New SL Buyer Beware of Special Offers !

[Rupert Greenwell]

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I decided to buy a new SL body, I am working at home this week and so needed the camera delivered to my address. Uk dealers are offering various incentives on the SL and I chose the dealer offering the M lens adapter for free with the body. I phoned the dealer for availability and I actually asked if the free adapter was a Leica one for M lenses. Yes it was so I placed the order.

   Today I have received the SL and was rather surprised when I unpacked it all to see a small box which was not in Leica's usual silver packaging, it was a Pixco adapter made in China, no instructions or details, no contacts for 6 bit, cheap and nasty. I was speechless to start with and then I hit the roof, my dogs have taken shelter outside !  I calmed down a bit and for interest I tried to attach a M lens to the adapter, it was very hard at first to see how it worked but got it on , then of course I could not get it off, furious now with myself for making a situation worse, I took it out to my workshop and finally unjammed it.

   What on earth was the dealer thinking to offer such a crap non Leica item and even when questioned said that it was the Leica M adapter when it is clearly not, if they had said that it was a cheap copy I would then have had a choice between that and the real thing. I am too angry to ring them up to complain, I will never use them again but will contact Leica instead.

   I have now ordered the correct adapter from another dealer, I asked them if they had heard of Pixco and did Leica allow dealers to sell such a thing. they said to throw it in the bin, ebay was full of such stuff.

  Well another lesson learnt, beware of special offers. I feel that I asked the right questions, I have used this dealer many times before but I had a issue with them with a used Noctilux that was clearly out of focus a few months ago and they denied that there was anything wrong with that, perhaps there has been a change of management or something but I will now avoid.

  Well some good news the battery is now charged up and I have turned the SL on and it works !  My Q was dead on arrival last year so I was rather nervous even before I opened the box. Roll on tomorrow and with the correct adapter I can take some photos.

[mmradman]

Please name (at least in circumspect way) & shame.

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Please name (at least in circumspect way) & shame.

No, please don't. Give them a chance to at least reimburse you. Call them and explain their predicament to them.

[earleygallery]

You should return the lot for a refund and take your business elsewhere.

 

You asked what on earth the dealer was thinking of to dupe you like that? Well if you just accept it, there's your answer!

[Rupert Greenwell]

It is very tempting to name but I am going to report this to Leica, the offer is on their website so it is not that a employee has made a mistake in giving me incorrect details as can happen. I have basically paid the going rate for a SL in the UK but have been duped into believing that I was getting a Leica adapter thrown in. The adapter is so poorly made and a million miles away from a Leica product I am amazed that they thought it a good idea to attract sales. The SL I have was on the original firmware, so the dealer is obviously keen to shift stock but how on earth do they think that to offer such a poor item in a underhand way to someone who has been a customer of theirs for a long time is going to end.

   This is the second issue that I have had this year with the same dealer, it is tempting to return everything but it means taking a day off to await a carrier to collect, I am already having to take tomorrow off to receive the correct adapter, to take another day off after that to await collection and I will be 2 days down this week. I will never use them again and I will make a complaint to Leica. 

[LocalHero1953]

I would be as angry as you, but I would certainly give the dealer a chance to correct it before complaining here. There aren't so many UK Leica dealers so they risk being tarred with the same brush.

[wattsy]

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I understand the inclination to put the experience behind you and move on but the adaptor is a £300 accessory and therefore a strong incentive to buy from this particular dealer. If they are decent (which, in my experience, most UK Leica dealers are) I'm sure they will want to put the situation right.

Edited August 9, 2017 by wattsy

[Einst_Stein]

SL has a tighter mount than T. Even to attach a T lens to SL feels much tighter than to the T body. Maybe it is due to the weather proof. This applies to M adapter too.

I have several non-Leica M to L adapters, all without 6-bit coding contacts. They all work very well except they can't detect lens automatically. Not a big problem because some of the lenses are ZM that work fine without it, and I tend to keep the 50mm summicron on it most of the time. In the events I need to switch focal length more often, I use MATE instead.

 

I share your feeling of being cheated. You definitely should go back to the dealer to make them feel your anger. But as far as the M adapter, it might not be as bad as you are thinking.        

[Rupert Greenwell]

Well since yesterday, the SL has developed a fault, the top left button has ceased to function ! I tried everything, resetting,removing battery ,got a glimmer out of it and then dead again.

 

I contacted the dealer who is taking it back, by the way I said, I was somewhat surprised and disappointed to have received a chinese adapter instead of the Leica one despite asking was it the Leica one. The dealer said that he would look into it and was surprised to hear that the offer was on their website.

 

My new  Q did not work out of the box either, buying a Leica camera is a fraught and time consuming process, I will have to take tomorrow off to await collection and another day next week to receive the replacement.

