A lot to Leica? Hands-on with the Leica SL (Typ 601)

Yes.. but people use it to differentiate the class of being rich middle and poor.

10 times the money is OK. You only live once, so go get that new Corvette roadster for fun and save the van for driving back and forth to work. Not every ones idea of a waste of money is the same. Live a little.

Yes, how much money someone gives away for what s/he likes is a very private decision; no comment, no critics necessary!
Absolutely separated from that is the perspective of usability and price equivalence, specialisation and universal use, performance and technical (objective) quality.
Getting information about cameras before I buy one I make a catalogue of needs and wants. My result was never a Leica, independent from price. With all other brands I found information: better picture quality, autofocus quality, higher ISO quality, better EVF, better monitors, higher series rates, (better) image stabilisation, better grip and ergonomics, much better focussing support,..., weather sealing, ... is there something else, surely, but not necessary to know.
Many of these advantages together in one product you may find in most competing cameras, except: Leica.
Any argument for Leica? Yes: you may feel good, you may like to make a show off with, waring an ornamental in your sight, ...

a piece of jewlry; yes, that is up to you, your presentation of taste.

Why always the stupid car analogies?

I think you are undermining what others have to offer. Unmatched is an exaggeration.

Fanboyism is common among Leica users. This response is just another proof. I use Leicas to this day but I will not do a disservice to others by making such absurd claims.

And you're saying that these things make this camera worth twice the price? I think not.

You know what the D810 has over this Camera? Better video, higher resolution stills, better dynamic range etc. Not to mention, it's also weather sealed, and has a wide, excellent collection of lenses. I know you'll argue that Leica sprinkles it's magic dust over their lenses and those lenses are inherently better than lenses from the competition but, as many posters on this page have already told you, that's utter nonsense. There's nothing instrinsically better about Leica lenses in comparison to Zeiss, Nikon or Canon.

The A7RII "isn't as good with M lenses?" That nonsense, and even if it was true, what does it matter? You're talking about spending 11,000 as opposed to 5,000-6,000. I know Leica users have to perform Olympic level mental gymnastics to justify the price of those cameras, but good lord. This is absurd.

In addition, your argument of "those don't shoot 4K" The Leica's 1080p doesn't even compare. If we're talking about video, the Sony A7SII is FAR superior to the Leica SL. In camera IS, exponentially better low light capablitiy, along with better log files, and higher bit rate files. The A7RII is BETTER than the Leica SL at high ISOs. EVF? Sure, if an somewhat better EVF, is worth a bigger, heavier, more expensive, less capable camera then I guess the Leica is for you. For the rest of the photographic community? Probably not.

The D810 is an excellent camera, the Leica SL is also weather sealed. You'll have to use Zeiss lenses to come close to the better Leica M lenses for optical quality on the D810.

It's real easy to see the effect of using optically better lenses than those from Canikon; Leica and Zeiss make some of theses lenses.

The fact remains that the A7RII is not particularly good with M lenses, especially wide ones. You can check.

You can decide if the SL is worth your money, but no it's not cheap.

The A7RII is an excellent camera, though people report overheating when shooting 4K. Its EVF isn't up that on the Leica, and the Leica has a quieter shutter and is a tiny bit better at higher ISOs.

You need to remove your Sony goggles. And you can celebrate the fact that Sony has some excellent SonyZeiss lenses for the A7 bodies, and has finally allowed some of the A7 bodies to shoot non-lossy raws. Those A7s aint weather sealed though.

So yep, the D810 with manual Zeiss lenses is your pick.

Your link is very poor as an argument - your Leica blinkers made you miss the part that I actually saw the camera up close and the Canon bodies in the store... (not to mention that SL's sensor is half the resolution of the 5DSR).

wrong again.

... howaboutnottroll ?

SonyAR:

Some how I'm guessing you've not tried the SL.

I have, and yes with wide M lenses.

Geodesiq:

You've used it?

Works quite nicely with M lenses, unlike the A7RII.

It has a much quieter shutter than the A7RII.

Weather sealing is important to some. That Sony doesn't really have it.

How about taking a day off as a troll, Mr Navajo- insulter?

@HowaboutRAW A7r II has a silent shutter mode :)
Seriously, this thing is a tank.
For that size and weight, I'll pick the D810 any day.

I'll wager it bands like every Leica ever made (and I owned M and MM), including the Q.

Nice, but too big for me.
Steve Huff loves it and Ming Thein doesn't.
Believe who you trust most...

