bencoyote

Agreed but I feel like the limiting factor in digital photography these days is not pixels or iso, it is dynamic range. That’s still one where big wells matter. The other one is sensor read out speed which affects AF, the refresh rate of an EVF, as well as video performance. I think that this is one place Sony (and maybe Nikon and Canon - I don’t know) did it right with the 7, the 7R, 7S for different types of shooters.

I agree that they are different. I like the SL for astrophotography, telephoto, and video. I think that if I had a really wide angle lens it would be the one for that too. For the small amount of architecture that I do for my friend the CV 15mm is good enough. I kind of wish there was a macro though. For some things I can use the 90-280mm at near minimum focal distances in a macro-ish sort of way. (At the moment for real macro I use the Olympus TG-5 whose minimum focal distance seems to be the surface of the glass.) This is the capability camera, It can do basically anything a pro needs to do. The M240 is my favorite camera. Maybe the M10 is in my future sometime in the future For capability and portability I find the Summilux 50mm the perfect match. With one body and that one lens I can do so much. Sometimes my like backpacking my 28mm Summicron works better. The compact ultraportablity and inoffensiveness just works. Together they are great complements to each other.

I like the look of the Gitzo GH1382TQD Series 1 Traveler Center Ball Head mentioned above. Back when I bought my Gitzo tripod they were using those larger quick release plate and I didn’t like them because they didn’t fit my Leica M or my previous mirrorless systems. I have the top of https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1277304-REG/3_legged_thing_ahsw_equinox_airhed_switch.html on a Leica ball head. It works well but if I were doing it again I’d use either the Gizo above or the full AirHed Equinox.

I for one wish there were one. I also wish there were focus bracketing when there is one because I can’t slew through the focal range as fast or accurately as the camera can. In the meanwhile there is the TL 60mm which may actually be advantageous due to the slightly larger DOF. The obvious cost is resolution.

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For this trip I'm taking an Olympus TG-5 with an Ikelite housing, and a GoPro Hero 6 with a SuperSuit. If I get notably more into underwater photography, I will look into one of those other two options along with the 16-35mm. I couldn't budget in all the additional gear for the SL for this trip. Plus with both of these, as you suggested I'll be making cheap mistakes. I also looked for something like the SuperSuit for the Leica X-U couldn't find one. To me that seems like a nice combination. However since this is a question that may be answered by only a very few people in the world, I thought I would ask expecting it to linger for a while before I got an answer. I do think that the SL is potentially a good camera for underwater use. Its few buttons and simple interface should make designing a waterproof housing easier. My TG-5 has 9 buttons on the back, 2 on the top including the shutter, two wheels to turn and a zoom lever. The SL on the other hand has 3 on the top, 5 on the back, two wheels, the on/off switch and joystick. So fewer case penetrations than even a compact camera.

I've heard that Subal has a dive housing for the Leica SL. http://www.subal.com/a445c98c2c1/Housing/UW_Housings/Sony_Leica/SL.aspx I also found that BS Kinetics can make one. https://bskinetics.com/?lang=en Has anyone tried either of these?

I got a really nice shot of the moon last night with the 90-280 but I had to crop in a huge amount leaving me with only a 526x526 px image. Never the less it is lovely. This really does leave me wishing for something longer. I've also been doing a lot of birds lately and though the 280mm is good for the large well habituated shorebirds and water fowl that live next to the mult-use trail near my house, i still have to crop in a lot. Away from where I live birds are much harder to shoot with only a 280mm I guess that I could attach the SL up to an actual telescope or a spotting scope. Or I could get a vintage Telyt R lens. The Leica R-L adapter costs as much as the lens but I guess that I could get a cheaper Kipon. The point is there are still a couple gaps in the SL lens lineup. Macro Very long telephoto Some wide AF lenses. A wide TS (Tilt Shift) lens for architecture. None of these are impossible to work around and these special purpose lenses probably won't ever have the volume of general purpose lenses like a fast 50 or a standard zoom or telephoto.

Yeah exactly what I’ve been hoping for but I have been thinking about the 60mm TL lens the downside is only 12MP to show detail but at the same time much lighter to hold. I would also appreciate focus stacking or at least bracketing built into the camera.

