Leica SL3 initial review: Digital Photography Review – digitalcameras.ie

The Leica SL3 is a 60MP DSLR-shaped mirrorless digital camera constructed round Leica’s L-mount. It brings numerous know-how from the Leica M11 fashions but additionally encompasses a radically redesigned interface.

Key specs

• 60MP BSI CMOS sensor
• 5-axis in-body picture stabilization rated at 5.0EV
• ISO 50-100,000 (base ISO 100)
• Hybrid section/contrast-detect autofocus
• Eye/face/physique and animal detection AF
• DCI 8K video in H.265, 1080p in ProRes all with no closing dates
• 5.76M dot OLED EVF with as much as 120fps refresh
• 2.33M dot tilting rear touchscreen
• 4fps 14-bit capturing with AF, 5fps in 12-bit mode, as much as 15fps, 12-bit with focus and publicity locked at first body.

The Leica SL3 is obtainable instantly at a really helpful worth of $6995. This can be a $1000 improve over the value of 2019’s SL2, although inflation means that is decrease in actual phrases.

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What’s new

The Leica SL3 is the fourth within the firm’s vary of full-frame, L-mount cameras, following 2017’s 24MP SL, the 47MP SL2 from 2019 and the video/stills hybrid SL2-S from 2020. The SL3 adopts a 60MP BSI CMOS sensor, making it each the best decision SL digital camera but and in addition the one probably to play properly with Leica’s M collection rangefinder lenses (BSI sensors are higher at receiving mild from close-mounted lenses, as their photosensitive area is nearer to the floor).

As with the M11 cameras, the SL3 can output Raws or JPEGs in your alternative of 60MP, 36MP or 18MP decision, with the choice for various resolutions for every file sort.

The out there ISO vary of the sensor stretches from 50 to 100,000, however the firm says the native acquire steps of this twin acquire sensor are ISOs 100 and 320 (200 and 640 in L-Log, 400 and 1250 in HLG).

The SL3 accepts CFexpress Sort B slot along with UHS-II SD.

The sensor has on-sensor section detection components, permitting depth-aware focusing. This combines with a topic recognition system we suspect stems from the L² know-how partnership with Panasonic. It may be set to acknowledge human our bodies, faces and eyes, and can observe and concentrate on the smallest of those that is out there. It additionally has animal detection together with birds.

The digital camera makes use of the identical “Maestro IV” processors as Leica’s Q3 mannequin, with an 8Gb buffer that is double the dimensions of that within the SL2. Regardless of this processing energy and buffer the SL3’s steady capturing charge could be very low by trendy requirements, hitting simply 4 frames per second if you need autofocus and the sensor’s full 14-bit readout, this elevated to 5fps in the event you drop to 12-bit mode after which trebles in the event you do not want focus or publicity updates between photographs. That is particularly odd given the digital camera has sufficient grunt to ship 8K video.

8K video

The SL3’s features a full-sized HDMI port, in addition to headphone and mic sockets

The SL3 can seize 8K video (in 1.89:1 or 16:9 side ratios) at as much as 30p in 10-bit. This makes use of the H.265 codec and might file 4:2:0 to the CFexpress slot till you run out of card area or battery. It’ll additionally output 4K in 10-bit 4:2:2 over the HDMI socket in the event you shoot Log or HLG, or are recording to a card on the similar time. HDMI output is 8-bit 4:2:0 UHD 8K in the event you’re not in one in every of these modes and never recording to a card.

The 4K (UHD or DCI) is taken from the 8K seize when capturing at as much as 30p. It seems to line-skip to ship as much as 4K/60p from the identical area of the sensor.

The digital camera presents 5 preset slots in which you’ll outline decision, body charge, codec, compression, with the selection of gamma encoding, Log or HLG seize. This allows you to leap between pre-defined modes, quite than risking altering one setting and forgetting to alter one other (or forgetting to alter a contingent setting again, if you revert to your principal capturing mode).

The SL3 additionally has the flexibility to sync timecode over a flash sync socket on the facet of the viewfinder hump.

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Physique and controls

The third command dial on the correct of this picture units the SL3 aside from its predecessors

The physique of the SL3 seems to be loads just like the earlier SL fashions however is recognizably just a little smaller. And, whereas the general look is according to prior fashions, there are extra adjustments, the nearer you take a look at the digital camera.

The largest change is the addition of a 3rd command dial to the left of the digital camera’s viewfinder. This enables default habits that places the important thing publicity controls, shutter pace and aperture, on the principle two command dials and ISO on the brand new left-hand dial, giving instant entry to all the elemental photographic settings.

The opposite actually apparent alteration is that the array of three buttons (Play, Fn, Menu) have been shifted throughout to the right-hand facet of the rear display screen, so {that a} tilting display screen design may be carried out with out battle between the display screen and the buttons.

The on-off change on the left of the digital camera has been changed by a button that you just maintain all the way down to wake the digital camera. That is surrounded by an LED indicator that glows inexperienced when the digital camera is charging, pulses white when the digital camera is in sleep mode and is continually illuminated white when the digital camera is awake.

Regardless of the articulated display screen, the SL3 continues to supply the IP54 water and mud safety ranking as its predecessor.

It has a 5.76M dot (1600 x 1200 pixel) viewfinder with 0.76x magnification that may run at as much as 120fps and a 2.33M dot (1080 x 720 pixel) rear display screen that tilts up or down.

