“Image quality” - SL2+M lens vs S1R+SL lens?

[Jared]

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7 hours ago, Jon Warwick said:

I’d really appreciate your thoughts.

I’m in a position to spend c £ 5.5-6k on a digital set up.

I already own an M 75mm 2.4 Summarit + M-L adapter.

My choice that I’ve come up with is 

(1) buy a new SL2 body + use my existing M 75mm lens

(2) buy a used S1R body + buy a new 75mm SL Summicron lens

Clearly the biggest different is manual vs autofocus. But let’s leave that aside.

** What I’m interested in, is, which combo do you would give me the best bang for my buck, PURELY in terms of image quality? I print big to c 50” wide, and would use the pixel shift technology on either camera for landscapes.

The MTF on the M 75mm Summarit is pretty impressive (at f5.6) and the microlenses and thin glass stack on the SL2 should mean the M lens works well .... but do the SL Summicrons simply provide a better level of clarity and tonal depth that one sees the difference, even if it means I have to go “non-Leica” on the body?
 

Purely in terms of image quality?  The S1R with the 75mm SL Summicron will be a clear step above.  The Summarit is an absolutely fantastic lens, but like all Summarits it is intended to be a compromise of moderate speed, low weight, small size, and reasonable cost (by Leica ‘M’ standards).  Good as it is, it can’t compete with the SL Summicron in terms of straight up image quality when used on a 47 megapixel body.  Even at f/5.6.  Could you tell the difference between them if you pixel peeped?  Yup, you could.  
 

That being said, if you asked me which I’d rather own, it gets a little harder.  The flexibility of having a good AF system vs. needing to manually focus all my shots may or may not matter for your type of photography.  If it does matter, then, again, the S1R and Summicron is the obvious choice.  If it doesn’t matter to you, though, I think I would take the SL2, and it has little to do with image quality.  I VASTLY prefer the ergonomics of the SL2 to the S1R.  It feels better in my hand and has a set of controls that I find to be a huge improvement on the Panasonic.  That’s a matter of taste, of course.  A reasonable person could easily feel the opposite.  Still, I’d take the SL2 knowing that I could add some SL glass later, despite the technically poorer performance (relatively) of the 75mm Summarit for the near term.  It’s not like the Summarit is a bad lens, and at moderate apertures it would take a significant crop or a large print to tell them apart.

Neither approach is a mistake, though.  If you like the controls, size, and shape of the S1R it is every bit as good a camera as the SL2 aside from use with wider ‘M’ glass, and the 75mm Summicron is a truly special lens in a way that the Summarit just can’t quite match. OK, I can’t speak to the video capabilities of either camera, so not sure about that area.  

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[Tailwagger]

And so that everyone can judge for themselves, here is one of the series I sent to Ken in background with the Zeiss Distagon 35mm ZM, the Lumix 16-35 at 35mm and the SL-35mm.

All shot at f8, shutter speed was 1/200", raw into LR, no processing.  Its difficult in LR, at least for me to create precise crops. I've listed the final image size which was export with no resize at the list resolutions. 

ZD: Crop 1248 x 1248

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Lumix: 1348 x 1348

Sl-35: 1383 x 1383

[Tailwagger]

Here is the original scene per the SL-35mm, crap photo, again unprocessed, but not an atypical scenario for any of these lenses.  Focus was on the first row of graves. Bit of a torture test perhaps, but an equal one for all lenses used. What I will also note from my comparison shots is that my sense is that on the central X/Y axes, the ZD outperforms the Pano and is right there with the SL-35. It is in the corners that it completely falls apart. I'm sure that proponents for M on SL will poke holes in the methodology to which I will respond by saying that there was none. My only goal was to approach a scene as I normally would, except that I'd shoot it with all three lenses at the same aperture and focus point.  As an owner of a dozen M optics, I'd rather that they worked as well or better than the native ones, but in the scenarios I tried that simply was not the case.  This isn't science, but it is real world. Everyone is free to form their own opinion.

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[thighslapper]

13 hours ago, Tailwagger said:

 I didn't pay all this money to entertain any additional compromise. YMMV.

