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CL - Very impressed - I'm in.


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I had a brief look at the Leica CL today at the Leica Store at Fullerton in Singapore today.  I came away very impressed.  It has a solid, rock stay feel, the viewfinder was excellent and focussing seemed very snappy with the 18-56mm lens (they did not have the new 18mm in the store).

 

The use of the two control dials and their relationship to the display at the top will take some getting used to as others have said, but I may just land up ignore that top screen if I don't like it.  Even though the TL series are supposedly carved out of one piece of aluminum, the CL in fact feels more solid if anything.  The TL series are in fact slimmer for most of the length of the bodies but strangely the CL feels more compact than the dimensions would lead you to believe.  And very snug - though that may be just that the ever helpful Andrew had warmed the camera up while showing it to me before I took hold of it ;-)

 

Just before I went there, a friend in my office confirmed his interest in taking my TL2 so I don't have to work out that dilemma anymore.  It's likely I will get it in hand some time next week.

 

- Vikas

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I've just got mine and I'm also VERY impressed.  It's everything I wanted from the SL, and which that body never managed quite to deliver.  It feels suprisingly small and light, but with a summicron 28 or 35 will be a great walk about, and it's a joy to use the A-T 135.  Still working through the menus and set-up, so no meaningful images to share as yet, but not doubt soon.  I'll do some test examples with the range of M lenses I have to hand.  Found a very reasonably priced 18-55 T lens on ebay yesterday, so I'll also be playing with that.  The next trick will be working out how this integrates with the M.  It's a bit like a puppy that wriggles its way into your affection while the experienced and older larger dog looks on with a mix of disdain and jealousy.  Time will tell!

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I've just got mine and I'm also VERY impressed.  It's everything I wanted from the SL, and which that body never managed quite to deliver.  It feels suprisingly small and light, but with a summicron 28 or 35 will be a great walk about, and it's a joy to use the A-T 135.  Still working through the menus and set-up, so no meaningful images to share as yet, but not doubt soon.  I'll do some test examples with the range of M lenses I have to hand.  Found a very reasonably priced 18-55 T lens on ebay yesterday, so I'll also be playing with that.  The next trick will be working out how this integrates with the M.  It's a bit like a puppy that wriggles its way into your affection while the experienced and older larger dog looks on with a mix of disdain and jealousy.  Time will tell!

Chris, many of us will be looking forward to your thoughts on functionality of M lenses on the CL, along with examples. 

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Just got mine. Body plus 55-135. I have 3 M lenses to use with it - 24 lux, 50 ASPH lux and 90 AA cron.

 

I've only had an hour of "proper" experimentation with the camera so far and I love it with M lenses. It is very easy to get focus, and easy to zoom in to nail it. For the first time I'm able to shoot my 90 cron and know that I'm getting focus wide open. It also feels really nice to use with M lenses. It's fast, handles really nicely, and simple enough to use exposure compensation if you're in A mode.

 

Primarily I spent the time using A mode and auto ISO, with exposure compensation. This works absolutely fine, and makes the CL a really effective, fast camera to use. Focusing with M lenses is just fine with the EVF, which is a brilliant viewfinder to use, with focus peaking. In fact I found that using the black & white film mode and red peaking worked really well (jpegs are black & white, RAWs obviously are colour).

 

Regarding the APS-C crop factor, this makes all M lenses effectively 1.5x longer. So my 24 is a 36mm 1.4, my 50 is a 75mm 1.4, and my 90 is a 135mm f/2. Regarding "effective" DOF (ie bokeh factor), to get the same shot of a subject you'd stand 50% further away from the subject than using a full frame sensor, so DOF is deeper for the given aperture.

 

While the light ingestion is the same for a 50mm at f/1.4 (it's still a f/1.4 lens), the "effective DOF" is deeper and for a f/1.4 lens it will "look" like a 50mm at f/2.1. For the 90mm cron, the same shot at f/2 will look like it was shot at f/3 on a full frame camera. So to understand your effective DOF you need to multiply the actual aperture by approx 1.5x (same as the crop factor). To play with this, have a look at this excellent DOF simulator. It doesn't have the CL listed yet, so just select APS-C sensor size, select the lens and aperture and you'll see the equivalent aperture shown below.

