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Leica SL2-S Survey


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Leica SL2-S Survey  

558 members have voted

  1. 1. Will you buy the Leica SL2-S?

    • Yes, I already have a Leica SL / SL2
      87
    • Yes, I have another Leica System
      96
    • Yes, will be my first Leica
      8
    • Interested, but I'm waiting for more tests
      116
    • Interesting camera, but not for me
      150
    • No thanks
      100


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I used the SL for about 3 years.  The SL2 gave me some better weather sealing, better image sizes and some upgrades from the SL (although I never liked having the GPS removed and would have paid extra to keep that, but it must not be a big issue for others).  So, I have no need for an SL2-S with lower pixel densities, or I would have kept the SL!

I find some areas where the dynamic range is lacking (comparison to the S007), but not too many.  I love to use the SL2 with several R lenses (APO 70-180 f/2.8, APO 280 f/2.8) with the 1.4x and 2.0x APO R extenders, I also like using it with the S lenses which draw incredibly well.  Sometimes, just for fun I use the Nikon adapter with old AIS lenses (like the Nikon 105 f/2.5, the 85 f/1.4 and 35mm f/1.4).

It seems like a great alternative to the SL2 and I'm sure has great uses for some styles.  Since most of my work is landscape, I prefer the SL2.

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On 12/31/2020 at 2:44 PM, Chaemono said:

Here is proof that the f/1.4 look of the Summicron SL lenses is not in the blur, it’s in the transition from the in-focus to the out-of-focus areas. Starting at 5:47  

If the Summicron-SL has a f/1.4 look, why do they sell a Summilux-SL ?

Well, I am half kidding here. I know what you are trying to say (thanks for the link BTW, really interesting to see the comparison). It's just that calling it a 'f/1.4 look' is taking it a little bit too far in my eyes. YMMV

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5 hours ago, toyfel said:

If the Summicron-SL has a f/1.4 look, why do they sell a Summilux-SL ?

Well, I am half kidding here. I know what you are trying to say (thanks for the link BTW, really interesting to see the comparison). It's just that calling it a 'f/1.4 look' is taking it a little bit too far in my eyes. YMMV

Couldn’t agree more.The 50 SL has a very special look. I had both.   the 50 APO SL and SL...  I kept the 50 SL. 

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On 1/2/2021 at 8:01 AM, toyfel said:

If the Summicron-SL has a f/1.4 look, why do they sell a Summilux-SL ?

Well, I am half kidding here. I know what you are trying to say (thanks for the link BTW, really interesting to see the comparison). It's just that calling it a 'f/1.4 look' is taking it a little bit too far in my eyes. YMMV

 

23 hours ago, Donzo98 said:

Couldn’t agree more.The 50 SL has a very special look. I had both.   the 50 APO SL and SL...  I kept the 50 SL. 

 

On 12/22/2020 at 3:18 PM, Donzo98 said:

I know @Dr. G... trust me :) He's looking at the Noctilux... HARD!!

 

I used the 50 Lux S 95% of the time on the original SL.  When I got back into Leica with the SL2 I shot the 50mm Summilux-SL and the 50mm APO Summicron-SL side by side and ultimate decided to keep the APO Summicron-SL.  

They are different lenses in the way they render.  When I was comparing them I was doing a fair amount of photography with high contrast subjects, lots of detail and texture and was going for that look in my monochrome conversions.  The 50 Lux was falling slightly (and I mean very slightly) behind in that regard, so I sold the 50 Lux-SL and keep the the APO Summicron-SL. In a torture test, you can tell that the 50 Lux SL isn't an APO lens (but you probably won't see it 95% of the time as it is only in very specific situations that is shows up).  But APO lenses aren't just for color.  When Voigtlander introduced their 50 APO lens there was a sample image gallery that had a few black and white photos and some questioned why they would show those when the APO designation helps with color and fringing.  The answer is that if you're going for very detailed or high contrast black and white images, a small amount of CA will make a difference.  