That sums up the whole issue in one sentence.

 

[Chaemono]

vor 11 Stunden schrieb Tailwagger:

[...]

It’s difficult in LR, at least for me to create precise crops.
[...]

You crop one, copy the adjustments, and then apply them to the other files.  LR will let you select which adjustments you want to apply.  You can choose just the cropping. 

[Einst_Stein]

If you mix L and M systems, you are compromising. You are loss the benefit of both system in stead of gaining both.

Even mixing the brands is compromising.  Do not over look the power of the optimized lens compensation.

Leica CEO has declared in an interview that the non-Leica lenses are not going to perform as well as the Leica L lenses, but they will be the alternatives for the price. I think the other benefits of  l alliances to to have more lens variations such as focal length, max aperuure , and weight, etc.

For the big bucks, get a full Panasonic lens and body, or a full Sigma lens and body, or a full Leica.

 

[Jared]

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On 2/29/2020 at 5:18 AM, Einst_Stein said:

If you mix L and M systems, you are compromising. You are loss the benefit of both system in stead of gaining both.

Even mixing the brands is compromising.  Do not over look the power of the optimized lens compensation.

Leica CEO has declared in an interview that the non-Leica lenses are not going to perform as well as the Leica L lenses, but they will be the alternatives for the price. I think the other benefits of  l alliances to to have more lens variations such as focal length, max aperuure , and weight, etc.

For the big bucks, get a full Panasonic lens and body, or a full Sigma lens and body, or a full Leica.

 

Any photographic choice involves compromise, however, I’m not sure I agree with your points.

First, the fact that the Leica CEO has declared that non-Leica lenses won’t perform as well as the Leica L lenses is hardly evidence of, well, anything.  What else could the Leica CEO say?  Or any other CEO in a similar position?  That you shouldn’t buy their product because it’s not as good?

Second, mixing brands need not involve any compromise at all in terms of image quality.  The lens profiles are convenient, but hardly magical.  They address vignetting and distortion, and it’s easy enough in most cases with most lenses to build your own presets that will perform the exact same corrections In post to the same level of quality.  Heck, I’d actually prefer Leica didn’t embed their profiles but just tagged files with the appropriate info as there are times I might not want to apply the embedded corrections.  

As to mixing L and M... For your use case, perhaps it is true that this results in the worst of both worlds.  That was not the case for me.  As megapixel counts keep climbing, I have found that for my eyes we have reached the limits of my ability to accurately focus an ‘M’ lens on an ‘M’ body using the rangefinder for any focal length above 35mm or so.  Sure, I can come close, and for lots of photographs close is just fine.  But nail the focus on a subject’s near eye using a 75mm Summicron?  At f/2?  Reliably?  No way.  Not at 24 megapixels, and certainly not at higher resolutions.  What about putting that same 75mm Summicron on the SL and using magnified view?  Yup.  Every time.  End result for me was that the SL became a better camera for my ‘M’ lenses as Leica, Panasonic, and Sigma build out their L offerings.

Can their be compatibility issues with third party lenses?  Does the L mount alliance guarantee no issues?  Of course there will be teething pains.  But sticking with a single brand hardly guarantees immunity from that.  My digital ‘M’ camera was an 8.2.  Had to deal with crop factor (which significantly altered the behavior of all my lenses).  Remember the IR cut filters?  “Italian Flag” color gradients on certain wide angle lenses?  Eventually, having to 6-bit profile lenses?  And that was all with a Leica ‘M’ body using Leica ‘M’ glass.  

I would be perfectly comfortable putting a Leica ‘L’ lens on an S1R if I happened to like the S1R’s ergonomics and controls.  No reason to think it wouldn’t produce absolutely fantastic results.  There are enough people out there shooting the S1R as an upgrade to the SL that one would hardly be taking a risk at this point.  It’s a known quantity—works great, as it is intended to.

[Einst_Stein]

1 hour ago, Jared said:

Any photographic choice involves compromise, however, I’m not sure I agree with your points.

