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.

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[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.