Interface

The place the SL3 stands out is in its person interface (UI). Leica has been engaged on variations of a touch-led interface all the best way again to its first L-mount digital camera, the Leica T (lengthy sufficient that the mount was nonetheless referred to as the T-mount at that time). The SL3’s UI is not fairly as radical as its APS-C forebear nevertheless it nonetheless feels fairly progressive in contrast with most cameras.

The first technique of interacting with the digital camera is thru the three command dials, as you would possibly count on. Their capabilities may be reconfigured for every of the digital camera’s publicity modes however with the selection of a second configuration in the event you’re utilizing tailored M lenses (ie: in the event you’re utilizing a lens with an aperture ring, you might select to not assign a dial to aperture worth).

The majority of the digital camera’s different settings are adjusted by its touch-operated settings menu, with a comparatively shallow menu system sitting behind this. Holding your finger on one of many onscreen buttons allows you to customise its perform (the publicity and ISO settings cannot be repurposed).

Swipe left and the photograph settings give approach to the video settings and yellow highlighting (reflecting the colour scheme of the space scales on Leica’s Cine lenses).

The settings panel reveals both the stills settings or, in the event you swipe a finger throughout the display screen, the video settings. The settings display screen and menus have pink indicators if you’re in stills mode and yellow to indicate video mode.

The digital camera’s dwell view shows may also be custom-made, with a alternative of which settings seem onscreen, and whether or not the display screen is re-arranged for portrait orientation. As much as six banks of presets that embrace button and display screen customization may be named, saved and exported, with the intention to shortly set the digital camera up in your most popular approach of working.

The menu consists of contact toggles, which means you do not want a separate display screen for binary decisions. On this display screen you’ll be able to restrict which choices can be found if you customise the motion of the Fn button, to make operation quicker.

The menus themselves embrace good touches comparable to toggle switches for on/off settings, in order that you do not want to enter a deeper degree of the menus simply to modify settings on and off. You may also slim down the record of which settings can be found to be assigned to buttons, to make choice faster.

On high of this, the digital camera allows you to outline as much as 4 presets of seize assistants (grids, ranges, spotlight warnings, and many others). The digital camera will use whichever of those presets you final used and can retain separate settings for seize and playback.

Battery

The SL3 makes use of a brand new, larger energy BP-SCL6 battery which now presents 15.8Wh capability (up from 14.4). The digital camera continues to be appropriate with the older BP-SCL4 batteries however some video capabilities are solely out there with the newer model. The digital camera is rated at a quite low determine of 320 photographs per cost per the CIPA normal. However Leica says that it’ll ship 1350 photographs per cost if the digital camera auto energy off perform is used each 50 photographs, quite than the usual’s 10, giving an perception into why the CIPA normal tends to considerably underestimate most individuals’s real-world utilization

A DC-powered dummy battery is obtainable, permitting the digital camera to be powered utilizing USB-C for prolonged intervals and with out tying up the digital camera’s USB-C socket.

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Preliminary impressions

By Richard Butler

The Leica SL3 is an attention-grabbing digital camera, bringing the sensor and lots of the developments of the latest M11 fashions to the L-mount for the primary time. The physique is appreciably smaller with out sacrificing any of the solidity or consistency of look from the present cameras.

Regardless of taking extra from Leica’s know-how tie-up with Panasonic, the SL3 is not merely a rebadged DC-S5 II. The three-dial structure makes it distinct each from the Panasonic and the present SL fashions, and this felt informative, as I used to be utilizing the digital camera.

It is that target the basics, and the back-to-basics rethink that led to it, that leaps out in regards to the SL3. The remainder of its specs aren’t notably totally different to most of its friends, however the best way it is operated is.

The SL3’s interface shall be unfamiliar to nearly everybody at first, in that it would not notably resemble the habits of most cameras we have encountered. However that is maybe a very good time to remind ourselves that, whereas the phrase is commonly used, nearly no side of digital camera operation is actually “intuitive”. You do not know find out how to use a special model’s cameras as a result of it is innately apparent, you accomplish that as a result of it behaves like one thing you’ve got discovered. And our first impressions are that the SL3’s interface, whereas unfamiliar, is easy, sensibly organized and must be fast to be taught.

Leica says it redesigned each one of many digital camera’s icons, and even went as far as to undertake a brand new typeface for its menus, however these are merely the outward signifiers of a reasonably ‘floor, up’ strategy to rethinking how a digital camera ought to work.

We suspect we’ll discover just a few quirks and oddities, as we get to make use of it day-in, day-out, however in a panorama of cameras that may typically feel and appear interchangeable, with solely lens decisions to tell apart between them, it is attention-grabbing to come across a digital camera that tries to do one thing totally different. And, in line with its maker’s fame, the SL3 appears to be trying to find a approach to make a digital camera that is centered on pictures’s fundamentals.

That stated, it is laborious to not discover that the SL3 prices round 80% greater than Sony’s wonderful a7R V which additionally encompasses a 60MP, twin conversion acquire BSI CMOS sensor. And that is a major premium to should pay for an progressive interface. So the knowledge of selecting the SL3 could come all the way down to your perception within the high quality of Leica’s lenses, which means the choice basically does come again to lens alternative.

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