First, the fact that the Leica CEO has declared that non-Leica lenses won’t perform as well as the Leica L lenses is hardly evidence of, well, anything.  What else could the Leica CEO say?  Or any other CEO in a similar position?  That you shouldn’t buy their product because it’s not as good?

Second, mixing brands need not involve any compromise at all in terms of image quality.  The lens profiles are convenient, but hardly magical.  They address vignetting and distortion, and it’s easy enough in most cases with most lenses to build your own presets that will perform the exact same corrections In post to the same level of quality.  Heck, I’d actually prefer Leica didn’t embed their profiles but just tagged files with the appropriate info as there are times I might not want to apply the embedded corrections.  

As to mixing L and M... For your use case, perhaps it is true that this results in the worst of both worlds.  That was not the case for me.  As megapixel counts keep climbing, I have found that for my eyes we have reached the limits of my ability to accurately focus an ‘M’ lens on an ‘M’ body using the rangefinder for any focal length above 35mm or so.  Sure, I can come close, and for lots of photographs close is just fine.  But nail the focus on a subject’s near eye using a 75mm Summicron?  At f/2?  Reliably?  No way.  Not at 24 megapixels, and certainly not at higher resolutions.  What about putting that same 75mm Summicron on the SL and using magnified view?  Yup.  Every time.  End result for me was that the SL became a better camera for my ‘M’ lenses as Leica, Panasonic, and Sigma build out their L offerings.

Can their be compatibility issues with third party lenses?  Does the L mount alliance guarantee no issues?  Of course there will be teething pains.  But sticking with a single brand hardly guarantees immunity from that.  My digital ‘M’ camera was an 8.2.  Had to deal with crop factor (which significantly altered the behavior of all my lenses).  Remember the IR cut filters?  “Italian Flag” color gradients on certain wide angle lenses?  Eventually, having to 6-bit profile lenses?  And that was all with a Leica ‘M’ body using Leica ‘M’ glass.  

I would be perfectly comfortable putting a Leica ‘L’ lens on an S1R if I happened to like the S1R’s ergonomics and controls.  No reason to think it wouldn’t produce absolutely fantastic results.  There are enough people out there shooting the S1R as an upgrade to the SL that one would hardly be taking a risk at this point.  It’s a known quantity—works great, as it is intended to.

It's a common practice in all "open standard" or "alliance" I know of that the leading initiator would have one way or the other to make sure the invited partner would not be a threat to itself, rather, they are meant be form a competition momentum to the competitors out of the alliance. The tricks are usually in the unpublished technical details. There could be something else that I don't know.

On the other hand, this practice is not a secrete conspiracy to the alliance partners.  The unpublished technical details in a way is the advantage for the competitors to make their own differentiation. The counter common practice in the alliance partners are to show the strength of their own products over the other partner if the products are used in the proposed environments, such as to use the Panasonic lens on the Panasonic camera. I haven't done any comparison, nor will I do it, but I would not be surprised if Panasonic managed to make sure their lens performance best on their own camera instead of on Leica's. 

Canon and Nikon have done the same thing on their DSLR/SLR so that the lens from Sigma or Tamron would not outperform the lens from canon or Nikon even they have the compatible" lens mount. Unfortunately Sigma and Tamron can not produce Canon or Nikon mount camera body.

Similar scenario are seen on the Sony mirrorless camera system. A lot of Leica lenses do not perform as well on Sony camera, although the Leica/Leica combination is till unbeatable. 

[Jared]

2 hours ago, Einst_Stein said:

It's a common practice in all "open standard" or "alliance" I know of that the leading initiator would have one way or the other to make sure the invited partner would not be a threat to itself, rather, they are meant be form a competition momentum to the competitors out of the alliance. The tricks are usually in the unpublished technical details. There could be something else that I don't know.

On the other hand, this practice is not a secrete conspiracy to the alliance partners.  The unpublished technical details in a way is the advantage for the competitors to make their own differentiation. The counter common practice in the alliance partners are to show the strength of their own products over the other partner if the products are used in the proposed environments, such as to use the Panasonic lens on the Panasonic camera. I haven't done any comparison, nor will I do it, but I would not be surprised if Panasonic managed to make sure their lens performance best on their own camera instead of on Leica's. 