Yourself :)

EvilT:

And silent shutter adds electronic noise. This is a well known drawback to so called "silent shutters", when the shutter is a "focal plane" shutter. (And those so quick to point out "silent shutter" mode give away their ignorance.)

Film Leicas don't band.

The hundreds of raws I shot with the SL, have perhaps two examples of banding and only at really high ISOs.

I've handled the SL, more than once, with a variety of lenses. So I don't need to ask Steve of Ming for approval of my thinking about this camera.

@HowaboutRAW

The silent shutter loses some DR and can be an issue under electrical lights, but it is still so much better than not having it.
I owned an A7 II and it was the worst street camera ever.
The shutter sounded like a pneumatic tool going off :(
It's good to be able to make the trade off and turn it off or on as required.

M = M 240.
Film Leilas don't band? Really?
The M and the Q most definitely band, pretty noticeably...

I too have handled the SL and it is just too much for too little for me. If they'd made an interchangeable lens Q, then they would have nailed it IMHO.
I own a D810 and fast big zooms already.
The SL brings nothing to that game for me.
For this I'll buy Nikon or Canon every time...

BTW, I thoroughly tested my M 240 + 90 APO against my D750 + 85 1.8G before I sold all my Leica's.
The only advantage the Leica has is size and with the SL, it sadly doesn't even have that.

Your money - your choice.

@HowaboutRAW The Summicron 90 APO is one of THE best Leica lenses, along with the 50 APO and the 21 SEM, all of which I owned + 35 Lux FLE, 50 Lux ASPH etc.
I've owned and shot with most of them...

@HowaboutRAW
You're pretty far from an expert either :)

LOL

No, the "Texas Leica" is the GW670 or GW690 Fuji rangefinder cameras that used 120 or 220 film. These had spectacularly good lenses. They are available at reasonable price for folks who want to try real photography (manual focus, hand-help light meter, etc).

Thats because they are not stupid enough to make a FF mirroless when they have excellent, well established systems already. Honestly if Canon & Nikon want to put an evf in there DSLR's, beleive me they would & have the advantage of a hybrid. There isn't a serious market in mirroless for them to consider it at the moment.

DJF77:

How would a hybrid DSLR-Mirroless system work?

I can think of a way, but if the tech exists, it's still in a university lab somewhere, and 10 years away from broad availability.

Not so much in 2015, but Nikon and Canon are going to start to lose sales of lower end DSLRs, especially the APSC sensored ones, now that EVFs have so vastly improved over the last 2 years.

No SLRs are not going to go away, but they are going to become less and less a part of prosumer camera sales.

It's not a SLR !

METRO:

It's not a Panasonic, it could have some Panasonic tech in it.

The 5DS and D810 are both excellent cameras, you'll need Zeiss lenses if you want to compete with Leica lenses. Those are DSLRs, this Leica isn't. Neither shoots 4K video if that's important to you.

At slower shutter speeds, the Canon 5DS has shutter shock issues--that's below say 1/100 of a second.

It's written "Made in Germany" below (Last picture #8) :) Maybe the battery comes from china ?

Leica = Panasonic

Hi HowaboutRAW.
I don't know, but I think M lens set lock at smallest f22 fixed depend on what lens. Body control AF itself by software. So M able to operate both AF and Manual.
Leica "Angel" can do anything if Leica want to research on it because proud its named of Germany. The SL I wait for a while and let see how Leica expert photographers used it in the field and given comments. I may ask my members and friends whose used Leica around the world should buy SL to make a novice amateur photographer team "SL and M". This is my photo club: www.icsphoto.us

Is there a way to assure Leica lenses are that great, and greater than the best Canon, Nikon, Sony, Zeisse, Sigma lenses today ?
I mean a real testing of these lenses with a mark that you can compare to the marks from other lenses.

I don't know why DXOmark doesn't rate Leica lenses... but Leica cameras they rate don't do very well...

excuse me, HowaboutRAW, but are you a Leica vendor ?

wath do you mean with " ..try them and see." ? i have'nt $ 4.000 to test extensively a lens... are you kidding ??
in this forum i would like hear new ideas, technical opinions and not ad... thanks

I feel like HowaboutRAW is either a massive fanboy are some sort of PR shill for Leica. One of the two.

DPR just posted M lens samples--real world.

mgblack74:

Generally those rebadged Sonys are marked up by a much greater percentage. Say $1500 turns into an $7000 "Hasselblad".

