Sigma, who makes 3rd Party lenses for the Nikon, Canon, Sony, and Pentax (I’m sure others as well) SLR systems, also has their own digital-only SLR system. They have a few models - the SD9,10,14,and 15. The new one coming out, is the SD1. This has got me looking at camera stuff again. Their system is awesome in that they’re using the Foeveon technology, which makes a CMOS sensor (what the light hits in a digital SLR) that is similar to film, and gets Red, Green, and Blue at every location. This sounds like it should be standard, but it’s not. Regular cameras use a checkerboard-like pattern, and “guess” the missing color information.

So as a result, I’m looking up pricing on the older bodies for grins, and happen to find out information about converting the Sigma system cameras from their own Sigma mount to Canon, Nikon, or Leica R-mount. This would allow you to use lenses from any of the other systems, but losing out on some kinda-essential features. But the glass is much better then Sigma. Zeiss does not make lenses in Sigma mount, or else I wouldn’t bother looking stuff up.

But I am.

I found:
Sigma to Canon - the physical mount is different but the electronics are identical. So this sounds simple, but it’s not. :-(
Sigma to Nikon - Works, but you lose auto-aperature.
Sigma to Leica - Same as Nikon.

I also found a place that will convert Leica R-mount to Nikon, which is an interesting idea, but same thing - no auto-aperature.

So I’m comparing pricing of various lenses right now, and will update later…What I see so far, is Leica-R is expensive. As usual. Anything Leica is expensive, and it’s kinda crazy. It’s good, but not 4x pricing good…