Canon and Nikon have done the same thing on their DSLR/SLR so that the lens from Sigma or Tamron would not outperform the lens from canon or Nikon even they have the compatible" lens mount. Unfortunately Sigma and Tamron can not produce Canon or Nikon mount camera body.

Similar scenario are seen on the Sony mirrorless camera system. A lot of Leica lenses do not perform as well on Sony camera, although the Leica/Leica combination is till unbeatable. 

There is an important distinction, though.  Sigma and Tamron are not members of a partnership with Nikon and Canon.  They have simply reverse engineered things like AF protocols without any formal cooperation from Nikon or Canon.  There is no published specification from Canon or Nikon on how to make lenses compatible with their F mount and EOS cameras. Historically, Canon and Nikon neither sought or desired third party lens makers.  

That is not true for people who signed on to the 4/3” standard, so you saw few compatibility issues or performance differences.  There were virtually none I am aware of that were intentional—Olympus trying to make sure Panasonic lenses wouldn’t work quite as well on their 4/3” bodies as their own lenses, for example. It just didn’t happen as far as I am aware. People have routinely purchased and benefited from having a wide range of lens makers in 4/3” cameras using a mount and communication protocol that works equally for all.  The ‘L’ mount alliance is a continuation of that model, not the Nikon/Sigma/Canon/Tamron/Tokina model.

As to Leica ‘M’ lenses not working well on Sony cameras, the causes of that have nothing to do with Sony trying to keep people from buying Leica ‘M’ glass.  Ever since Olympus first marketed their “designed for digital” lens lineup the better part of 20 years ago, camera makers have understood that telecentric designs are much more important for digital cameras than for film.  For years Leica claimed they would never make a digital ‘M’ camera because the short backfocus distance and lack of telecentric designs in Leica lenses made a digital camera using then existing ‘M’ glass difficult or impossible.  Sony hasn’t sabotaged their cameras to prevent them from working with ‘M’ glass—they simply had no reason to take the very significant engineering steps to actively make their cameras work with adapted lenses from a different format.  

I don’t think users of Olympus 4/3” cameras worry for one second about putting a Leica branded 4/3” lens on their camera.  I don’t think Panasonic camera owners worry about using an Olympus brand lens if it has the price and performance characteristics they are looking for.  The same should be true for the ‘L’ mount alliance which is, substantially, a continuation of the 4/3” partnership. I’ve seen evidence in the ‘L’ mount alliance that there are things people didn’t think of, like how AF clutches would work on a mount where they hadn’t previously been envisioned by Leica.  I’ve seen no evidence of any kind of sabotage or any of the partners “holding back” some sort of secret ingredient or private API that makes one manufacturer’s stiff work better.

[scott kirkpatrick]

In fact, responding appropriately to an L-mount lens with an AF clutch has been added to recent firmware upgrades to the CL and SL and I would assume is coming soon for the SL2.

There are "hold backs."  Leica does not share their lens profiles that operate in camera with M and R lenses (and possibly stuff that is never exposed for the SL lenses).  But nothing that cannot be dealt with in post processing.  Vignetting corrections, for example, are easy.  M lens edge and corner corrections are probably not a key concern at Panasonic, and they can be fixed later with more effort. 

going back two Jared posts -- yes of course I remember the M8, M8.2 and M9 (that's the one with the Italian flag problem, to which the off-center positioning of the chip in the camera frame made a contribution).  And IR filters, which I still have a drawer-full of.  But the M10 rangefinder is more accurate and easier to use than the earlier ones.  I am quicker and just as accurate with it and a 50 or 75 lens as with CDAF.  Maybe I can do a little better with focus magnification if the subject is fully cooperating,  perhaps a flower, but that takes time.