[ramarren]

Re: "...the top left button has ceased to function..." 

 

Are you aware that the top left button by default is disabled when the EVF is active? This is done to prevent accidentally pressing the button with your nose. If you were trying to press the top left button with the camera at your eye, it would not work, by design. The button is configurable in the Setup > Customize Controls menu ... You can set it to be active all the time. 

 

You didn't mention how you attempted to use it, I thought this was worth mentioning. 

 

Personally, I've never had a single problem buying and using new Leica equipment. All the Leica cameras and lenses I've purchased new were perfect as delivered. I think the little beasts read buyers' emotional state and respond if the buyers' expectations are negative. Talk about "smart" devices... I think they're being smartass devices. 

 

More seriously, however, if when you called to ask about the M lens adapter and asked specifically if it was the M Adapter L that was included, and then received something else, I'd first contact the dealer and suggest that they had made a packing mistake. "I verified that this package included the Leica SL and M Adapter T, your shipping department packed a no-name brand mount adapter. I'll ship you back the one I received, please ship the correct adapter ..." etc. A good dealer will simply make good on it and send you the correct adapter in exchange for the one you received. If not, I'd have shipped the whole package back for a refund and gone to a different dealer. I don't deal with folks who either don't know or don't care about providing correct information when I request it, but mistakes can happen with anyone. I give them the benefit of the doubt and an opportunity to correct the situation before getting angry.

[Rupert Greenwell]

Thanks for that, the button is enabled for use with the evf on, the button worked to start with and then no more, I have reset the camera a couple of times but to no avail, without that button I could still take photos but to get back into the menus to change iso for example was quite hard work.

    

     The little beasts have been watching me for a while, on top of the Q that I returned exactly a year ago, I had a M7 a la carte dead on arrival plus 2 new MP's, a 50mm Apo and 35 Fle Lux both new with aperture rings so loose that they were replaced too !  Leica simply do not test products before putting them into their boxes.

[IkarusJohn]

Hi Rupert,

 

What lens are you using the camera with, and what function is the top left button assigned to?

 

The reason I ask is that my top left button is assigned to an AF function - when I use M lenses, the button has no function.

[Rupert Greenwell]

When I first received the SL the adapter for M lenses was not the correct one so I did not mount a lens onto the camera for 24 hours, the top left button worked at first bringing up the menu and a long push brought up the iso, I updated the firmware and went through the favourites menu. At some point the top left stopped responding, I reset the camera and took the battery out twice, at one point the button worked once and brought up the iso but would not do it again. I mounted a M lens, set the camera to manual focus and checked too that the top button was enabled to work with the evf on.

    I phoned the dealer and they could not suggest anything more that I could try. They have agreed to take it back, I am waiting today for the carrier.

 

The problem here is that my local dealer was a hours drive away ,park round the corner, very friendly,long established family run camera shop, Leica took their business away I imagine that they wanted the shop to fit in with their current branding, marketing etc, I now have to take a train or drive into a unfamiliar city centre which takes up the best part of a day to visit a Leica dealer. 

    If the problem with the SL is me not understanding how to set the camera up I am stuffed !, we all know that Leica's manuals are terrible, the SL is the worst that I have come across yet, I have used this forum and youtube for assistance in setting the SL up. I managed fine with the Q and M10, I can also set up Canon and Nikon dslr on my own but if I have a problem my dealer is only a hour away. It has been one reason that I have not bought a SL until now, I am hoping that the SL is faulty and I will be a bit more confident when the replacement arrives !

[antigallican]

ISO is best on the bottom left and colour temp on the top left, unless of course you're changing colour temp a lot.

[ramarren]

Thanks for that, the button is enabled for use with the evf on, the button worked to start with and then no more, I have reset the camera a couple of times but to no avail, without that button I could still take photos but to get back into the menus to change iso for example was quite hard work. ... 

 

 

Generally speaking, you should customize the buttons so you don't use the menus for things like setting the ISO. I have the ISO setting mapped to a long press on the lower-right button, exposure compensation is a long press on the upper-right button, and metering pattern set to a long press on the lower-left button. I leave the default "disable upper-left button when EVF is enabled" set ON, and map my least used function (drive mode) to a long press on the upper-left button; I only access menus and drive mode when the camera is not at my eye.

 

The SL's manual is a bit of a misery, but it actually does contain all the information you need. It simply takes a little time to read it all, with camera in hand, and grok the camera's logic. Most of the buttons on the camera body have a fixed short press behavior and are customizable for a long press behavior. Once you get that, the best place to start reading the manual from is the tables at its back which articulate what the defaults are, and the section on how to customize the camera to your desires. A little time spent learning that and you'll find that that menu button is a lot less frequently used ...