The falloff is slightly different between the lenses..  If you noticed some of the comparison photos from the photos in the video he commented that he couldn't understand why in the images made with the Canon both his wife's face and dress were in focus and with the APO Summicron the dress was out of focus when her face was in focus.  Someone will need to verify this, but commenters stated that the focal plane of the 50 APO Summicron-SL is curved, rather than flat, which would make sense in the case of why the face and dress weren't both in focus simultaneously.  So it may "emulate" a 1.4 aperture through the use of the curved focal plane.  The APO Summicron-SL does create a very good separation of subject and background, but the falloff and rendering of the out of focus areas is different.

I started shooting a few portraits recently and found that the 50 APO SL images don't look like images I had taken years ago with the 50 Lux SL.  Donzo is correct, there's something special about the way the 50 Lux SL renders...

...which is why I ordered a preowned one that I found in like new condition yesterday from Leica SoHo.  

I'm not selling the 50 APO SL, though - I still prefer it for monochrome conversions and a more "modern" look in terms of contrast, micro contrast and sharpness.  Now if they would just release a Monochrome variant of the SL2 I'd be even happier.  

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Hi Guys,

 

so, Leica got me - again.

I am a M10P-User, coming from the Q and the 240 with some m-lenses. 

The SL2-S caught my attention, as it brings a lot of niceties of the SL2 with a very good 24mp sensor. I don't need and I don't want 47mp. 

So today I've tried the SL2-S in Munich with a Summicron-SL 35mm and the M-Adapter to see how this works. I had no bad intentions, just trying. The store was really nice. As we are still in lockdown I had to call upfront so that they can prepare the camera and I picked it up at the door - entering not allowed. 

And off I went. Man, what a nice camera and the Summicron-SL 35 is sooo lovely. Also the use of the m-adapter with my 35mm Summilux was lovely. Beside the great form factor the final decision-point came when I've used the SL2-S in parallel with my M10P in a rather dim church. With AF, of course no contest. But even with the m-adapter, back and forth, the focusing was so much easier on the SL2-S compared to the M- it was unbelievable. 

So I send a brief message to my wife "Sorry, I have to take it with me" - Answer: "As expected 🙂 " - best wife in the world. 

Back to the shop, brief bargaining and carrying home the SL2-S with an m-adapter (in silver so that it will match my Summaron 28, which I will keep forever) and a second battery. 

Now, after checking the pictures at home I've already decided to not only sell the m10p (I am a strong single camera guy by principle) but also the 35mm Summilux  to buy the 35 Summicron-SL - what a lens! 

The really great thing is that the camera feels and operates so great and I that beside using my modern m-glas, I can also AF-lenses, but I can also keep my older m-glas or my most beloved Summaron 28 (new version) or the 3.4 21 in full glory. 

 

That's just a brief introduction from a happy guy :)

 

Cheers

Daniel

 

P.S. Another thing I just recognized: While still being clearer at the same Iso-values. The M10P needed with roughly the same histogram and comparable picture brightness on my screen 1/60s at 1.4 and Iso6400 (35 summilux-m asp) while the SL2-S worked with 1/40s at f2.0 and iso3200 (35mm Summicron-SL) - quiet interesting.

 

Edited by Daniel C.1975
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3 hours ago, Daniel C.1975 said:

Now, after checking the pictures at home I've already decided to not only sell the m10p (I am a strong single camera guy by principle) but also the 35mm Summilux  to buy the 35 Summicron-SL - what a lens! 

 

Indeed there is no contest between Summilux-M 35 and Summicron-SL 35.

It’s interesting that Leica has on my view quite subpar lenses on such popular / main lenses (lux35 and lux50) and I suspect we will see new versions rather sooner than later.

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11 minutes ago, oka said:

Indeed there is no contest between Summilux-M 35 and Summicron-SL 35.

It’s interesting that Leica has on my view quite subpar lenses on such popular / main lenses (lux35 and lux50) and I suspect we will see new versions rather sooner than later.

Subpar?

