The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

Fun with the Leica SL (digital)

D&A

Well-known member
Seems to me that this is the ultimate R series camera that Leica promised back when I was shooting their Leica Digilux cameras. I sincerely hope that those who kept their R lenses vs converting them will take advantage of the platform.

say what you will about Leica, they get there eventually but is it too late?
Very much agree although the facial tones in your avitar pic are very metalic like in nature. Hope it wasn't taken with the SL :).

Seriously though I had extensive play with the camera last week and there is a tremendous amount of things to like about the platform.

Dave (D&A)
 

Paratom

Well-known member
Hi Ashwin,
I see you also own the 24-90 now.
In your first impressions you wrote the lens size to be quite big/heavy (I share this feeling).
After having used the lens a bit now, how do you feel about it?
Have you got used to its size?
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Hi Ashwin,
I see you also own the 24-90 now.
In your first impressions you wrote the lens size to be quite big/heavy (I share this feeling).
After having used the lens a bit now, how do you feel about it?
Have you got used to its size?
Not Ashwin, but I had the 24-90 out for a bit earlier. It is still big and heavy, but once you get used to dealing with larger lenses (R system lenses tend to be heavy and some are quite large), it's not so extreme as it feels at first coming from an M or E-M1. A bit more time and the 24-90 will just feel a bit big, to me :)

G
 

aDam007

New member
So far I'm not a fan of the SL + zoom.

I'll need to use it more to determine it's worth to me. I sure wish that Leica had released the 50LuxL. It probably would have made me feel better about my purchase.

As far as IQ is concern. The S-system (006/007) still beats the pants off of anything I've used. And I'd suggest if you don't need fast AF and high ISO, to get a S-006 over a SL.
 

Paratom

Well-known member
So far I'm not a fan of the SL + zoom.

I'll need to use it more to determine it's worth to me. I sure wish that Leica had released the 50LuxL. It probably would have made me feel better about my purchase.

As far as IQ is concern. The S-system (006/007) still beats the pants off of anything I've used. And I'd suggest if you don't need fast AF and high ISO, to get a S-006 over a SL.
So you bought a SL?
Why are you not a fan?
IF I get the SL I decided to not gibe up the S-system. The SL would be for faster pace, zoom, video(evf)
My decision for the SL would be easier if the 24-90 was smaller/lighter.
I realy like the SL though from an initial inspection at the store.
 

aDam007

New member
So you bought a SL?
Why are you not a fan?
IF I get the SL I decided to not gibe up the S-system. The SL would be for faster pace, zoom, video(evf)
My decision for the SL would be easier if the 24-90 was smaller/lighter.
I realy like the SL though from an initial inspection at the store.

There really isn't anything wrong with the camera. Or the speed of the AF, or the accuracy and ability to hit focus in lower light. The problem is the lens. It really doesn't scream LEICA. I've used tons of R-zooms/primes and M/S primes and I just don't really see anything great about the zoom, at all.
If I mount my M lenses to the SL, IMHO it's better then an A7 series camera (but not for the IQ, mainly the handling benefits).
I'm going to keep the setup until I get to test the S-adapter. I feel the SL with S-adapter will be a good backup body to the S-system. And later when the 50LuxL comes out, I'll test it and see if it's what I want out of a lens. In the meantime, if I don't feel like using my M, I'll grab my SL+M-adapter and have at it.. I doubt I'll use the zoom very much. Maybe for events when I can't be bothered to shoot with primes. But at this point, I won't be selling my Nikon setup until there are a few more SL primes out in the market.

One quick thing to note.. The SF-24D works better on the SL then it does on the M/S/Q. This is good news, as it's a bitch of a flash on anything else. If it works well on the SL, chances are the SF-40 and SF-63 (which I will use with the S-system) will be leagues better :D
The SF-26 doesn't fit on the SL.. It won't go on.. I don't know why. The SF-58 I haven't even bothered with, it's to big and not worth mounting onto the SL.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
So far I'm not a fan of the SL + zoom.

I'll need to use it more to determine it's worth to me. I sure wish that Leica had released the 50LuxL. It probably would have made me feel better about my purchase.

As far as IQ is concern. The S-system (006/007) still beats the pants off of anything I've used. And I'd suggest if you don't need fast AF and high ISO, to get a S-006 over a SL.
Candor regarding initial user reactions like this is much appreciated.

Like with most new launches, I think you will come to be more of a fan as time passes. However, Leica doesn't make it easy to be an early adopter because they are so slow in rolling out the "system".

Case in point was the S system. Initially, the S2/S2P had 2 lenses readily available, the S-70 and S-180 (which today are my 2 least used S optics). One of the major defining features of the S camera is the dual shutter, but it was an agonizingly looooong wait before the CS lenses were made available (we're talking years here folks, not months).