And this Leica isn't a rebadge of anything. So in fact no mark up at all.

No, , with a $400 adapter, the body will work well with M lenses, I confirmed this. So no, you're not forced to buy a kit. Later it will take as yet un-released adapters for the R and S AF lenses.

There aren't better options that take native Leica lenses for the price.

I'm struggling with the value of this. And for anyone that knows me knows I can justify the price on most things. But, not with this. Yes, I undetstand it's not for me then. I just don't understand the work-man-like specs with a boutique price. It's like getting a Ferrari to haul a trailer of soil. Sure it's powerful enough but the price doesn't justify the need or ability. One can get a Sony a7rII, adapter, and Zeiss Otus lens for the price of this body alone. A D810 is even less than a a7rII.

It's an ordinary camera by modern standards and seeing that it's not the first w 24mp or first with a mirrorless design, the price seems to reflect only that it's a Leica. What does it do better than PenCaNikony? FPS? Resolution? Sesnsor size? ISO? Size? Access camera settings quickly? 4K (or even 2K) video? Rangefind? No to all.

There are plenty of 3rd party adapters for M lenses too. For $8000, you'd think they would throw in a $400 adaptor... as a way to entice M mount lens purchases.

Oh, you're right. Those features are worth $4000. :-|

It doesn't 'clarify my understanding' because that sentence doesn't make any sense in English.

You can aid someone's understanding or clarify chicken stock to make consommé, but you can't 'clarify someone's understanding'.

One other side effect of using the silent mode on the A7rII is that as well as increasing noise it also increases the irony and ridicule in the image, but fortunately not everyone can see this.

Why would I bother? What's it offer over the competition. Leicas are overpriced. Nicely built, that's about all they have going for them. Be smart, invest in glass. You could buy 2 pro bodies of other makes for the price of this one. You can't tell a leica image from any other camera, it's nonsense.

I hear that, yet I have yet to see it in images. Are you telling me if I showed you 100 photos shot with different brands including Leica you could tell me which were shot with Leica glass? I highly, highly doubt that.

No way on this earth can you tell a Leica lens from a good Canon Nikon or whatever and I have proved it. Granted, at very fast apertures it may be apparent but at say f4 and above I would defy anyone to tell.

Okay so I was challenged to this from a snobby academic and Leica 'expert' and he shall remain nameless for obvious reasons. I shot the same landscape scene with a Canon G9 and my Leica M8 at f8 with same focal length = 50mm. Both were printed on fine art paper at a lab in black and white and same size, which was A3.

I took them in to let him examine them and he could not tell me which camera shot which let alone what lens was used. This is a guy who has photos hung in international galleries and he made himself look silly because on another occasion he told me one of my prints had come from a film camera when in fact it had come from a Ricoh GRD.

Fact is that the photographic industry relies on myth. Love my M8 but it's just a camera.

On a sunny day and f8 a Kodak brownie will come close too but that doesn't say much about your evaluations. I don't know about you but I don't buy fast lenses to shoot at f4. Shoot with leica's fast lenses wide open and see what you get, and do the same with canon and see what crap it produces.

I have been a long time canon/nikon users. If it wasn't because of them photography still would be craft for the elite. They do have good lenses here and there, but that is more of exception than rule.

You Leica users will tell yourselves whatever you need to say in order to justify wasting money. You will NOT be able to pick out Leica shots over any other camera, nobody can. There's nothing unique about Leica images, at all, nothing. They are not sharper, they do not produce a unique look, the only thing they do is drain your wallet.

I once heard an avid Leica user completely admit that theres nothing better about the shots, that he'd just like to think so because of the money he's spent. That's no surprise.

Leica fanboys are just as predictable. Always have answers for everything and take this forum thing way too personal. Too much red Kool-aid.

HowaboutRAW, you're wrong.

Leica should stop the whole camera joke and start make lenses for other brands, that's how they could make real money in the modern camera marked, trough their name and old reputation.

Their glory days of their old analog cameras and manual lenses are long gone.

You seem to front that Leica is best in every class, concerning photography, you seem to forget that it definitely isn't, not even in the lens department.

- They are good, but when you start comparing, you'll find that there are many lens-makers making better glass.

Most modern brands have glass that is equal or superior to the various Leica glass.

You are trying to convince yourself that spending way to much doe is somehow justified by "Leica superiority", while at the same time making a fool of yourself for not recognizing that there is no such thing any more.