Leica SL (Typ 601) - Mirrorless System Camera Without Compromise

[friedeye]

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The Q is a wonderful, compact, innovative camera well worth the price with that fine, fine lens. I couldn't wait to see the camera that would allow lens changes for that sensor.

 

And this is it? Seriously?

 

The SL is big and expensive and ugly, and I truly believe that only dedicated, rich Leicaphiles will be willing to haul it around for a day.   This is a dreadful mistake on Leica's part.

[luigi bertolotti]

just too much: For the SL and the 24-90 zoom 2kg and 12400$. From http://www.sonyalpharumors.com :

 

 

The most positive: The EVF looks much better than anything on the market

The most negative: T lenses with 10Mpx

That's simply the math about FF surface vs. APS-C surface : not a design choice, simply must be like this when crop the image.

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[40mm f/2]

That's simply the math about FF surface vs. APS-C surface : not a design choice, simply must be like this when crop the image.

wrong: FF 42 Mpx vs FF 24 Mpx or APS-C 19 vs 10! So which is the smaller one?

Edited October 20, 2015 by 40mm f/2

[wlaidlaw]

Looks like a wonderful camera but too big for my old arthritic hands I regret. I am not sure it will not be too big for many others. If only they had managed to shrink it by about 15-20% in every dimension and make it 30% lighter I would be on the phone to Ffordes tomorrow to book my slot. 

 

Wilson

[lct]

I hoped that it would be closer to R4-R7 than Leicaflex SL size wise... My bad unfortunately.

Edited October 20, 2015 by lct

[lct]

How thick is the glass cover of the sensor? Just asking as Jono's pics don't look that sharp at first glance. 

[LeftyS]

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Déjà vu impression, the first Digilux, big but sooooooooo nice :-)

[oronet commander]

Just a bit smaller, a (larger) bit cheaper, ..., bingo!

[MRJohn]

Great set of features, but it will be interesting to see if the design and haptics is able to create enough emotional attachment/want to get people make irrational buying decisions.

The M design heritage has slowly evolved over decades and stood the test of time. Why deviate and distract? I'd much prefer if they focused their precious R&D budget on ever improving the M line of bodies. We don't need autofocus for what we use an M for. And most of the other new useful SL features could become M features with progress in miniaturization over time. I hope Leica and their investors do not forget this. Can you imagine Porsche would stop innovating 911s and focus on a different line? Lucky Leica, that you also have an iconic design in your hands with the M. Am I suggesting that Leica will not improve the M in the future? No, I do not know this. I just know it did not happen this time.

[LeftyS]

Did I just won a price ?

[earleygallery]

Well pretty much what was expected from reading the clues on the forum over the last few weeks.

[wattsy]

Here comes the Leica SL – a professional mirrorless system camera without compromise!

 

Looks like a superbly made piece of kit but who, beyond the committed fans of the brand, are asking for a "professional mirrorless system camera without compromise!"? A system with only one AF lens (the other two are not available until next year sometime) for £8,000 is going to be a hard sell outside of the band of people that frequent this forum and it will have very limited appeal to those who use their kit to earn a living (those who generally aren't going to have a stash of old R lenses that they will want to use with stop-down metering via adapters).

Edited October 20, 2015 by wattsy

[wlaidlaw]

Leica's website for the SL is down - I hope the camera is more reliable. My original SL was a total dog, which spent more time at Leica UK than it did in my hands. 

 

Wilson

[rosuna]

Looks like a wonderful camera but too big for my old arthritic hands I regret. I am not sure it will not be too big for many others. If only they had managed to shrink it by about 15-20% in every dimension and make it 30% lighter I would be on the phone to Ffordes tomorrow to book my slot. 

 

Wilson

 

It has to be large, because the lenses and the body must be balanced.

[rosuna]

Price is $12000 with 24-90mm lens. $7500 body only.

BTW this thing is absolutely huge!

 

It is smaller than a R10 would have been. 

 

It is smaller than any DSLR out there!!!!!

Edited October 20, 2015 by rosuna

[digbyhp]

Nice that legacy R and M lenses can be used - but can their aperture rings be used to allow aperture-priority ?

[viramati]

It is smaller than a R10 would has been. 

 

It is smaller than any DSLR out there!!!!!

Well it would be smaller than a DSLR but it isn't smaller than the Sony A7rII which is the other FF mirrorless camera on the market . I am sorry to say that for me this is just way to expensive especially when you include the lens. I love my Q and soon that will be all I have left from my leica days.

Edited October 20, 2015 by viramati

[peterv]

I congratulate Leica with the new SL-line. Seems to me a well thought out camera/lens system which I will gladly buy as back up for my S2-P.

[earleygallery]

They've called it the SL but it takes styling elements from the R cameras (albeit only very small ones). At least they didn't make some all out retro gimmick camera like the Nikon Df. 

 

The biggest issue is they're releasing a 'professional system' camera with only one lens initially and then only 2 others in the pipeline. 

 

Clearly the target market here is really the M user who can happily spend £8K on another camera for the fun of it. As long as there's enough of those to turn a profit on this for Leica I guess that's fine, but I really can't see many pro's dropping their Canon/Nikon DSLR systems for this. 

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[rosuna]

The mini-24x36 system is the M system...