 

The ability to shoot at 1/10,000th makes it super simple to shoot everything wide open.

 

Having looked at the results from the 55-135 I'm not totally convinced yet. I need to use it more and in different scenarios. It's not as sharp as the 90 cron (but then not much is!) but colours looks nice, bokeh is lovely etc. 

 

Lastly the camera is just gorgeous, well made and feels great in the hand. With M lenses it's lovely - you still have that familiar focusing action, but with the inbuilt ability to confirm focus (with magnification if needed).

 

More to come.

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Just got mine. Body plus 55-135. I have 3 M lenses to use with it - 24 lux, 50 ASPH lux and 90 AA cron.

 

I've only had an hour of "proper" experimentation with the camera so far and I love it with M lenses. It is very easy to get focus, and easy to zoom in to nail it. For the first time I'm able to shoot my 90 cron and know that I'm getting focus wide open. It also feels really nice to use with M lenses. It's fast, handles really nicely, and simple enough to use exposure compensation if you're in A mode.

 

Primarily I spent the time using A mode and auto ISO, with exposure compensation. This works absolutely fine, and makes the CL a really effective, fast camera to use. Focusing with M lenses is just fine with the EVF, which is a brilliant viewfinder to use, with focus peaking. In fact I found that using the black & white film mode and red peaking worked really well (jpegs are black & white, RAWs obviously are colour).

 

Regarding the APS-C crop factor, this makes all M lenses effectively 1.5x longer. So my 24 is a 36mm 1.4, my 50 is a 75mm 1.4, and my 90 is a 135mm f/2. Regarding "effective" DOF (ie bokeh factor), to get the same shot of a subject you'd stand 50% further away from the subject than using a full frame sensor, so DOF is deeper for the given aperture.

 

While the light ingestion is the same for a 50mm at f/1.4 (it's still a f/1.4 lens), the "effective DOF" is deeper and for a f/1.4 lens it will "look" like a 50mm at f/2.1. For the 90mm cron, the same shot at f/2 will look like it was shot at f/3 on a full frame camera. So to understand your effective DOF you need to multiply the actual aperture by approx 1.5x (same as the crop factor). To play with this, have a look at this excellent DOF simulator. It doesn't have the CL listed yet, so just select APS-C sensor size, select the lens and aperture and you'll see the equivalent aperture shown below.

 

The ability to shoot at 1/10,000th makes it super simple to shoot everything wide open.

 

Having looked at the results from the 55-135 I'm not totally convinced yet. I need to use it more and in different scenarios. It's not as sharp as the 90 cron (but then not much is!) but colours looks nice, bokeh is lovely etc. 

 

Lastly the camera is just gorgeous, well made and feels great in the hand. With M lenses it's lovely - you still have that familiar focusing action, but with the inbuilt ability to confirm focus (with magnification if needed).

 

More to come.

Wouldn't the effective focal length be longer as well?

 

So a 50mm F1.4 would act like a 75mm F2.1 in terms of depth of field, no?

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Wouldn't the effective focal length be longer as well?

So a 50mm F1.4 would act like a 75mm F2.1 in terms of depth of field, no?

Yes absolutely correct.

 

Instead of this:

 

“While the light ingestion is the same for a 50mm at f/1.4 (it's still a f/1.4 lens), the "effective DOF" is deeper and for a f/1.4 lens it will "look" like a 50mm at f/2.1. For the 90mm cron, the same shot at f/2 will look like it was shot at f/3 on a full frame camera.”

 

I should have written this:

 

“While the light ingestion is the same for a 50mm at f/1.4 (it's still a f/1.4 lens), the "effective DOF" is deeper and for a f/1.4 lens it will "look" like a 75mm at f/2.1. For the 90mm cron, the same shot at f/2 will look like it was shot at 135mm at f/3 on a full frame camera.”

