The Leica SL2 camera out in late 2019 at a price of around $5600 and I bought one early one. Late last year (2024) I bought a second one. Why? Well, I can blame the second purchase on my previous experiences with my first SL2 and mostly a drop in price on that camera to about $2200-2400 in the used markets. And those prices were for pristine, barely used specimens. The perfect back up camera to the first. But why did I buy the first one? And why do I still keep it today?
The first adventure was a follow on from my purchase of an original model (digital) SL. I found that camera to be really fun to shoot and more or less indestructible. Sure, it ate batteries like Homer Simpson at an all you can eat restaurant but the handling was fun, the viewfinder was state of the art and the overall design was gorgeous. So when the SL2 came out with about twice the resolution, some design changes that made the body even more gorgeous, and a simplification and more elegant design of the user interface, I thought they presented me with a compelling camera lust equation.
From my perspective and my use cases the camera market overall hasn't introduced anything that's appreciably better, image quality-wise since 2019. The different in resolution between 47 megapixels and 60 megapixels is really marginal and there's no savings when it comes to noise reduction. So even though Leica came out with the SL3 as a replacement the only reason to switch, for a stills photographer, is if one really, really needs phase detection auto focus. And I'd venture to say that most people really don't. But so as not to speak for everyone I'll just say that I never felt the need for PD-AF.
And I still don't.
While the SL2 was a comfortable and high quality image maker at the time of its launch the company has done a number of firmware updates which have consistently improved the speed and handling of the camera. The biggest improvement for those of us who already owned the cameras was the company making the SCL-6 battery, which was introduced in the Q3, compatible with both older generations of the SL cameras. It adds about 25% more power reserve and that's important for a high data throughput camera that's battery sensitive.
The SL2 was the first Leica I owned that could also be charged via the USB-C port and that gives zany working photographers a healthy dose of confidence that long running shoots that might draw down a couple of batteries can still be handled with the addition of external power. Nice.
My first SL2 has been in service now for about five years (wow! time flies). I would estimate that between work use and personal imaging use that body has seen about 200,000 exposures. It has yet to freeze up, lock up or fail in any way. In heat or cold. Or in rainy weather. It's built to be more or less impervious to weather. And I love the handling.
Late last year I picked up an SL2-S which is basically the same camera body and shutter mechanism but which uses a 24 megapixel BSI sensor instead of the 47 megapixel one. I bought it for the smaller raw files but I also found that its high ISO files were as noise free as anything on the market from Sony, Canon or Nikon. It's a great companion for the other cameras.
What we started with was a camera (the SL2) that still is highly competitive for resolution. Class leading for image quality. Has an EVF that makes manual focusing easier and more accurate. Has a thin sensor glass construction which makes it a perfect companion for M lenses. Does very good video. The camera has gotten better and better as firmware gets tweaked. All of this certainly speaks to its relevance at the time of launch. And since no one has made any meaningful and substantial improvements in the format and market segment the answer to its current relevance is.... very much so.
Several of my friends who work professionally and had been firmly in the Sony and Nikon camps started buying SL2 cameras when the prices dropped below what they would pay for a Sony or Nikon body with a commensurate pixel count. They were universally blown away by the difference in operational philosophy. Happy to jettison so many useless and cluttered feature sets. And very happy to have a camera body that could make the highest and best use of their collections of rangefinder lenses; all at a higher level of quality than when they are used with competing brands of camera bodies. All for under $2500.
If I get the urge to upgrade camera bodies it will most likely occur in the Leica Q family, in the form of a Q3 and then a Q3-43. And I can now get away with this because without specific needs of certain clients there's not a heck of a lot of imaging that can't be done with one of those two cameras.
Would I get rid of the SL2s? Likely not since I perceive that their used pricing has bottomed out far ahead of my perceptions of their continued usefulness. In other words, the price drop seems too aggressive given the value the cameras still bring to nearly every shoot.
In the past everything was changing quickly. Now we've hit a stasis in the camera industry wherein we can actually slow down and the enjoy cameras. And get a useable life of maybe five years to a decade before hints of obsolescence appear. Cameras from the best makers have become more comparable to the reliability of Toyota and Lexus cars that are well maintained. They are meant to be used for a long time and not recycle because to incremental steps forward. Witness my parallel use of the M240 cameras which were introduced in 2013. I love em.
Keep those batteries coming....
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