Edited March 2, 2020 by scott kirkpatrick

[Jared]

5 hours ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

<snip>

going back two Jared posts -- yes of course I remember the M8, M8.2 and M9 (that's the one with the Italian flag problem, to which the off-center positioning of the chip in the camera frame made a contribution).  And IR filters, which I still have a drawer-full of.  But the M10 rangefinder is more accurate and easier to use than the earlier ones.  I am quicker and just as accurate with it and a 50 or 75 lens as with CDAF.  Maybe I can do a little better with focus magnification if the subject is fully cooperating,  perhaps a flower, but that takes time.

Hey, if a rangefinder is working for you, great. I used one quite happily for many years.  I still think it’s a great option for 28mm and 35mm lenses, and not a bad one for 50mm.  I also grew that the M10 has the best optical rangefinder Leica has had in a very long time if not ever.  But I was not quicker—and certainly less accurate—with mine than I was focusing on the SL.  I found focus peaking to give me all the speed I ever had with rangefinder focus, and magnified view gave me much more accuracy.  For several years (when there was really just the 24-90 on the SL) I found the SL to be a better platform for ‘M’ glass.  I took some of my best shots ever on a photographic trip to Patagonia a few years back with a WATE, a 50 APO, and a 90mm ‘M’ macro.  The SL was my platform of choice for those three lenses.  Arguably, the M10 would have been better in Buenos Aires for street shooting, but the SL did better with the WATE and with the 90.  It was that trip which pushed me to finally part with my M.

[scott kirkpatrick]

Right now, I have two operating modes.  M10-D to be inconspicuous, used with 50 mm and wider.  28 and 24 are the favorites, using a VF020 with the 24 for framing after focusing with the rangefinder.  The typical setting will be mingling about during an event of some sort.  Not too distracting, even though I am hardly invisible.  And the 35/50/70 on the SL2 for serious stuff, where I take a little more time studying a shot.  What is a tripod?

I bought an S1R about 6 months before the SL2 came out, getting a pretty good deal on it.  I thought I would sell it on at a modest loss, but its resale price has dropped faster than expected, and I like it.  I think you have to be pretty obsessive to consider "image quality" as a differentiator now.  It's more a question of photographer experience. finding gear that lets you work without distractions.

Edited March 2, 2020 by scott kirkpatrick

[Jared]

18 minutes ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

Right now, I have two operating modes.  M10-D to be inconspicuous, used with 50 mm and wider.  28 and 24 are the favorites, using a VF020 with the 24 for framing after focusing with the rangefinder.  The typical setting will be mingling about during an event of some sort.  Not too distracting, even though I am hardly invisible.  And the 35/50/70 on the SL2 for serious stuff, where I take a little more time studying a shot.  What is a tripod?

I bought an S1R about 6 months before the SL2 came out, getting a pretty good deal on it.  I thought I would sell it on at a modest loss, but its resale price has dropped faster than expected, and I like it.  I think you have to be pretty obsessive to consider "image quality" as a differentiator now.  It's more a question of photographer experience. finding gear that lets you work without distractions.

I certainly agree with that last point.  I avoided getting the S1R—and it had nothing at all to do with the camera’s capabilities.  I expect it is every bit as capable of taking excellent pictures in any environment as the SL2, is likely just as tough, and is dramatically less expensive.  I avoided it because I vastly prefer the controls on the SL/SL2, not because it was less capable.  There is some anecdotal evidence that it is the better camera in terms of AF performance, for example.  From a technical perspective, any of the current crop of cameras is capable of absolutely superb image quality.  I still wouldn’t recommend my X1DII for action shots, though, or a M10 for wildlife.  

[BernardC]

On 2/28/2020 at 8:02 PM, Tailwagger said:

Here is the original scene per the SL-35mm, crap photo, again unprocessed, but not an atypical scenario for any of these lenses.  Focus was on the first row of graves.

If the focus was elsewhere in the image, you are testing field curvature, not sharpness.

Many lenses have field curvature that makes them focus closer at the edges than at the center. Of course, it's all academic if that's the composition you are working with. It doesn't matter if the edges are soft because they are not in focus, or if they are soft because the lens is poor (with that sensor).

