SL to SL2 in three days - instant comparisons

[LocalHero1953]

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I've had the SL almost since launch, and also the CL. My M240 was squeezed out between these two, so I sadly sold it - most of the M lenses have now also gone. So I am well embedded in the L-system, including the Sigma fp.

So I guess it's not surprising that I have just bought the SL2, and the SL is packed up for sale. The decision was quick: I used the SL for the first time in six months on Wednesday, for dress rehearsals for an outdoor play - a momentous occasion when live performances of anything have been impossible. The SL, mainly with the 90-280 zoom, performed well, but I realised two things:
- Although I love the 4-button label-free interface on the SL, I use the CL 70% of the time, and 90% since March (the remaining 10% is video with the fp). I found returning to the SL a bit slow to get to speed with, and it needed mental effort that I'd rather devote to looking at shots.
- In the last year or so I have acquired the Summicron-SL 90 and 75. Although my hands are steady and my human subjects are normally moving, I value the security of OIS in the two big SL zooms.

The SL arrived yesterday (thank you, Red Dot Cameras), and I used it today for real, for two outdoor performances of the same play. Others considering the same choice may find my first impressions/comparisons between the two cameras useful - so here they are.

Image quality
I'm not a head-banging tester, so I'm talking about the subjective impressions I get from processing two batches of images using the same lens (the 90-280 zoom) within 1-2 days. The resolution is an obvious step up, and is easily noticeable when zooming in in Lightroom. On the other hand, I rarely print larger than A3, and although I crop, I rarely crop small, because I find perspective is too often a giveaway sign of excessive cropping, and I find it disturbing. So resolution improvement, although clear, is not a big plus for me.
I had to make very few adjustments for colour, using Adobe's Standard profile for the SL2. Skin tones were generally faithful, as were vegetation greens. This seems slightly better than the SL. AWB was also accurate except where the scene had both sunlight and shade in it - no surprise there - but similar to the SL. 
There is a definite improvement in highlight control when using A mode (centre weighted). Faces in bright sunlight are typically a problem: think of shadow in eye sockets and sunlight on (caucasian) cheeks - the latter often contain blown highlights on the SL unless I underexpose and adjust in post. The SL2 just did not blow highlights with exposure compensation set to 0. Skin in sunlight was still too bright, but easily corrected in post. A definite step forward.

Autofocus
I used either AFs face detect or spot focus with the SL, but found it frustrating that I could not assign a button to toggle between the two - neither was particularly satisfactory when composing and shooting quickly. I provisionally set iAF on the SL2 ('intelligent AF'), and the 'Team Sports' setting. I have found it surprisingly good so far. When the SL couldn't identify a face (often) it rarely found an acceptable alternative. The SL2's iAF recognises other objects such as bodies, and tracks them (several at a time) even when the shutter is not half pressed. This is a big step forward and, in a play, worked very well in tracking the performers. I fooled it a couple of times, most obviously when I tried to shoot the performance from the behind the audience, intending to focus on the performers, but keeping some audience heads in the frame; the SL2 wanted to focus on the nearest heads, and I found it difficult to persuade it otherwise. 

Speed of performance
In shooting, everything felt very snappy, with quick responses to shutter presses and button/menu actions. EVF-shutter lag is even less than the SL (which I found quick): it was easier to respond to actors' expressions. Playback was slower than the SL2, with a definite blackout after pressing the PLAY button, and slower to zoom in to an image. It seems slower to start up as well.

Usability and interface
As I intended by buying the SL2, I found the basic 3-button interface intuitive because it is essentially the same as the CL's. I occasionally missed the CL's centre button for swapping between EVF display info, but I've now assigned that to the upper front button. My other assignments are: Fn: User Profiles; Top-left: shutter type; Top-right: image stabilisation; Front-lower: AF mode.
The change in interface means that it gets out of the way while shooting, because of its similarity to the CL's - just as I wanted.
I have set User Profiles: My Default, Flash, Video-tripod and Video-hand. Others I considered but did not use were Silent (because I can set the electronic shutter from the quick menu), HDR (ditto) and Multishot (ditto). I have assigned one profile to Monochrome for the moment, just to make it quick to see what a scene will look like in the EVF in monochrome.
Some improvements have been made to the main menu layout (Customise Controls and User Profiles appear on the same page for a start, making it easier to set up profiles), but some menu lists still run over the bottom of the page, so you can't flick from page to page to see what's on each one. Sigma still do menus better, but Leica are moving in the right direction.

Battery use
I'd read reports of poor power performance in the SL2, but it hasn't been a problem today. I was at two 1-hour performances, with the camera in use for all of each one, plus a bit before each one; I took around 320 shots in total, and I'm down to one bar on the battery display. I kept the default power saving settings, and set the EVF to Extended, as I usually do. I expected the iAF setting to consume more power, since it is continually monitoring 'bodies', but I found battery use acceptable.

Disclaimers - these should be obvious, but to get my defence in first.....
- I am comparing only the SL and SL2. I am happy to accept that other cameras may do AF better than Leica, but that is not my concern.
- I use the SL for a particular usage: music/stage/portraits/events. So not landscape, wildlife, street, travel, sports. My comments are made in that context.

Edited September 5, 2020 by LocalHero1953

[Boojay]

So you like it then😊!  

Only being silly Paul.

