Leica M10 vs SL

[Godfrey]

Yes, I already have the frankenfinder and its fine but obviously adds a lot of bulk to the camera and only helps with framing and I still have to focus through the body.

I'm waiting on the EVF to arrive - that should solve both.

With the SL it's all moot because the viewfinder shows me precisely what the exposure will record, but when using the SWC or M with ultra-wide lenses, I simply have to learn how to pre-visualize the field of view. The SWC dedicated finder only shows me about 80% of the lens FoV; the full M viewfinder on the M-D nets about a 28mm FoV and a 16mm lens is vastly more than that.

When you have what the lens sees deeply ingrained into your mind and gut, you can dispense with a viewfinder entirely except for keeping parallels parallel. This is why when I go on an ultrawide kick, I almost never bring any other lens along.

G

(Of course, with the SWC, if I want precision framing I go with the ground glass back. That generates a different kind of photography ... much slower paced... which in itself is occasionally a nice change.)

 

[GrahamWelland]

It's a terrible camera. Don't buy one.
(Excuse the crappy hotel room light & white balance)

 

[Robert Campbell]

Um, uh ... Well ...
I've been wearing glasses since I was in fourth grade. Transitioning to progressives became essential about a dozen years ago, when I realized I could no longer see well enough close up to read. I've never seen the 28mm frame lines in an M finder without moving my head around, and many SLRs had too little eye relief for me to ever see their whole frame at a glance...

G

I have a pair of Varifocals. While they are clever, I found that the 'sweet spot' for each distance was very small, and I had to move my head around a lot to get sharp vision. I couldn't easily read anything wider than a newspaper column. The distortion at the edges annoyed me.

So, I now have tri-focals. Don't look so elegant, but easier to use, particularly reading; I do have a separate pair of reading glasses.

If I use an M or the SL, I generally push the glasses up onto my forehead. (I have supplementary diopter lenses for the M.) Crude, but it works for me.

Without moving my head around, I've never been able to see all four framelines for 28mm. (I've not tried an M10.)