Can Someone Recommend a detailed SL2-S Tutorial?

[lencap]

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Greetings!

My SL2-S 50mm lens bundle arrived less than 3 weeks ago, and I'm very happy with the package.  

Unfortunately, I don't know how to fully learn and apply all the features/menu options that the camera provides.  I've watched several videos (Red Dot and others), but they seem to address features, not necessarily provide "best practice" or "highly recommended" setups.

I'd really like to learn how to get the most benefit from such an amazing camera.  Any help/suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[LocalHero1953]

I don't know of any such tutorial and, if I did, I'm sure I would take issue with a number of the recommendations. 

My recommendation, which I am sure you do not wish to hear, is to just work through the menu settings and set them as you see fit (referring to the manual for those you don't understand) and then just going out and shooting with it. If something looks wrong or goes wrong, then try something different. There is nothing like learning by experience to understand how best to use a camera, rather than simply copying the settings from someone who doesn't necessarily shoot in the same way you do.

As a starting point set everything to manual (focus, exposure, ISO), JPG+DNG and AWB, play with the dials and buttons to see what they do, and and change one thing at a time thereafter.

[pedaes]

4 hours ago, lencap said:

Any help/suggestions are appreciated.

You might find this useful https://www.overgaard.dk/Leica-Camera-Leica-SL2-Review-and-User-Report-Page-1.html

Probably does a S video, you will have to search.

[padam]

May not contain everything you need, but there is plenty to help with more information in other videos.
(Yes, not the "S" version, but they operate pretty much the same.)

[Jean-Michel]

To the OP. As you already found, and with the other suggestions form the posts above, there are a number of menu settings videos available. I do not know the level of your knowledge of photography. If you are relatively new to photography you might find it useful to read some of the prehistorical primers on photography, such as Ansel Adam's "The Camera" and also "The Negative" and "The Print", or any number of such manuals. In the end, the mechanics of picture taking is really reduced to four elements: film or sensor sensitivity (DIN, ASA, ISO), exposure time, aperture, and focusing. Once you learn how to use those, the rest is just tuning up stuff. All the available functions on the camera simply make adjusting those four parameters that much more easy and quick. One small addition I made to the usefulness of the function buttons is putting a clear frame or furniture bump on the "FN" button and on the lower part of the front rocket button, makes them that much easier to feel and use.

[dynaerik]

Maybe you will find this episode from reddotforum helpful: https://www.youtube.com/live/PduFmQ5kT3g?feature=share 

[lencap]

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Thanks to all for the replies - I'm going through the list of suggestions.  Some I knew and had seen before, others are new to me.  

I guess it's just frustration with the complexity of modern cameras that it takes dozens of hours to go through the owner manual just to become familiar with the controls on a superficial level.  After that a deep dive takes far longer.  And then the Lightroom/Photoshop learning curve is even steeper.

That's one of the reasons I've contemplated going back to film.  Instructions were pretty simple: "Open box, spool leader through back of camera to take up reel.  Close door.  Advance frames until number 1 appears".  After that all you needed was "Sunny 16" to get a reasonable setting for taking pictures.  No battery, no light meter, just you and the subject.

There are times I spend 5-6 hours with tutorials/manuals and at the end of that I find several settings that would work as well, but were never covered in the things I read/viewed.

Very frustrating, and it takes away from the joy of photography.  It's now a spin-off of another computer and related software.

Sorry for the rant, but I feel better now.

[LocalHero1953]

When I first bought the SL (Typ 601) I deliberately set out to use it without the manual. It worked just fine, with one exception: the separate video button on that model got me into a loop of confusion that I only got out of with the help of the manual. The SL2/SL2-S avoid the confusion of a separate video button. 

I still think this approach is a better one that trying to read the manual from beginning to end. Not only is the manual too long, but it is written in English that is not always easy to follow and, for almost everything, it is not needed. As Jean-Michel writes, photography is simple when you keep to basics.

