique too. There are even some shooters (present company included) who have switched over to Panasonic due to the large amount of anamorphic they shoot. So in other words, in the world of anamorphics, Panasonic cameras have a disproportionately large market share, and Panasonic shooters have all the right to ask about L-mount support for this lens. 2. The picture is unfortunately complicated by the fact that Sirui is not a part of the L-mount alliance, so legally speaking they can’t just make an autofocus L-mount lens (manual is fine). Whether the alliance (read: Leica) is as litigious as Canon remains to be seen. Right now I think everybody is waiting to see what happens to Meike, who brought out the first unauthorised L-mount lenses this year. Blazar has, after an avalanche of queries, said it will bring out an L-mount version of the Apex next year. Not holding my breath, though. And Sirui is clearly playing it safe for now.

Whether Panasonic has the most versatile hybrid cameras or not is debatable.

Anyway, the crux of the matter is, that Panasonic is relegated to “also ran” status far behind Canon, Sony, Nikon and Fujifilm. In a market more or less stagnating, if worse is not to come.

Why should “third party” lens manufacturers waste time and money on supporting the “automation protocol” of cameras for lenses, that hardly will sell in numbers, that will pay for the efforts?

Regards