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I dare say that the Summilux 35 asph is still one of the best 35mm lenses in the world. 35mm is just for me the most important / used focal length and therefore the logical choice to go for af in the beginning. It‘s just that the dof-difference is not as big as I feared and that the summicron-sl might not keep up. It is a bit better, but not by margins. But it has AF and is weathersealed, but also a lot bigger than the sweet little Summilux ;)

Cheers

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On 1/4/2021 at 6:30 PM, oka said:

Indeed there is no contest between Summilux-M 35 and Summicron-SL 35.

Before comparing the two lenses let's remember that the SL-series cameras make in-camera software image corrections for the 35/2 Summicron that are not available for the 35/1.4 Summilux-asph FLE (or any other M lenses) so you're hardly comparing apples with apples.

Personally, I think 'this lens is better than that lens' debates are meaningless.  I'm more interested in the picture than the glass tube that conducts the light.

Pete.

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18 minutes ago, farnz said:

Before comparing the two lenses let's remember that the SL-series cameras make in-camera software image corrections for the 35/2 Summicron that are not available for the 35/1.4 Summilux-asph FLE (or any other M lenses) so you're hardly comparing apples with apples.

Personally, I think 'this lens is better than that lens' debates are meaningless.  I'm more interested in the picture than the glass tube that conducts the light.

Pete.

Which in-camera corrections are applied on 35/2 Summicron that are not available on M lenses?

Here is what I know. SL cameras apply in-camera luminance vignetting and color drift corrections when mounting coded M lenses. Distortion and chromatic aberration corrections of L-mount lenses are handled via built-in profiles, but 35/2 Summicron does not use any. With LrC, the user can turn on lens corrections for Summilux 35/1.4, but there are none for 35/2 Summicron.

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46 minutes ago, SrMi said:

SL cameras apply in-camera luminance vignetting and color drift corrections when mounting coded M lenses. Distortion and chromatic aberration corrections of L-mount lenses are handled via built-in profiles, but 35/2 Summicron does not use any. With LrC, the user can turn on lens corrections for Summilux 35/1.4, but there are none for 35/2 Summicron.

This is my understanding as well. If anything, the M lenses get more not less software corrections compared to SL lenses. SL lenses generally perform better than M lenses on the SL system because, although Leica tries to reduce the effect of colour shift and smearing at the frame corners from the acute incident angles of M lenses, they do not fully correct for it like the case in the M cameras. To do so would then cause compromise performance with more modern lens designs that do not form acute incident angles for light rays at the corners of the frame. Some of the remaining effects that is not corrected for by the microlens structure are further reduced in software, such as for colour shift.

Edited by beewee
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2 hours ago, SrMi said:

 

Here is what I know. SL cameras apply in-camera luminance vignetting and color drift corrections when mounting coded M lenses. Distortion and chromatic aberration corrections of L-mount lenses are handled via built-in profiles, but 35/2 Summicron does not use any. With LrC, the user can turn on lens corrections for Summilux 35/1.4, but there are none for 35/2 Summicron.

https://www.dechifro.org/dcraw/

 

 

>>>>> Via Imaging Resource

Lens Corrections
The Leica SL corrects for geometric distortion and chromatic aberration in camera JPEGs, and an embedded lens profile specifies similar corrections in DNG files. To examine uncorrected results shown below, we converted a few of the SL's DNG files with dcraw, which ignores embedded lens profiles.

Uncorrected Distortion
High barrel distortion at wide angle, low pincushion distortion at telephoto.

Barrel distortion at 24mm is ~1.9%
ZSLhVFAWS_DCR-550.jpg
Pincushion distortion at 90mm ~0.2%
ZSLhVFATS_DCR-550.jpg

The SL 24-90mm lens produced about 1.9% barrel distortion at wide angle, which is much higher than in-camera JPEGs or DNG files converted with corrections specified in the embedded lens profile. Pincushion distortion remained the same as in-camera JPEGs at full telephoto, at a low 0.2%.