[SoCalLeicanator]

I liked this one.

 

 

[2M6TTLs]

On 5/27/2023 at 5:00 AM, LocalHero1953 said:

When I first bought the SL (Typ 601) I deliberately set out to use it without the manual. It worked just fine, with one exception: the separate video button on that model got me into a loop of confusion that I only got out of with the help of the manual. The SL2/SL2-S avoid the confusion of a separate video button. 

I still think this approach is a better one that trying to read the manual from beginning to end. Not only is the manual too long, but it is written in English that is not always easy to follow and, for almost everything, it is not needed. As Jean-Michel writes, photography is simple when you keep to basics.

I remember when i got the SL2s the items didn't appear in the manual in the order I really needed them and I was flipping all over from page to page. You need patience to figure it out. I also hate how long it takes to go through menus and instructions but Leica must have the best of all of them. Another thing I dislike is the dreaded software updates where, unless you know how to save your settings, you'll lose all that hard work you spent setting everything up the first time.Reminds me of my workplace where they take the computers away for maintenance and bring them back with my desktop organization completely destroyed and i have to take time to reconstruct it.! I also miss the days when you could buy a camera and just take it out the box and figure it out in about 20 minutes. When all is said and done we have all these amazing features on cameras now but (mostly) we still end up setting the camera to  Aperture priority and  center focus, one frame per press of the shutter release. etc. 

[bpLeica]

Another good source is Red Dot Forum

 

[ellisson]

The YouTube videos above are helpful, but it is also useful to review the downloadable SL2 manual and to become familiar with the content, if not reading it page by page.  You may have done this already.  Compared to other digital cameras, for example Nikons, the Leica User Interphases seem so much easier to me:  easier to navigate, fewer menus, better organization.   I agree with the suggestion above to go out and shoot using the menu buttons, getting some experience and then coming back to the references to fill in your knowledge of the camera.   

[BillAbbottIV]

My background: Making photographs worth looking at since the early 1970s. Talked my dad into buying me a Soviet Zenit B SLR with manual aperture 58mm Jena lens from a downtown Seattle camera store, and took a college photo class with a friend. Back in California I borrowed another friends' aftermarket 200mm F4, Pentax screw mount lens for my Zenit, and started taking pictures of musicians at Winterland in San Francisco. THe usual friends and landscapes. Developed my own Ektachrome slides, got a Vivitar 200 F/4 and a 28 F/2.8 for the Zenit.  My last 3 years of High School I made black and white pix with the Zenit for the yearbooks and school newspaper. Had a summer job as darkroom tech for a portrait studio, making many color portrait and wedding prints, and developing and printing black and white portraits.

In 76 I bought a used OM-1. Made color print pix, slides and B&W with it and it's 50mm f/1.8. Continued making telephoto and wide-angle photos with the Zenit. Took more musician photos. Went to air-shows and took pictures of static airplanes on exhibit and flying airplanes.  Part of reconstructing myself after my first wife died from complications of pregnancy, I put some money into used lenses for my OM-1 and got nice ones. Made nice pictures using them. Travelled some, photographed more friends, landscapes, aiirplanes, pets, musicians and arty projects. Added cars and other transportation subjects. Wildlife. Fell in love and remarried. Travelled, had a child, hundreds of baby and toddler pictures, hundreds of kid pictures at school, weekend sports, Monterey Bay Aquarium visits, Pacific Grove Rolling Concours, Moffett Field Air Shows, San Francisco Fleet Week, etc. 

Stopped shooting film in 2007. Bought a Cannon 1.3Mp point and shoot in 2003. Got a Nikon D40x, 2007, kit lenses, upgraded to 55-300 telezoom and nice, Tameron, F/2.8 short zoom. Replaced the D-40x with a D3200, haven't had money to get better Nikon glass but, sadly, inherited a recently purchased SL-2, with a 50, a short zoom, longer zoom and the 90-280. I'd rather have my dad but it is what it is. I've got 16000 publicly visible pictures on Flickr and they've had about 27,000,000 views. Pictures date from 1972 to present. https://www.flickr.com/people/wbaiv/. Some of my pictures have been published in books or magazines.

