The SL-2S has been announced. According to the press release from Leica it will basically be a collage comprised of the guts of a Panasonic S1 and the body, styling and color science tweaking of the previous SL2-S but with the white logo switched out to black logo type on the front of the pentaprism.
A few small video details have been upgraded.
Leica has made cameras for a number of years. Many were good. The lenses are supposed to be really, really nice. Some are.
The products are relatively expensive for normal people but are well priced for the luxury market at which they are aimed.
With the exception of earlier M models and most screw mount models the products have a lower than average history of reliability.
There. Was that so hard?
10 comments:
I have a Leica M4 and M5. I also had an M3 which I gave away. Quite frankly I find them a PITA to use and they are not nearly as robust as legend gives them credit for. The glass is "nice". Of the three I like the M5 the most so that cements my credentials as a Leica heretic for sure.
Eric
Eric's comment above made me laugh. I'm a film and digital Leica user.
As a former M4 owner I have to agree on the tedious film loading aspect. However the shutter sound and smoothness of controls still brings fond memories.
The M5 was something that really infuriated many Leicaphiles at its intro but I thought it was real delight to use.
I have owned over a dozen different film models of M and R series Leica cameras and have shot with three different digital M versions which were loaned to me by Leica for review purposes for various magazines. I still have some Leica stuff rocking about.
Almost every R4 series camera I owned developed electronic issues and had to be repaired. One of the three R3 cameras I owned needed major repairs within the warranty period. Two of my 3 M6 camera's, which were daily shooters in the late 1990's, had to be sent back when they were delivered, new in the box, with very badly calibrated rangefinders. One of my two R8's had a film scratching problem from day one and had to be replaced by Leica.
In fact, the only trouble free Leicas I have owned are my original M4, an M4 and every Leicaflex SL or Leicaflex SL2 I owned. I never really had any issues with new or used Leica lenses.
I guess this is why I've been resisting buying a Leica mirrorless body. Better maybe to keep using Panasonic and Sigma bodies and occasionally grab a nice Leica lens to use on them.
We'll see.
I was surprised to see the snark outburst in this post. You said earlier that there were other places for that Your capsule history explained some of it. My experience has not been as bad.
I have used almost all of the digital Leicas, plus an M2 which has soldiered along without incident since I bought it used around 1970. Sherry Krauter gave it a clean up about 15 years ago, said that it had probably spent some time underwater before I got it, and restored the ends of the shutter range. From the 1970s to the digital present, my day job took precedence, but I got seriously interested in digital photography again at the end of the 1990s.
One of several M8s spent time in Solms, and a lens on which I scratched the rear element using an old back cap was rebuilt at no charge. An M9 that I dropped on its nose came back with both lens and camera repaired at no charge. I sent an M9 in for sensor replacement because I could, but it had never bothered me. M[240], no problems. My M10 needed a trip to Wetzlar to get the ISO dial to work. That was an early issue which got solved. Again no charge. After I dropped a heavy SL zoom onto a tile floor I noticed it wasn't focussing very well, and sent it in to find out why. A new one is coming back to me. There are no dealers in Israel of any use, so I work with Leica in Germany. As a result nothing is very quick, but the process has been transparent and not expensive (usually free if the problem wasn't due to me). I haven't had any problems with CL, SL or SL2 to date, or the latest M10's (-D or -R).
I got an S1R, and got good use of it on several trips but haven't used it much since the SL2 came out. The SL2 works the way I want it to, while I still haven't gotten the Lumix to reliably focus where I want it to, and it keeps offering me functions that I didn't ask for. I'm hoping that the SL2-S just announced lets Leica catch up with the Lumix S1 (with the video firmware) and S5, but they are not there yet. Leica seems to do things to their satisfaction at least a year behind Panasonic. For some of my projects, (the changing face of Jerusalem, construction and infrastructure, the landscape along the Green line) detail matters, and there is no comparison to the Leica lenses for this.
Yeah, they cost more, but I'm not trying to make a living this way, the money has been set aside for the kids' education, I don't have fancy cars, boats, or planes as a hobby, and the Leicas are very satisfying to use. So why not?
Hi Scott,
It is fascinating how different people react differently to what they experience. You started by saying that "your experience has not been as bad." Then I read your experience and was horrified by it, as well as Kirk's. I have been photographing for well over 50 years (some of it for profit) and owned a large number of cameras both inexpensive and even more expensive than Leicas. (Never owned a Leica because too many of my photographer friends/acquaintances have complained about reliability). I do not baby my cameras and have used them extensively in harsh conditions (sand, salty humidity, cold Arctic, etc.) although I do take great care to protect and clean.
Among all these cameras I used a Canon F1 system with a set of FD lenses for 20 years, exclusively. During all this time I have only had one camera failure, which was just a few weeks ago, and no lens failures. Even that may have been my fault since it stopped working after I had plugged it in to charge and unplugged it while the camera was still on.
If I had experienced your or Kirk's problems I may well have given up photography and taken up painting by numbers.
Jon Maxim
ooops! I forgot the failure of my Leica CL. The little moving "semaphore" arm that held the exposure metering sensor decided at some point to stop automatically retracting during exposure. A very expensive repair. After I saw the estimate I was tempted to "fix" the problem with a pair of needle nose pliers. Removing the metering would have been so easy....
I think it will sell like hotcakes. Leica hotcakes, but hotcakes nonetheless.
After previously owning an M3 and an M4 with no problems, bought a brand new pair of M6s in the early 90s, a chrome and a black. Was very proud of them. Some of the best photos of my life were taken with these.
But there was one problem. Film takeup was unreliable. Sometimes I'd load film, wind it on, attach the back, wind on, and see the reel slightly spin/jiggle correctly, and proceed to shoot. 40+ shots later, it would still wind and jiggle, again and again. Uh oh. Yep, never fully wound on after all.
Went to a Leica Day event at a photo store in Boulder with my M6. Asked the German Leica rep to demo film loading to the takeup spool to see what I was doing wrong. He very carefully strung out the leader, engaged the takeup spool, advanced once or twice, advised me to watch the takeup reel move as I wound to '1', and voila. Proceeded then to take this very camera to Rocky Mountain National Park, only to get to 40+ shots. Same problem, even when the experts do it.
A friend also bought a brand new M6 at the time. He had to send it for warranty work multiple times for the same problem- rangefinder wouldn't stay aligned.
Remarkable picture taking machines. Sometimes. Couldn't rely on them at all. Sold them after a couple years, never went back.
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