IMO, there are two interesting aspects about the SL beyond fast AF and higher ISO capability: Both have directly to do with lenses (which to me is still the priority over camera platform).

Use of the S lenses, and whether the AF will be faster with S lenses than on the S cameras? The notion of using my S100/2 on an SL is intriguing, (it was a major downer to read that the SL wouldn't support the leaf-shutter CS function).

The other point of interest is use of R lenses, which I sadly abandoned when I sold my DMR. I simply loved the R35/1.4, R80/1.4, R100/2.8 Macro, and almost any long Leica R lens. Those who have R optics now have a great platform to use their lenses.

- Marc

BTW, I agree with you about the S(006) ...
 

fotografz

Well-known member
I wonder why Leica didn't offer the amazing R 28-90/2.8-4.5 zoom in SL mount? THAT lens did have the Leica look and was the best mid-range zoom I've used to date. The size seems perfect for this new platform. Maybe it is too expensive to manufacture these days, or people may want a fast max aperture at the long end (not really needed IMO)?

- Marc
 

ptomsu

Workshop Member
I wonder why Leica didn't offer the amazing R 28-90/2.8-4.5 zoom in SL mount? THAT lens did have the Leica look and was the best mid-range zoom I've used to date. The size seems perfect for this new platform. Maybe it is too expensive to manufacture these days, or people may want a fast max aperture at the long end (not really needed IMO)?

- Marc
The 24-90 has more WA and a bit more speed at 90, I think this is the simple reason why they tried to widen their boundaries, as they can maybe sell (market) this design better. Also you might be right that the 28-90 in the new AF design would have been too expensive to manufacture.

Anyway, when I tried the new 24-90 I found it pretty well balanced with the SL and also reasonably sharp over the complete range. So I do actually not understand most of the complaints about this lens. Sure a fast 90 or 80 prime would have been smaller, but I am almost sure these will follow over time (whatever this time means in Leica land) :cool:
 

jonoslack

Active member
"Here is what we know from various tests. The 28 elmarit ASPH shows worse corner performance on the SL than the M240. We know this from 3 sources. Jono Slack has posted images showing this on the Leica Forum."
Hmm - I thought I posted pictures comparing it with the Sony A7ii (which the SL is considerably better than) - I'm not certain I didn't post an M240 comparison (I do have one), but pretty sure.

FWIW I agree with Sean Reid about the relative performance, but in my opinion these lenses only suffer in the corners, and they're all perfectly serviceable on the SL (unless you happen to shoot landscapes set to infinity wide open - in which case the M240 doesn't do well with all of them either!).

all the best

- - - Updated - - -

L1020060.jpg
Morning Glory
SL with 24-90
 

Paratom

Well-known member
I wonder why Leica didn't offer the amazing R 28-90/2.8-4.5 zoom in SL mount? THAT lens did have the Leica look and was the best mid-range zoom I've used to date. The size seems perfect for this new platform. Maybe it is too expensive to manufacture these days, or people may want a fast max aperture at the long end (not really needed IMO)?

- Marc
I dont doubt what people post, but for some reason I am not sure that from the few images we have seen one could say that the new 24-90 would not have the "Leica look".
I guess once one brings IS, AF and weather-sealing into the 28-90 it would probably not be that much smaller than the 24-90.
And I asume Leica did want a lens starting with the same focal length like the ones from Canon/Nikon/Sony.

- - - Updated - - -

Hmm - I thought I posted pictures comparing it with the Sony A7ii (which the SL is considerably better than) - I'm not certain I didn't post an M240 comparison (I do have one), but pretty sure.

FWIW I agree with Sean Reid about the relative performance, but in my opinion these lenses only suffer in the corners, and they're all perfectly serviceable on the SL (unless you happen to shoot landscapes set to infinity wide open - in which case the M240 doesn't do well with all of them either!).

all the best

- - - Updated - - -

View attachment 114544
Morning Glory
SL with 24-90
That looks good.
Do you use more the Zoom or more the M-lenses on the SL so far?
 

jonoslack

Active member
I wonder why Leica didn't offer the amazing R 28-90/2.8-4.5 zoom in SL mount? THAT lens did have the Leica look and was the best mid-range zoom I've used to date. The size seems perfect for this new platform. Maybe it is too expensive to manufacture these days, or people may want a fast max aperture at the long end (not really needed IMO)?

- Marc
Hi Marc
I think I know why:
1. by the time you add an SL mount (and the extra distance required) then it's pretty much the same size
2. if you then add AF motors it may even be bigger
3. All the 'pro' quality lenses from Canon and Nikon now start at 24mm
4. Starting from scratch is often easier than working with something older.