I'm 69, maybe slowing down, but I've found the SL-2 a real bear to simply use. I'll be going along taking pictures of birds and airplanes at a spot on SF Bay and it will just go stupid on me. Locks out the view finder. Deeply underexposes, suddenly. Doesn't have the priority setups I preset anymore. I can't get the metering spot pinned in place, its always drifting around because I touched something- really trying not to touch the joy-stick. Looses the date and time. It seems seriously user hostile. Obviously I don't understand it. I have tried to read the manual. Its nothing like the step by step instructions of a good manual. I've written more than 1 good manual.

Paul, LocalHero1953, suggests learning by trying to do things and not looking at the manaal. I don't get that, and I've certainly not thrived with what I can get from the manual and 3 years of fooling around. Without the manual, I'd still be stuck at entering the date and time, and I still. have to refer to it, bccause the magic hand-passes needed don't stick in my head. I use Windows, Macs and Linux. Used to use VMS, RSX, RT-11, CP/M, and lesser things. I succeeded is using MAKE under Linux.

I looked at  https://www.overgaard.dk/Leica-Camera-Leica-SL2-Review-and-User-Report-Page-1.html and got 10 screen grabs of possible utility, but its nothing like a beginner's guide. There are buttons all over the camera, with no identifiers on them and no clue what they do. There doesn't seem to be a default button map that can be applied if the battery dies and the in-body backup dies and it looses date and time. I've never had the experience of a camera body that reverts to how first became aware like Hal-9000. 

I'm. going to order 

BEGINNERS' GUIDE FOR MASTERING THE LEICA SL2: The Advanced Manual for Unlocking Your Mirrorless Camera's Full Potential Paperback – April 7, 2025
by ELTON H. PEREZ (Author). 

My brother recommends 3rd party guides, and used the with his Nikons. I fear he may be that much smarter than me. I find this very frustrating.

[frame-it]

40 minutes ago, BillAbbottIV said:

My background: Making photographs worth looking at since the early 1970s. Talked my dad into buying me a Soviet Zenit B SLR with manual aperture 58mm Jena lens from a downtown Seattle camera store, and took a college photo class with a friend. Back in California I borrowed another friends' aftermarket 200mm F4, Pentax screw mount lens for my Zenit, and started taking pictures of musicians at Winterland in San Francisco. THe usual friends and landscapes. Developed my own Ektachrome slides, got a Vivitar 200 F/4 and a 28 F/2.8 for the Zenit.  My last 3 years of High School I made black and white pix with the Zenit for the yearbooks and school newspaper. Had a summer job as darkroom tech for a portrait studio, making many color portrait and wedding prints, and developing and printing black and white portraits.

In 76 I bought a used OM-1. Made color print pix, slides and B&W with it and it's 50mm f/1.8. Continued making telephoto and wide-angle photos with the Zenit. Took more musician photos. Went to air-shows and took pictures of static airplanes on exhibit and flying airplanes.  Part of reconstructing myself after my first wife died from complications of pregnancy, I put some money into used lenses for my OM-1 and got nice ones. Made nice pictures using them. Travelled some, photographed more friends, landscapes, aiirplanes, pets, musicians and arty projects. Added cars and other transportation subjects. Wildlife. Fell in love and remarried. Travelled, had a child, hundreds of baby and toddler pictures, hundreds of kid pictures at school, weekend sports, Monterey Bay Aquarium visits, Pacific Grove Rolling Concours, Moffett Field Air Shows, San Francisco Fleet Week, etc. 