[Einst_Stein]

16 hours ago, Jared said:

As to Leica ‘M’ lenses not working well on Sony cameras, the causes of that have nothing to do with Sony trying to keep people from buying Leica ‘M’ glass.  Ever since Olympus first marketed their “designed for digital” lens lineup the better part of 20 years ago, camera makers have understood that telecentric designs are much more important for digital cameras than for film.  For years Leica claimed they would never make a digital ‘M’ camera because the short backfocus distance and lack of telecentric designs in Leica lenses made a digital camera using then existing ‘M’ glass difficult or impossible.  Sony hasn’t sabotaged their cameras to prevent them from working with ‘M’ glass—they simply had no reason to take the very significant engineering steps to actively make their cameras work with adapted lenses from a different format.  

In the Leica lens on Sony camera issue,  I don't think it is Sony tries to discriminate Leica's glass, I think Sony would love to death to show Sony's camera's equal or more capable of showing Leica M's magic IQ and yet still has extra benefit of the Sony's AF lenses. The trick is on the Leica side. Sony simply cannot find the way that Leica do on Leica's camera.

And this is exactly the unpublished technical details I meant.

Back to L alliance, I read somewhere that Leica said clearly, the Alliance is only about the L mount spec. There is no exchange of lens design infos. So every partner is on its own on the lens compensation. Leica, however, would help to put each partner's lens compensation into Leica's camera firmware. This is definitely a non-conspiracy back door.

[Einst_Stein]

14 hours ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

There are "hold backs."  Leica does not share their lens profiles that operate in camera with M and R lenses (and possibly stuff that is never exposed for the SL lenses).  But nothing that cannot be dealt with in post processing.  Vignetting corrections, for example, are easy.  M lens edge and corner corrections are probably not a key concern at Panasonic, and they can be fixed later with more effort. 

I don't think it is that easy. At least we found Sony's camera cannot overcome the lens compensation issues when using some of Leica M lenses (and some Contax G lenses).  It simply does not work.

In the L alliance, Leica is not responsible to tell Panasonic or Sigma how to do the lens compensation to make Leica's lens works as good as on Leica's camera. Or how to Leica lens works as good as on their camera. Each partner can come up with their own best solution, and then port to each other's camera.

It is not practical to think this will remove the differentiation across the brands. In fact, none of the L alliance partner would want to loose that chance of differentiations in the lens/camera interface, besides the pure lens design technology.

Edited March 2, 2020 by Einst_Stein

[Jared]

1 hour ago, Einst_Stein said:

In the Leica lens on Sony camera issue,  I don't think it is Sony tries to discriminate Leica's glass, I think Sony would love to death to show Sony's camera's equal or more capable of showing Leica M's magic IQ and yet still has extra benefit of the Sony's AF lenses. The trick is on the Leica side. Sony simply cannot find the way that Leica do on Leica's camera.

And this is exactly the unpublished technical details I meant.

Back to L alliance, I read somewhere that Leica said clearly, the Alliance is only about the L mount spec. There is no exchange of lens design infos. So every partner is on its own on the lens compensation. Leica, however, would help to put each partner's lens compensation into Leica's camera firmware. This is definitely a non-conspiracy back door.

Oh, I'm sure Sony could find a way if they wanted to.  They could thin out the cover glass like Leica and they could modify the microlenses to accept more acute angles.  That's what Leica did, and I'm sure it would work.  But I just don't think Sony (or any other major brand) is that interested in or worried about how their cameras perform with Leica 'M' glass.

As to the L alliance, it must include more than just the mount spec.  It also must include the communications protocols.  Otherwise autofocus would never work.  The combination of lens OIS and IBIS would never work.  I agree with you on the lens profiles, though.  It does not appear that any of the camera manufacturers are embedding lens profiles for other makers' lenses into their DNG's.  Honestly, though, that's pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things.  It only addresses vignetting and distortion, both of which can be done in post using profiles supplied to Adobe by the lens manufacturers.  Same end result, just applied later in the process.

