Petapixel on the SL3s

[BernardC]

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4 hours ago, Chris W said:

I know several professional photographers. They're all using Nikon or Canon. A couple use Sony and Fuji (medium format).

When you talk to them about Leica they can't justify spending more on a system to get less features, or at least less convenience.

It depends on the field of photography. I personally know several successful wedding photographers who use Leica, but none in the catalog/e-commerce field. Their choices make sense when you think about it. No single system excels at everything.

[Stuart Richardson]

4 hours ago, Chris W said:

I used my M and L lenses with a SigmaFP and never felt for a moment their use was 'limited'.

 

The L mount lenses of course would not be limited on the FP. I meant that if you have all of those lenses, the SL would be the only one that uses them to full quality. I have not used the FP, but I compared my M lenses on the Panasonic S1 vs the SL2, and the M lenses did far better on the SL2. This has to do with the specially designed coverglass and offset microlenses. The lenses worked on the S1, but there was a big performance hit compared to M and SL cameras as soon as you go outside the central area. This was not noticeable in longer lenses, but was noticeable in lenses 50mm and wider. If my memory serves me correctly, it was highly lens dependent. The 50mm Summilux ASPH suffered more than the 35mm Summilux FLE, which is a bit unexpected, and the 75mm APO suffered more than the 75mm Summilux. The S1 was much better than the Sony A7S and A7RII I used to have, but it was still compromised in comparison to the SL2. I am not sure how the FP does, but I think it is reasonable to expect that M lenses perform worse on it than they would on the SL cameras, since those cameras have been specifically designed to accommodate them. 

As for what professional photographers use...it really depends on their field, but of course Canon, Fuji, Nikon and Sony dominate the field. I am a professional photographer working in art and in production services (exhibition printing, artwork reproduction, exhibition documentation, architecture etc), and I use the SL2 and M10M as my main digital cameras. Part of this is from starting a long time ago though. At the current cost of Leica gear it would be much harder for me to justify, if I had to build up from scratch. There are also much better alternatives now than their used to be (such as the Panasonic cameras and Sigma and Voigtlander lenses). 

[Chris W]

On 12/16/2025 at 1:55 PM, Stuart Richardson said:

 I am not sure how the FP does, but I think it is reasonable to expect that M lenses perform worse on it than they would on the SL cameras, since those cameras have been specifically designed to accommodate them. 

 

I never noticed any difference. It's certainly not obvious, maybe at the pixelpeeped level.

[Stuart Richardson]

When I got the S1, I compared my M lenses to it on my M10 and my friends SL (original). I wanted to see if I could confidently use them. I decided that for some of them I could, but many I could not. Here is an example of why I feel it is an obvious difference. This is the 25mm Biogon ZM on the S1 and the SL. I would not call this pixel peeping. I would call it looking at the performance. But this is important to me, as I make large prints for my art, and I want to understand what kind of flexibility I have. For me there is no point in paying for expensive gear if I am going to cripple it by using combos that don't work well together. The light changed in between images, which is responsible for the different exposures (sun came from behind the clouds. Neither is great, to be honest, but it is a lot worse on the S1. This is 2.8. The difference held at all apertures. It gets better, but is always worse on the S1 than on the SL. 

 

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Edited 6 hours ago by Stuart Richardson

[Stuart Richardson]

This is the same test with the 50mm Summilux ASPH. Wide open at 1.4, I believe. The difference is smaller, but the Panasonic still has more smearing and vignetting. 

 

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Edited 6 hours ago by Stuart Richardson

[Stuart Richardson]

Meanwhile, this is using both at 50mm on the 24-90mm Zoom. In this case close to wide open at 3.6. It made me realize that using M lenses, even very good ones, was probably compromised in comparison to SL lenses in many cases. Or just that SL lenses are truly much better than M lenses as a group. In this case, it is the Panasonic that is better, but it is probably a slightly different focus point. 

 

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[Stuart Richardson]

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And final comparison. This is the Panasonic at 24mm f2.8 with the Biogon ZM and the 24-90mm. This is what I mean when I say certain M lenses are compromised. The Biogon performs dramatically better on film, and ok on the digital M cameras. 

 

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