Stopped shooting film in 2007. Bought a Cannon 1.3Mp point and shoot in 2003. Got a Nikon D40x, 2007, kit lenses, upgraded to 55-300 telezoom and nice, Tameron, F/2.8 short zoom. Replaced the D-40x with a D3200, haven't had money to get better Nikon glass but, sadly, inherited a recently purchased SL-2, with a 50, a short zoom, longer zoom and the 90-280. I'd rather have my dad but it is what it is. I've got 16000 publicly visible pictures on Flickr and they've had about 27,000,000 views. Pictures date from 1972 to present. https://www.flickr.com/people/wbaiv/. Some of my pictures have been published in books or magazines.

I'm 69, maybe slowing down, but I've found the SL-2 a real bear to simply use. I'll be going along taking pictures of birds and airplanes at a spot on SF Bay and it will just go stupid on me. Locks out the view finder. Deeply underexposes, suddenly. Doesn't have the priority setups I preset anymore. I can't get the metering spot pinned in place, its always drifting around because I touched something- really trying not to touch the joy-stick. Looses the date and time. It seems seriously user hostile. Obviously I don't understand it. I have tried to read the manual. Its nothing like the step by step instructions of a good manual. I've written more than 1 good manual.

Paul, LocalHero1953, suggests learning by trying to do things and not looking at the manaal. I don't get that, and I've certainly not thrived with what I can get from the manual and 3 years of fooling around. Without the manual, I'd still be stuck at entering the date and time, and I still. have to refer to it, bccause the magic hand-passes needed don't stick in my head. I use Windows, Macs and Linux. Used to use VMS, RSX, RT-11, CP/M, and lesser things. I succeeded is using MAKE under Linux.

I looked at  https://www.overgaard.dk/Leica-Camera-Leica-SL2-Review-and-User-Report-Page-1.html and got 10 screen grabs of possible utility, but its nothing like a beginner's guide. There are buttons all over the camera, with no identifiers on them and no clue what they do. There doesn't seem to be a default button map that can be applied if the battery dies and the in-body backup dies and it looses date and time. I've never had the experience of a camera body that reverts to how first became aware like Hal-9000. 

I'm. going to order 

BEGINNERS' GUIDE FOR MASTERING THE LEICA SL2: The Advanced Manual for Unlocking Your Mirrorless Camera's Full Potential Paperback – April 7, 2025
by ELTON H. PEREZ (Author). 

My brother recommends 3rd party guides, and used the with his Nikons. I fear he may be that much smarter than me. I find this very frustrating.

https://www.youtube.com/@LeicaCameraAustralia/search?query=sl2s

[jaapv]

I would still recommend the manual. It is one of the simplest cameras to use on the market, not to be compared to Nikon and Sony, which are far more convoluted. 
Start by using it at its default settings and add your own user settings as you progress. Remember, other brands attempt to take as much of photography away from the user as possible and shift responsibility to the camera, Leica expects the user to take control. 
But the very best thing to do would be to take a hands-on workshop. There are plenty for the SL to be found on Google. 

[harbelot]

Leica Camera Australia is one the best Youtube channel for tutorials.

[Oxfordian]

7 hours ago, jaapv said:

I would still recommend the manual. It is one of the simplest cameras to use on the market, not to be compared to Nikon and Sony, which are far more convoluted. 
Start by using it at its default settings and add your own user settings as you progress. Remember, other brands attempt to take as much of photography away from the user as possible and shift responsibility to the camera, Leica expects the user to take control. 
But the very best thing to do would be to take a hands-on workshop. There are plenty for the SL to be found on Google. 

I couldn't agree more with this statement, I came from Nikon systems which I had been using for 10 years and was very familiar with them but the setup and menus were getting more complicated with every launch or update.