[paulsydaus]

On 2/28/2020 at 4:33 PM, Jared said:

Purely in terms of image quality?  The S1R with the 75mm SL Summicron will be a clear step above.  The Summarit is an absolutely fantastic lens, but like all Summarits it is intended to be a compromise of moderate speed, low weight, small size, and reasonable cost (by Leica ‘M’ standards).  Good as it is, it can’t compete with the SL Summicron in terms of straight up image quality when used on a 47 megapixel body.  Even at f/5.6.  Could you tell the difference between them if you pixel peeped?  Yup, you could.  
 

That being said, if you asked me which I’d rather own, it gets a little harder.  The flexibility of having a good AF system vs. needing to manually focus all my shots may or may not matter for your type of photography.  If it does matter, then, again, the S1R and Summicron is the obvious choice.  If it doesn’t matter to you, though, I think I would take the SL2, and it has little to do with image quality.  I VASTLY prefer the ergonomics of the SL2 to the S1R.  It feels better in my hand and has a set of controls that I find to be a huge improvement on the Panasonic.  That’s a matter of taste, of course.  A reasonable person could easily feel the opposite.  Still, I’d take the SL2 knowing that I could add some SL glass later, despite the technically poorer performance (relatively) of the 75mm Summarit for the near term.  It’s not like the Summarit is a bad lens, and at moderate apertures it would take a significant crop or a large print to tell them apart.

Neither approach is a mistake, though.  If you like the controls, size, and shape of the S1R it is every bit as good a camera as the SL2 aside from use with wider ‘M’ glass, and the 75mm Summicron is a truly special lens in a way that the Summarit just can’t quite match. OK, I can’t speak to the video capabilities of either camera, so not sure about that area.  

I was going to post but Jared sums it all up perfectly.

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[Jon Warwick]

Many thanks to everyone for their thoughts. I don’t think I disagreed with anything anyone wrote, and it was all very helpful.

I thought, as the OP, that I’d give my conclusion - which is I’ve chosen to go with the SL2, and will pick it up next week.

In the end, I tried out an S1R with the M75mm Summarit, the LUMIX 24-105mm, and the SL 90mm Summicron;

and I tried out the SL2 with my M75mm Summarit, and a SL 90mm Summicron.

My reasons for the SL2 were ....

(1) imho, to my eyes ..... after taking some Raws, using my own workflow and getting crops (off a 45” wide image) printed on a lambda printer ....I preferred the rendering from the SL2. To my eyes, the SL2 files looked a bit more gentle in their rendering compared to the S1R’s. Indeed, I personally found the S1R files to be VERY sharp in terms of acuity, even with sharpening zeroed in PS.

With a background in 5x4 film, my preference is an image with very high resolution (ie, high recording of fine details) but doing this in as gentle a way as possible (ie, not with overly high acuity), and for whatever reason I personally found it easier to get that gentler and more subtle look with the SL2.

(2) It’s clear that M lenses are best on an M camera, especially the wides, but I liked that the SL2 gives these M lenses the most opportunity (as a lighter weight set up) to perform well out of any camera other than an M.

3) from the sample images I took, and also looking at the MTFs, my M 75mm Summarit is a pretty decent lens when stopped down to f5.6, so might suffice for now, and I saw no problems whatsoever with smearing at the edges. It it a pretty telecentric design though. The MTF for it is below ....its MTF lines at are not as good as the SL 75mm Summicron at f5.6, but not too far off either (the MTF for the M Summarit at f5.6 is similar to the SL 75m at f8).

https://uk.leica-camera.com/content/download/131042/1644356/version/1/file/Datenblatt_Summarit-M+2.4_75mm_e.pdf

Thanks again for your comments above!

Edited March 6, 2020 by Jon Warwick

[Jared]

I’m sure you will enjoy it!  You can always add SL glass later if you find you want the convenience of AF, zooms, or weather sealing.  Though I never used my 75mm Summarit on a body with more than 24 megapixels it gave superb results that never disappointed, and it’s one of my favorite perspectives for people with just enough focal length to blur backgrounds and draw your attention to the subject without losing all context for the image. I don’t think you will be disappointed in your results from a technical perspective.