I have been using the SL2 for a while now and didn't really have anything to compare it with other than a brief fling with a Sony and a long history with Canon, but like you being a CL user makes it very familiar, only thing about that being I'm pretty sure I have yet to exploit anywhere near it's potential.  Looking forward to seeing some images.

[LocalHero1953]

16 minutes ago, Boojay said:

So you like it then😊!  

Only being silly Paul.

I have been using the SL2 for a while now and didn't really have anything to compare it with other than a brief fling with a Sony and a long history with Canon, but like you being a CL user makes it very familiar, only thing about that being I'm pretty sure I have yet to exploit anywhere near it's potential.  Looking forward to seeing some images.

I'll post some images here as soon as I've processed them all and sent them to the theatre company. The client comes first, even though I'm unpaid! 

Yes, I like it - to a certain extent it's 'no surprises here then' because it does what I expected it to, and after the CL and the SL I didn't need to look at the manual.

The new AF settings will take some exploring, and I am delighted by the better highlight control. I'm looking forward to trying it in low light.

Edit. Nothing to do with the SL2, but every time I use the 90-280 zoom I'm gobsmacked by its image quality - just simple 'clarity' is the word that comes to mind.

Edited September 5, 2020 by LocalHero1953

[Jeff S]

40 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

Edit. Nothing to do with the SL2, but every time I use the 90-280 zoom I'm gobsmacked by its image quality - just simple 'clarity' is the word that comes to mind.

+1, except that for me it does have something to do with the SL2.... IBIS in addition to OIS brings out the very best IQ in my shaky hands (no tripod for me).  I would have bet when I bought the SL2 that I wouldn’t own such a beast of a lens, but it reminds me why repeatedly.  And it balances surprisingly well.  I enjoy It with back button AF and auto-magnify by tweaking focus ring.  

Jeff

Edited September 5, 2020 by Jeff S

[michali]

Good to read your views on the SL2 Paul. I initially sat on the fence for a while, (all of 30 days 🙄), before deciding to buy the SL2 last Dec. Since then the SL's been sitting on the shelf & I've been using the CL as back up to the SL2, same reasons, similar menu set up etc. as the SL2

Finally took the decision,  boxed the SL & sold it this past week.  

 

[WeiterWinkel]

Thanks for your detailed report. My SL2 hast arrived just two days ago (after a trial weekend, courtesy of my photo dealer), adding to my inventory of Q2 and CL. What makes me curios: why do you assign a button to image stabilisation? Why don't you just leave it always on? I'll read your answer in a few hours, but now I have to leave to take some pictures with the new precious 🙂

Thomas

[LocalHero1953]

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9 hours ago, WeiterWinkel said:

Thanks for your detailed report. My SL2 hast arrived just two days ago (after a trial weekend, courtesy of my photo dealer), adding to my inventory of Q2 and CL. What makes me curios: why do you assign a button to image stabilisation? Why don't you just leave it always on? I'll read your answer in a few hours, but now I have to leave to take some pictures with the new precious 🙂

Thomas

I assign a button to IS because I occasionally use a tripod. Normal advice is that one should turn off IS when using a tripod. When I used a tripod with the SL and one of the stabilised lenses, I could see the image in the viewfinder drifting - with the 90-280 in particular it made framing and spot focusing difficult. I have heard that some systems now automatically switch off IS when they detect that they are on a tripod, but I have not checked the behaviour of the SL2.

In practice, there are more buttons on the SL2 than I need. I am used to the CL which has no joystick and needs one more button. The SL2 gives me perhaps three buttons more than I need!

Edited September 6, 2020 by LocalHero1953

[jplomley]

What about noise comparison between SL and SL2. Have you noticed much difference?

[LocalHero1953]

I've set my AutoISO to the same settings as I used for the SL: a maximum of 12500. Most of the time yesterday I was shooting in good daylight, so didn't stress test it. For a few shots in the evening I forgot I'd set f/11 for one shot, and subsequent ones ended up at ISO 12500.

For example, here is the full frame to show the scene, as rapidly processed with noise reduction. FL 280mm f/11, 1/250s. Next posts will show 1:1.

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[LocalHero1953]

And here is a 1:1 crop of the girl on the left.

First, no noise reduction, no sharpening, no clarity.

 

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[LocalHero1953]

Now, with colour noise reduction at 25 (Detail 50, Smoothness 50) and luminance noise reduction at 30 (Detail 50, Contrast 0)

 

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[LocalHero1953]

And the same but Luminance noise reduction set at 60. We're entering the plastic skin zone here.

 

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[jplomley]

Thank-you for the comparison.  I wonder how Topaz DeNoise might compare?  Have you tried this software?

[LocalHero1953]

This is with Lightroom's noise reduction system From my limited experience of Topaz, I have no doubt it could do a much better job.

In summary, noise on the SL2 at 12500 is much more acceptable than with the SL. With careful processing I have no doubt I would find the 12500 more than acceptable for many shots. 

[LocalHero1953]

2 minutes ago, jplomley said:

Thank-you for the comparison.  I wonder how Topaz DeNoise might compare?  Have you tried this software?

My previous post was written before seeing your reply. I have tried it: it works very well, but I have yet to work out the best workflow to make it work easily with Lightroom. It also takes a lot of processing power - it is not a quick fix.

There are gremlins in Topaz, reported online. It has trouble dealing with systems that have both integrated graphics processors in the CPU and a separate GPU, as I have. Saving a DNG from Topaz, if you get it wrong, gives you a black file! 

Edited September 6, 2020 by LocalHero1953