In contrast I have found the move to the SL2 to be fairly straightforward, I have been able to set the camera up in a way that works for me, just about every button can be configured to suit the user. I am very happy with my SL2, I have looked at umpteen YouTube Videos to get information on day to day usage and setup, read lots of reviews and worked my way through SL2 information on this forum, and courtesy of Leica a physical manual. I presume that a lot of information that can be gleaned from these sources for the SL2 is also applicable to the SL2-S and vice versa.

Having setup my SL2 in a way that works for me - stills only I don't shoot video - I have to say that the camera is a doddle to use for the type of photographs I take.

[BillAbbottIV]

Went to the shore again today, autofocus has lost its mind, goes min to max, never stopping, so mostly blur in the finder. It wasn't doing that earlier, perhaps I bumped something.  I turned off autofocus,
I don't like the 90-280 manual focus, it just rolls without limit, and feels backward. But I can adapt and did. I can figure out when I"ve set it "too close" but when I go the other way, it seems to take a loooooong time to get to "too-far". The ring on the lens isn't physically moving anything, its being sensed and the computer is driving. After a while of it being out of focus, and having never been in focus, I reverse direction and bring it back and get it set. Unsatisfying but it works.

Something happened to the aperture priority, with a minimum shutter speed and floating ISO, that I'd set up, so I didn't have the minimum shutter speed of 1/1000 or aperture at F/8, and although it indicated ISO 100 for all 4 hours, and I confirmed I'd set it to float, it never went above  100. Previously, turning the wheel on top of the grip, not the one available only on the back of the grip changed the aperture. Now it changes the exposure, getting very dark at -3.0 and very bright at +3.0.

F stop hovered between F/4.5 and 5.0. I'm ordering the "Beginner's Guide" tonight and will spend some woodshed time with it, as we musicians say.

I'm giving names to both wheels and all the unlabeled buttons. "A" / "Arthur" for the button to the left of the little joy-stick. "B" / "Blitzen" is the joystick.  Up/down and left/right are valid inputs for "Blitzen", Pushing in is an input for "C" / "Charlie", since its independent of "B" inputs.  Turning the back edge wheel left or right is "D" / "Donner", pushing it is "E" / Eddie. The left top push button is "F"/ "Foxtrot", The right top push button is "G"/"Gigit". The wheel on top of the grip is "H"/"Hermione". The silver "shutter button" is "I" / "Igor". The top button on the front face is "J"/"Jimi" and the bottom is "K"/"Kenny"

Has any other set of noun names been coined?

[lencap]

Greetings!

I'm the OP and was a bit surprised to see this thread resurrected, but I appreciate the viewpoints expressed.

Turns out that I loved the SL line of cameras as a "one platform" solution that could accommodate any Leica lens: M, L, R, S mount.  The technical specs also suggest an excellent platform.  And for me it was, until it wasn't.  What turned the tide became the weight/size challenge.  When I bought the SL platform I had fond memories of the Nikon F pro line of cameras - all film bodies at the time.  Autowinders were common, and the full kit weighed 5 pounds or more in ready to shoot setup.  That part of my memory was 30 years ago or more, and the reality of aging, arthritis, weaker eyesight and more made the SL platform less and less useful to me over a few years.  Eventually I realized that I was leaving it home more than I was taking it with me.

I tried other gear, but also realized that, for better or worse, I still wanted a Leica kit.  My search ended recently with the purchase of the Q3 43 along with the sale of the entire SL kit.  It's still a fine platform and is capable of doing anything, but the "joy of shooting" seemed lacking.  The Q3 43 reflects that over 60 years of photography my preferred focal length remains 50mm, with 35mm my next most used option.  The 43 covers both, weighs less then the 24-90 zoom lens I owned, and best of all is always with me.

I understand your frustration with the camera markings, the lack of hard stops on lenses, the lack of distance markings and more.  They bothered me as well.  The Q line seems to address all of that - not perfectly, but well enough to keep me in the Leica family and devote my attention to image creation instead of gear education.

I hope you find a solution, it's a challenge, but the rewards are many when you get there.

Good luck!  

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