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Leave Leica SL for D850

Earlstone

Member
Has anyone here dropped their Leica SL for the D850? I'm growing tired of a lack of prime lenses and after trying out the D850 with the 105 1.4 I was smitten. With these newer E lenses is the gap between Leica glass and Nikon narrowed?
Thanks
 

docmoore

Subscriber and Workshop Member
I do not have a Leica SL ... but have used most of the M and S series cameras ... have a Q and will not part with it.

You are unhappy with the lack of native primes ... in spite of the fact that all the R and M primes work well on the SL.

The M 50's ... 2.0 1.4 1.0 0.95 are stellar on the camera. The M 75's 2.4 2.0 1.4 render wonderfully on the camera. The M 90's 2.8 2.0 work well.

Shoot a 105 1.4 at wide open on the 850 and you may find little in focus if you nail focus.

Honestly the QC of Nikon lenses is spotty at best ... not so with Leica M and R lenses.

Want gorgeous rendering ... buy the S 100 and an adapter. On the SL it will smoke the 105.

And the new 75 Summicron for the SL is reported to be wonderful.

You will gain complexity ... more pixels ... potential for misaligned sensor ... and the potential for much more pictures poorly focused unless you play with live view on the LCD.

I imagine that you will love the camera and lens for a number of months and then if you look at your work may wonder if the change afforded you a better vision output or experience.

Should you wish to improve your captures you may want to consider one of the small MF cameras.

Bob
 
In my case it is the other way round ... I will buy a Leica SL this or next month.

I had the D810 and have considered the D850, but the new model does not solve my main problem with the D810: focusing manual lenses through the viewfinder.

With the SL I can use and focus efficiently Zeiss Otus and Milvus lenses, as well as all Leica lenses ever made. Sure, would be nice if the Leica SL had 36 MP or even 46 MP, but resolution really is not all ....
 
I think you'll find that Nikkor lenses are every bit as good as lenses that end in "lux". If Nikon sold them for 5k each and kept repeating "luxury" in their marketing maybe people would have Leica like reverence for them. Luxury marketing requires that something is too expensive for most people and inconvenient in some way that certain people find charming. Nikon lenses just work.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
I'm not the guy to ask since I abandoned MF a few years ago after the D800E came out -- no it wasn't as good as my MF DB in overall detail or color fidelity, but it was damn close and frankly, good enough for me. And clients didn't notice any difference. And it was a heck of a lot easier to use and carry. Add in lens range, and costs for lenses and a spare body or three, and the decision was easy for me. All of that said, there is a look to Leica glass, and IMHO the S is no exception and still carries it. The big "however-but" elephant in the room is a lot of the latest Nikon nano G glass has a great look, as do many of the faster legacy lenses, and they are relative bargains.
 

PeterA

Well-known member
Has anyone here dropped their Leica SL for the D850? I'm growing tired of a lack of prime lenses and after trying out the D850 with the 105 1.4 I was smitten. With these newer E lenses is the gap between Leica glass and Nikon narrowed?
Thanks
Nikon makes a range of very good lenses - if you can get a 'good copy' - Zeiss makes a range of even better lenses for Nikon mount - problem is they are all manual focus and here is the rub (as alluded to by a few posters above) it is very difficult to 'nail focus' especially wide open even if all the internal bits of the Nikon camera are aligned properly - see volumes of discussion re quality control regarding 800 series and even current 850...hence the autofocus issues many report....all due to the very very tight alignment tolerances required for 35+megapixel resolution....

Frankly I love Nikon cameras but I have moved on from traditional mirror boxes to EVF focusing - because I can focus with confidence.

I am glad I kept my M lenses especially the Noctilux because on the Leica SL I can actually nail focus 90% of the time shooting wide open which is what all my lux lenses were designed for - much better than any prone to fall out of alignment rangefinder..and much better than any Nikon ever made in that regard.

My camera kit now includes only EVF focusing bodies (or cameras which allow for an accessory finder ( ala M240) so Leica M/Leica SL and Hasselblad XID for the megapixels.

IF achieving accurate manual focus easily with the best glass you can buy is an important element in your consideration - the SL is a no brainer but as an SL owner you should already know that...

I would buy an 850 IF I could have access to an EVF finder - sadly it isn't an option and I have to wait for teh next iteration of an SL which I am sure will provide the megapixels I require for certain types of shooting and as far as resolution goes the SL glass is already made for it.
 

ptomsu

Workshop Member
I actually had expected that Nikon would make the D850 with some integrated EVF (aka Hybrid VF). Unfortunately that did not happen, either because they cannot do it technology wise or they do not want to do now as they want people to wait for their mirrorless FX camera that should be out in 2018. And then one can only hope that this camera will have enough MP for high resolution needs.

Meanwhile the SL is still a very good solution for appropriate manual focusing of different high end glass, but the AF system and also the MP count is not up to what is possible today. I do hope that Leica replaces the current SL soon with a high res version with highly improved AF system (PDAF on sensor) and maybe even a backlight sensor. Once that happens I might be intrigued to move to an all over Leica SL system with SL glass and adapting my many wonderful M lenses as well.