Software distortion correction is very common these days, especially for lenses designed for mirrorless cameras, however we were a bit surprised this lens required so much correction given its size and price, as it leads to some loss of sharpness in the corners where the image is "stretched". In addition to distortion correction, the SL must also enlarge the image at wide angle, as sensor coverage isn't 100% especially along the horizontal axis where it's only about 93%. This leads to additional interpolation artifacts and reductions in sharpness compared to just "stretching" the corners.

Uncorrected Chromatic Aberration
Moderate chromatic aberration in the corners of uncorrected RAW files.

In-camera JPEG Uncorrected Raw
ZSLhVFAWS-CAUL.jpg ZSLhVFAWS_DCR-CAUL.jpg
Wide: Upper left
C.A.: Low
Wide: Upper left
C.A.: Moderately high
ZSLhVFATS-CAUL.jpg ZSLhVFATS_DCR-CAUL.jpg
Tele: Upper left
C.A.: Very low
Tele: Upper left
C.A.: Moderately low

As you can see from the crops above comparing camera JPEGs (on the left) to uncorrected DNG files (on the right), levels of lateral chromatic aberration are much higher in uncorrected RAW files, particularly at wide angle. Thus, the Leica SL's JPEG engine does a pretty good job at suppressing lateral chromatic aberration.

 

Overall, very good performance for a full-frame wide-angle 3.8x zoom, however mediocre corner performance at full telephoto, the amount of software correction required at wide angle and distracting bokeh in some real-world shots were disappointing given the lens' size and almost US$5,000 price tag.

 

 

>>>>> Via DXOMark

The APO-Summicron-SL 35mm F2 ASPH has very low levels of distortion. A built-in profile that instructs RAW files in supported processing software to make additional adjustments to handle distortion. These corrections or adjustments are also applied in-camera and to out-of-camera JPEGs. When the profile isn’t supported, it’s possible that the distortion may be noticeable in certain images where strong linear elements are located near the borders of the image frame. Fringing is also corrected by this built-in profile.

 

 

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1 minute ago, frame-it said:

 

 

>>>>> Via Imaging Resource

Lens Corrections
The Leica SL corrects for geometric distortion and chromatic aberration in camera JPEGs, and an embedded lens profile specifies similar corrections in DNG files. To examine uncorrected results shown below, we converted a few of the SL's DNG files with dcraw, which ignores embedded lens profiles.

Uncorrected Distortion
High barrel distortion at wide angle, low pincushion distortion at telephoto.

Barrel distortion at 24mm is ~1.9%
ZSLhVFAWS_DCR-550.jpg
Pincushion distortion at 90mm ~0.2%
ZSLhVFATS_DCR-550.jpg

The SL 24-90mm lens produced about 1.9% barrel distortion at wide angle, which is much higher than in-camera JPEGs or DNG files converted with corrections specified in the embedded lens profile. Pincushion distortion remained the same as in-camera JPEGs at full telephoto, at a low 0.2%.

Software distortion correction is very common these days, especially for lenses designed for mirrorless cameras, however we were a bit surprised this lens required so much correction given its size and price, as it leads to some loss of sharpness in the corners where the image is "stretched". In addition to distortion correction, the SL must also enlarge the image at wide angle, as sensor coverage isn't 100% especially along the horizontal axis where it's only about 93%. This leads to additional interpolation artifacts and reductions in sharpness compared to just "stretching" the corners.

Uncorrected Chromatic Aberration
Moderate chromatic aberration in the corners of uncorrected RAW files.

In-camera JPEG Uncorrected Raw
ZSLhVFAWS-CAUL.jpg ZSLhVFAWS_DCR-CAUL.jpg
Wide: Upper left
C.A.: Low
Wide: Upper left
C.A.: Moderately high
ZSLhVFATS-CAUL.jpg ZSLhVFATS_DCR-CAUL.jpg
Tele: Upper left
C.A.: Very low
Tele: Upper left
C.A.: Moderately low

As you can see from the crops above comparing camera JPEGs (on the left) to uncorrected DNG files (on the right), levels of lateral chromatic aberration are much higher in uncorrected RAW files, particularly at wide angle. Thus, the Leica SL's JPEG engine does a pretty good job at suppressing lateral chromatic aberration.