Edited by Tobers
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From my point of view the potential advantages of the CL over the M10 are its smaller size, and the availability of AF. 

 

The problem is these features are mutually exclusive unless you're happy just to use the 18mm pancake lens.

 

So it doesn't work for me.

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From my point of view the potential advantages of the CL over the M10 are its smaller size, and the availability of AF. 

 

The problem is these features are mutually exclusive unless you're happy just to use the 18mm pancake lens.

 

So it doesn't work for me.

 

it's a very small (and delightful) package with the 23 summicron Peter

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I had some fun trying it out at Leica Miami with the 23mm.  

 

EVF is a bit brighter (I think :) ) than the visoflex and AF seemed quite fast with the 23mm lens. 

 

Only gripe . . . that battery door. Looks quite fragile.  

 

Here's a shot taken outside of the store.

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it's a very small (and delightful) package with the 23 summicron Peter

 

 

Maybe I'm too comfortable with my utterly marvellous and organic-feeling 35mm Summicron on my M10 for that to be appealing, but I can see how it might attract others. 

 

I think the CL looks a lovely little camera (and new cameras are almost always tempting in one way or another) but I can't think of enough occasions, barely any in fact,  when I'd choose it over my M10 for it to work for me.

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It's a bit like a puppy that wriggles its way into your affection while the experienced and older larger dog looks on with a mix of disdain and jealousy.  Time will tell!

 

 

Maybe I'm too comfortable with my utterly marvellous and organic-feeling 35mm Summicron on my M10 for that to be appealing, but I can see how it might attract others. 

 

I think the CL looks a lovely little camera (and new cameras are almost always tempting in one way or another) but I can't think of enough occasions, barely any in fact,  when I'd choose it over my M10 for it to work for me.

 

 

Well Peter - when a grumpy old fart like Chris says that it's like a puppy that wriggles it's way into your affections . . then I guess it's probably okay?

 

(sorry Chris, I know you aren't a grumpy old fart, on the other hand it's quite an accolade, and certainly how I feel about the CL). 

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I’ll take the grumpy and the fart. Still in denial about the old bit ;)

The CL?

Still a work in progress for me, though I’m definitely a great deal more comfortable with it than I was with the SL. A bit of me just wishes it was full frame - then it really would complement the M10. Maybe this will be the next logical step? I would imagine that a lot of the sunk costs of such a project will have already gone into the development of the new EVF APS-C and full frame bodies and an EVF M shouldn’t require that much retooling - and it could be brought to market for less than the M10. Pairing OVF & EVF full frame bodies would be a great combination for my practice (up to 50 on the OVF, above that on the EVF), and if you really want AF and IS long lenses you’d have the SL.

Time will tell....

Edited by chris_tribble
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One aspect that has given me not a moment's concern is using the CL with M lenses and an adapter. Given the talk about whether a possible future full frame small mirrorless body should be M-mount or L-mount, I can see no reason* why it should be M-mount. One just forgets there's an adapter there.

 

*Except for those who get agitated by the thought of the video on the M240 which can be switched off, or by female ankles hidden by Victorian skirts.

Edited by LocalHero1953
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My CL arrives Monday. I have 2 T lenses so that made the choice easier. I do love the T but the attachable viewfinder annoys me some. The CL resembles what I’d like the Q to be (ie interchangeable T lenses). Regardless it seems like a great camera for when I don’t wish to tote the M or find it a bit tedious in low light.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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With the excuse of testing the new CL to make sure all is well and with yet another lotus blooming on our terrace, I retrieved the CL, mounted the new 35 1.4 on it and, well tested it.

 

Test passed with flying colours I think.

 

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- Vikas

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With the excuse of testing the new CL to make sure all is well and with yet another lotus blooming on our terrace, I retrieved the CL, mounted the new 35 1.4 on it and, well tested it.

 

Test passed with flying colours I think.

 

 

- Vikas

 

 . . the 60 macro is a wonderful lens as well Vikas :)

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