I do hope that will happen sooner than later :D
 

PeterA

Well-known member
I actually had expected that Nikon would make the D850 with some integrated EVF (aka Hybrid VF). Unfortunately that did not happen, either because they cannot do it technology wise or they do not want to do now as they want people to wait for their mirrorless FX camera that should be out in 2018. And then one can only hope that this camera will have enough MP for high resolution needs.

Meanwhile the SL is still a very good solution for appropriate manual focusing of different high end glass, but the AF system and also the MP count is not up to what is possible today. I do hope that Leica replaces the current SL soon with a high res version with highly improved AF system (PDAF on sensor) and maybe even a backlight sensor. Once that happens I might be intrigued to move to an all over Leica SL system with SL glass and adapting my many wonderful M lenses as well.

I do hope that will happen sooner than later :D
Sorry to disagree - the autofocus on my SL with 24-90 and 90-280 lenses is nothing short of outstanding.
 

ptomsu

Workshop Member
Sorry to disagree - the autofocus on my SL with 24-90 and 90-280 lenses is nothing short of outstanding.
Sorry to disagree as well - there are only CDAF points and this is a clear disadvantage to PDAF implementations. The Sony A7RII offers 499 PDAF points and the A9 even 693. Anything I did not see?
 
Sorry to disagree - the autofocus on my SL with 24-90 and 90-280 lenses is nothing short of outstanding.
That's nice but it's also far short of even the previous generation Nikon AF capability. Also Nikon manages to make zooms that aren't variable aperture which is nice.
 

Earlstone

Member
Exactly. Also, the new E lenses seem to be of higher quality. The speed differences between the two is fairly large. Does anyone have both that can compare?
 

bab

Active member
Depends on what you shoot and for who or what both tools are capable, your the only one who can determine that.
 

ptomsu

Workshop Member
After thinking about all of this for some time my conclusion would be to keep the SL and forget the Nikon!
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
I know what I'd do because I've done it: I bought the D750 a month before the SL was announced. I liked it, thought it was great. Then the SL arrived... and I never again picked up the D750. Sold it last year.

Nikon makes some lovely lenses, like the Nikkor 105/2.5 AI-S. But I like the rendering of the Summicron-R 90/2 much more. If I want to use prime lenses on the SL, I use Leica R primes: they work very very well.

Unless you must have autofocus, there's very little reason to go through the expense of changing systems. And you might find yourself regretting it when the SL primes do appear on the market.

G
 

bernardl

Active member
The 105mm f1.4 is totally outanding. I sold my Otus 85mm f1.4 in its favour because I prefer the look of the Nikon that is also very very close technically (not quite as good but very close).

The D810 had issues focusing it accurately, but the D5 and D850 don't.

Cheers,
Bernard
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
I will come back to this thread with some more thoughts. At some point, MP count becomes nearly irrelevant. If for you that point happens to be 24MP or less, then I believe the SL is a great option. For me, 24 is good enough for most things, but getting over 30MP adds a smoothness that isn't present at 24 in *my* humble opinion.

No doubt Nikon will be releasing a FF mirrorless option that fully integrates with its own glass, and when that happens, I will own one.

The SL is pricey for sure, but if you own a lot of nice M or R glass, or just want their unique (and generally awesome) look, and enjoy mirrorless, I think the SL makes a lot of sense.

Last thing is specific to me, and that's the ability to fully utilize CaptureOne to process the raws.
 

GrahamWelland

Subscriber & Workshop Member
Last thing is specific to me, and that's the ability to fully utilize CaptureOne to process the raws.
Looking on the bright side, Leica support has been expanded in C1 Pro 10 and the SL (and M10/Monochrom) is supported. :thumbup:
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Way cool Graham, I was not aware and good to know -- and awesome for those that own them!
 

Earlstone

Member
FYI still haven’t decided. Mainly because the D850 is still hard to come by. I had a chance to hold one while in Shanghai and was very impressed. I think overall it’s just a different beast than the SL. The mirrorless experience has its pros and I think in a couple of years the SL will be a more robust system, but for a work horse camera with a ton of great glass it’s hard to overlook the Nikon.

One thing that struck me while in that same Shanghai camera mall was the endless sea of used and long forgotten Nikon/canon gear. It was sad 😂
 

Jan Brittenson

Senior Subscriber Member
Mirrorless is - and I think will be for a long time - like fusion power generation, always just around the corner! In reality it's intractable to feed video at high enough resolution to not look pixellated, at high enough sample rate to not look stuttery, at short enough latency to offer real-time viewing and response, without looking noisy or artifacted in low light - that I just don't see it happening anytime soon. Once those things happen they immediately distract in that they grab attention from the subject and the mental image - or vision if you prefer - of what we want for an end result.

The other source of distractions is the bad habit of overlaying the image with information (I find it's almost impossible to completely ignore for composition, leading to poorly balanced images) - but at least this is only a "software not by photographers for photographers" problem, not a fundamental physical obstacle.
 
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