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Leica SL 601 video review by Morten Albek (at overgaard.dk)


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Thanks for including this on your site Thorsten. And thanks to Morten for putting this test together. It's a very informative video and accompanying report Morten has provided. I'm particularly interested in the difficulty Morten experienced with avoiding camera shake, given that he was using the camera without a rig or tripod. It was good of Morten to allow us to see this aspect of using a 'stills' camera for videoing. Very helpful. I do wonder if using the camera at eye level, with the eyebrow against the viewfinder, nose against the camera back, would provide enough support to reduce the camera shake to being unnoticeable.

 

I'm also very interested in Morten's comments on the dynamic range of the SL with video recording. He says 'Colours are reproduced very nicely. Dynamic range is excellent.' However, these comments seem to be limited to filming in Anne-Lisbeth's studio where the light is soft and consistent, i.e. not too difficult to work with. Did Morten try using the SL in outdoor or in less friendly lighting? How did that work out? Winter in Denmark - cloudy and cold - so maybe not.

 

Thanks. Rick.

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Hi Rick


 


Thanks for your comments.


 


"Very helpful. I do wonder if using the camera at eye level, with the eyebrow against the viewfinder, nose against the camera back, would provide enough support to reduce the camera shake to being unnoticeable."


 


It is difficult to avoid some shake with the camera hold as described. Especially with the heavy zoom lens mounted. But with steady breathing and using a wide angle lens, it reduces the shaking to a minimum with some training. keeping the camera slightly moving also makes it less noticeable, in opposition to trying to hold it still. But even with large cameras for news television it is not possible to avoid a little movement in a shot without pan or tilt. Therefore a tripod is always recommended for captures meant to be steady framed. 


 


"I'm also very interested in Morten's comments on the dynamic range of the SL with video recording. He says 'Colours are reproduced very nicely. Dynamic range is excellent.' However, these comments seem to be limited to filming in Anne-Lisbeth's studio where the light is soft and consistent, i.e. not too difficult to work with. Did Morten try using the SL in outdoor or in less friendly lighting? How did that work out? Winter in Denmark - cloudy and cold - so maybe not."


 


The SL was not tested in the studio with good light, but in the livingroom were my wife makes the final adjustments of her paintings. So light was not optimal or well lit in the evening. The camera deals with that very well, and therefore I am impressed with its performance. Thats why it looks better at the footage than it actually was in real life.


 


I always check a cameras performance in less than ideal circumstances, because there it shows it weaknesses and strengths. I did not have time to also test it outdoors, but if I should, I would do it on a sunny day with hard light, too see how it copes with that. It is in low light or hard outdoor light that the quality of censor, lens and viewfinder shows. A day with dimmed light and clouds nearly all cameras are performing. The weaknesses shows at the end of the line. So it wasn't because it was too cold ;-) - just lack of time. 


 


Best regards, Morten


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Morten,

 

Thank you for this informative test. Did you have opportunity to test at higher ISO levels? I've seen some older video tests off the SL that show an enormous amount of noise reduction at ISOs above 400 that yield images that are mushy and lacking detail, I see in the article that you used ISO 800 for some shots, how well did this work?

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