 

Overall, very good performance for a full-frame wide-angle 3.8x zoom, however mediocre corner performance at full telephoto, the amount of software correction required at wide angle and distracting bokeh in some real-world shots were disappointing given the lens' size and almost US$5,000 price tag.

Yes, that is what I wrote as well.

Some SL lenses require a built-in profile that applies distortion correction among other things. SL 24-90 is one of them. You can see the distortion info by running "dng_validate -v" on the DNG file (look for WarpRectilinear tag). 35/2 Summicron does not have any distortion correction embedded in the DNG files, as reported by the dng_validate tool and Lightroom. 

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5 hours ago, farnz said:

Personally, I think 'this lens is better than that lens' debates are meaningless.  I'm more interested in the picture than the glass tube that conducts the light.

I'm not debating, it's a fact by looking the MTF charts. From the current lineup  of Summilux-m lenses 35 and 50 are one of the worst from the technical point of view. 24 was worst and it was discontinued. Many M lenses cannot keep up with the higher resolution sensors and even that regard there has to be some upgrades.

Comparing between 35 Cron SL and Lux/Cron M, software correction or not, no one can dispute how HUGE difference there is in technical optical quality.

Subjectively some can say that A lenses draw nicer than B and "defects" are lenses "character" but I don't think in the future people will choose Lux35 FLE because of the "character". One of the best performing M the Lux28  is something which all M glass will go in the future I believe. It's technically enough for high resolution, smooth bokeh, pop and Leica "character" which we all like (thought for some it might be too perfect then again you can use older lenses anyway). Best of all, it's "quite small" (nothing like new 75 and 90 monsters which defeats the purpose of M and looks like they were more designed to SL on mind).

Edited by oka
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2 hours ago, oka said:

I'm not debating, it's a fact by looking the MTF charts. From the current lineup  of Summilux-m lenses 35 and 50 are one of the worst from the technical point of view. 24 was worst and it was discontinued. Many M lenses cannot keep up with the higher resolution sensors and even that regard there has to be some upgrades.

Those lenses are one of the sharpest 35 and 50 lenses ever made. (At any distance, but yes, there is field curvature, which of course may not always be a disadvantage)
Do one really shoots at 1.4 all day to look how the corners are not sharp at 200% magnification? It is way more likely that the shot is blurred because of slightly missed focus or motion blur, or the sensor is too noisy to achieve that high of a shutter speed and as resolution gets higher, the usable depth of field becomes smaller, diffraction sets in earlier, utilising that hand-held becomes more and more tricky unless they do manage to increase the ISO sensitivity, which does not seem to improve anymore and mainly tied to sensor size.

It does not matter how much more it can do on test charts, if it becomes more and more tricky to use in the real-world, if shooting still life with a tripod, might as well move to medium format instead.

I mean, I like seeing this progression that they are making but it is reaching a point where it is just not that relevant anymore, the M lenses can easily resolve way beyond 50 megapixels, I even know some old vintage lenses from other manufacturers that are also capable of doing that.

Just because something is newer shinier and more expensive (probably more profitable, because the SL lenses share more parts with each other than M lenses do...), it does not mean that what was cutting edge yesterday suddenly isn't now, this is just something marketing people would like consumers to believe.

Casing point is the 75 Summilux which is regarded as an "outdated" optic by modern standards, I guess the 35 and the 50 ASPH have moved on from this level.
But still, yes, it is not the sharpest at f1.4 (and we love it for that) but it also scaringly sharp in a studio at f/16 if focused correctly (even though the depth-of-field is still quite small and it does have fringing)

Edited by padam
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4 hours ago, oka said:

Many M lenses cannot keep up with the higher resolution sensors

funny comment..but to each his own.

 

Fuji GFX50R + Leica 50mm Summilux-M ASPH

 

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