. . . . . and from a personal point of view (having owned both) I'd say that the new lens is better as well. Whether it has the Leica 'look' I'm not sure.

Hi Tom - I use them about equally, but I use the 60mm macro elmarit R a lot too.

best
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Candor regarding initial user reactions like this is much appreciated.
Absolutely.

...
The other point of interest is use of R lenses, which I sadly abandoned when I sold my DMR. I simply loved the R35/1.4, R80/1.4, R100/2.8 Macro, and almost any long Leica R lens. Those who have R optics now have a great platform to use their lenses.
I bought the SL primarily for use with R lenses, which I could finally afford once people started pitching them for low prices after Leica cancelled R system development. Much as I might like an S system, it's out of my pay grade by way too much to jump onto, never mind any of its technical capabilities even. The SL is, in fact, almost exactly the camera that I have wanted since 2000, and I was 'stupid' enough to pick up all those orphaned R lenses (a lot of people told me I was crazy to spend so much money on them... they seemed a bargain to me at an average of $450 apiece, same price as a Voigtländer for a Leica quality lens).

In my week and half experimenting/learning with the SL, I've concentrated almost exclusively on using the R lenses I've got. I am delighted with what I see out of it. I have used the SL 24-90 only trivially to test and learn certain aspects of the camera that are AF/OIS centric; it will take me a while to warm up to it because a) it is pretty large and heavy for my druthers, and b) I'm not really much of a zoom user anyway. But having it out yesterday for a bit, it was not so much of a burden this time as it was the first time: I'm more used to carrying a couple of fairly heavy R lenses again. Time will tell.

My experience from testing it with my R lenses shows it to have better imaging qualities than the other cameras I've used them on (very very close in fact to how they appear on film with the R8 and Leicaflex SL) and I am very happy with the SL's control design. A couple of niggles there, but I can enjoy it just as is.

So I'm pretty good with the Leica SL ... it meets what I had in mind very closely and seems worth what I paid for it. The 24-90 lens probably is too, but it will take me a while to see that.

I'm waiting to see the dedicated R adapter SL, and hoping that they pull out their engineering mojo and make it the device that turns the SL into a full-function digital R8. It will be all right if they don't quite meet that desire because it works fine as is with the two adapter stack, but it would be nice.

G
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
I wonder why Leica didn't offer the amazing R 28-90/2.8-4.5 zoom in SL mount? ...
The 24-90 has more WA and a bit more speed at 90, I think this is the simple reason why they tried to widen their boundaries, as they can maybe sell (market) this design better. Also you might be right that the 28-90 in the new AF design would have been too expensive to manufacture. ...
Based on the info in LFI, a lot of the work going into the 24-90 and 90-280 was to make it possible for the SL to AF at speeds right up there with the best of existing PDAF systems while sticking with CDAF, which inherently has fewer potential problems (lens-body system calibration being the biggest of them). That inspired completely different optical designs to keep the focusing elements to a minimum for light weight, improving speed and precision in operation (the 24-90 focuses through moving one lens element, the 90-280 through moving two).

That implies completely different optical formula versus the R lenses and is probably the largest reason why they didn't bring forward an R lens design.

G
 

Paratom

Well-known member
Based on the info in LFI, a lot of the work going into the 24-90 and 90-280 was to make it possible for the SL to AF at speeds right up there with the best of existing PDAF systems while sticking with CDAF, which inherently has fewer potential problems (lens-body system calibration being the biggest of them). That inspired completely different optical designs to keep the focusing elements to a minimum for light weight, improving speed and precision in operation (the 24-90 focuses through moving one lens element, the 90-280 through moving two).

That implies completely different optical formula versus the R lenses and is probably the largest reason why they didn't bring forward an R lens design.

G
if 35m lenses get the size of medium format lenses (or S lenses) -and the 2490 does imo- then one big advantage of 35mm (or called ff today) is gone. I thought mirrorless and evf were a chance to reduce lens size, but Leica seems to habe a different approach. but why are T lenses smaller than comparable dx slr lenses and then the SL are biggee than comparable SLR lenses, nearly as bis as S lenses?
the size of the body is perfect for my taste
 