While my M has been away in the shop, I've been getting to know my SL a lot better. Both hardware wise and software wise, it seems like a great camera. This seems like it is going to be a plenty good enough camera for me and what I do for a long time. Never the less, I started keeping notes about what I would like in the next generation hardware. Mostly it involves the IO ports: Make both card slots UHS-II 3x USB-C type 3.1 ports rather than the accessory port, the HDMI port and and the Micro-B port. The remote can be a USB HID device. (just like a mouse and a keyboard, an external numeric keypad. Those are all HID devices) The audio adapter can a USB sound card sort of like https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-BENGOO-External-Converter-Headset/dp/B072BMG9TB/ref=zg_bs_3015427011_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=SBDW56WFB4YNH8N7FMFK I think that this is basically what the audio adapter is already but it has a funny connector on it. This could easily be used for stereo or multi-channel input for advanced users. You are not limited to a TRR or a TRRS there are already USB devices with multiple XLR inputs if that is what you need. USB-C has a DisplayPort alternative mode. So that if you want to send video to an external recorder you can. If recorders have USB-C use that. If it only has HDMI, then the user can take a standard USB-C->HDMI adapter, the kind you use on your MBP to convert to HDMI then use a standard HDMI cable or get one of those cables USB-C with the HDMI adapter built in. For tethering the camera itself becomes USB-C hub with multiple devices, a camera - just like a webcam but better, a HID device for all its buttons, and mass storage for its cards. Imagine using your Leica SL as your webcam for skype? USB-C also can also do Power Delivery - charge the battery in the camera. You wouldn't always need to bring your battery charger or if you lost it, then you could use the camera body to charge the camera. USB-C PD could also be used to run the camera for those very long video segments that last longer than a battery. You wouldn't need some kind of dummy battery to provide power to the camera. The external charger should also take USB-C that way you don't have to worry about plugs. 15W is plenty and you could plug it into any handy cell phone charger. With USB-C Power pass through plug your MacBook USB-C charger into the camera as well as the external charger and it will charge both batteries at once. With all the ports the same, you are better able to do cable routing. USB-C ports are well engineered and rugged - probably more so than any of the connectors built into the current SL. If one fails in the field, you just use the others. USB-C ports are more compact allowing a smaller area for ports. Video recorders are relatively expensive. Imagine if you could plug in a suitably fast USB-C hard disk or SSD and the SL would just write to it. This is where you would probably need to plug in something like your MBP USB-C power brick into another port of the camera to provide power to the camera and the external HD. Plug a USB-C to lightning cable into the camera and then use your iPhone, iPad as the external monitor. Plug a USB-C monitor into the camera for a really big display, also the monitor could power the camera. All of these are just different modes for USB-C and well within the capabilities of the current chips that are available. The trick would be changing the mode of the ports from host mode to device mode as needed. Thoughts?

Does anybody know? Is the Audio Adaptor AA-SLC4 mono or stereo?

I frequently travel with just my 50mm Summliux and my m240. So it sounds sensible to me. Some outdoor places with big vistas and some small indoors I find that 50mm is to tight and go with my 28mm Summicron instead. I don’t know Japan. Maybe a 35mm Summliux would split the difference but I don’t have one. There are others that seem to agree. https://youtu.be/VBY7K4TmZ0c

Kind of have been thinking about this all night. I have a Nature Conservancy calendar in my kitchen. The "free" one they send you when asking for additional contributions and what they have is what I would call "animal portraits" the kind that really do need a HUGE telephoto lens. There is another approach to wildlife photography where it shows the animals in the context of their environment. So: For humans portraits 85-90 or 105mm but in context i.e. street photography 28-35 or 50mm For wildlife portraits 400-560mm or more but for wildlife in context ??

Good advice. Thank you. The one disagreement that I have is that the 90-280 behaves like a 135-420 on a TL system. That may be long enough for most wildlife photography.

Something that it seems has not been said is that there seems to be a bit of a personality difference between MF and 35mm format shooters. MF shooters seem to be more inclined to carefully setup a shot, control the lighting, work on it heavily in photoshop and make one picture. 35mm shooters Tend to be a bit more shooters and more often mobile. They produce more shots and seem to work on them less. I think broadly speaking, this inclination is reflected in the kind of work produced. A certain kind of photographer is drawn to a particular kind of equipment that inclines one to a general workflow which ultimately produces work that is subtlety different. So broadly speaking there is a 35mm look and a MF look but it’s only partly a result of the equipment.