scott kirkpatrick

Well-known member
I've been reading all these comments, even trying to parse the manual, but I haven't held an SL yet. When I get my own copy in a little over a week, I'll do some of these experiments myself, but I have a pretty good picture already. It seems that often the SL can get a little more resolution. both center and edges, with the latest (big) lens designs, but the differences are small enough that I doubt I would really see them unless shooting from a tripod. I already know which lenses to avoid when edge-to-edge sharpness is important. So it comes down to finding which lenses I am comfortable shooting on which platform. Like Godfrey, I have some R lenses, both classic (Mandler) and super-sharp (Wetzlar) that I can't wait to try out. The latest and best wide and very wide lenses come in M mounts and I will be interested in whether full frame focusing in the SL's EVF feels better than the RF focus-recompose that I use with the M. I am sure that both can work well from 28 on down. I don't have the asph-elmarit-R 15, which still sells at over $7k on EBay and which Sean Reid found jaw-droppingly sharp and contrasty back in 2006. I was hoping to find a BlackFriday special where one of those would be discounted 50% or more, but no luck... I would have thought that is a truly unnecessary focal length, but I've been enjoying a 14mm-eff lens with my Olympus m5.2 lately, especially when focusing close, so...

And I can accept that for kids and kitties, AF is a big help.

scott
 

aDam007

New member
The 24-90 has more WA and a bit more speed at 90, I think this is the simple reason why they tried to widen their boundaries, as they can maybe sell (market) this design better. Also you might be right that the 28-90 in the new AF design would have been too expensive to manufacture.

Anyway, when I tried the new 24-90 I found it pretty well balanced with the SL and also reasonably sharp over the complete range. So I do actually not understand most of the complaints about this lens. Sure a fast 90 or 80 prime would have been smaller, but I am almost sure these will follow over time (whatever this time means in Leica land) :cool:

I have no problems with the size of the lens. I just feel if they're going to make something that isn't "special" they might as well have made it a 24-70/2.8 like everyone else.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
if 35m lenses get the size of medium format lenses (or S lenses) -and the 2490 does imo- then one big advantage of 35mm (or called ff today) is gone. I thought mirrorless and evf were a chance to reduce lens size, but Leica seems to habe a different approach.
(bolded) I can't help but believe that is a mistaken notion. Just look at the *only other* FF mirrorless system out there (the Sony A7 series) and its lenses. There are only a couple of those lenses that are "small", and they're relatively slow and modest focal lengths. The fact is that fast lenses which cover a 35mm FF format properly tend to be a bit larger than small, and the optical designs to optimize them for digital sensors generally put them into the same size class as top quality lenses designed for SLRs and FF digital sensors.

Look at the Fuji X system lenses, too. They're designed for an APS-C sensor, yet they're not particularly small. Micro-FourThirds system lenses can be quite small, on a quarter size sensor format, but the fast, pro-quality lenses even there tend to grow in size quite a bit.

The major advantages of 'mirrorless' and EVF are really a short mount register, making room for better optimized lens designs for a digital capture sensor (regardless of size), the removal of the mechanical reflex mirror mechanism for lower vibration and again more lens design versatility, and the promise of a suitably high resolution, high performance EVF to out-perform an optical reflex viewfinder in terms of features and tools. I think with the latest generation of EVFs (Olympus OM-D series, Fuji X-T1, Sony Alpha, and now Leica SL) that promise is being fulfilled and the other advantages have been there from the first 'mirrorless' introduced, the Panasonic G1.

.. but why are T lenses smaller than comparable dx slr lenses and then the SL are biggee than comparable SLR lenses, nearly as bis as S lenses?
the size of the body is perfect for my taste
Most DX SLR lenses are derivative of 35mm FF designs and don't benefit much from the smaller sensor in overall size. The T lenses are being designed from scratch specifically for a compact camera system and are showing some size benefits from that ... but also notice that they are not*all ultra-fast and the focal length range is relatively limited as yet:

APO Macro-Emarit-TL 60mm f2.8 ASPH
Summilux-TL 35mm f1.4 ASPH
APO Vario-Elmar-T 55–135mm f3.5–4.5 ASPH
Super-Vario-Elmar-T 11–23mm f3.5–4.5 ASPH
Summicron-T 23mm f2 ASPH
Vario-Elmar-T 18–56mm f3.5–5.6 ASPH



Only the 23mm is truly small in that set, the others are middling sized (for scale, remember that the flange diameter they mount on is 50mm diameter). When a 18-56/2.8-4 appears, if it ever does, the equivalent of the SL's 24-90 for DX format, I would not be surprised to see that it was quite large.

G
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Out scouting an area for some long lens work when the sun plopped under the horizon. But I made a few exposures anyway. Quite liked this one:


Leica SL + Telyt-R 250mm f/4 v1
ISO 3200 @ f/8 @ 1/60 second

enjoy!

G
 

uhoh7

New member
I have no problems with the size of the lens. I just feel if they're going to make something that isn't "special" they might as well have made it a 24-70/2.8 like everyone else.
Fair point. The Canon vII is constant aperture and weighs 800ish gram

The Leica slows as you zoom and weighs 1140 gram

Is the Leica alot better across the frame?
 
Top