[Leica] Rented an SL and its lens for the WFMU Marathon (semi-review, photos)

[jbmmllug at jbm.org (Jeff Moore)]

I've used the annual WFMU Fundraising Marathon as an excuse to rent a Leica
SL (and its enormous 24-90mm zoom) for a bit over a week, to cover the
goings-on and see how the camera and I get along.

The exercise is still in progress, but some observations:

 - This thing is *quick*.  I like lots of things about mirrorless cameras,
but every single one I've tried before the SL has been prone to enough
viewing and taking lag that I was never sure about getting a picture of
what I saw happening when I saw it happening.  This disappears as an issue
for me with the SL.  No viewfinder blackout or freeze while recording a
frame, either.  This is the first time this technology has truly seemed
ready for prime time to me.

  - Quick and quiet and quick followup shots are available as soon as I
want them.

  - The user interface and menu structure are initially completely
mysterious (except for the shutter button and zoom ring).  If I owned this
I'd spend time poring over the manual and presumably it would reveal its
mysteries, but since I have limited time I'm trying to just pick it up and
use it (with occasional directed searches of a PDF of the manual).  This
thing's pretty weird;  but with a little bit of learning I can do enough to
take pictures, and the pictures are coming out well.

  - The only available lens is monstrously large - it looks like a bazooka
and feels like a coffee can - and that's even without maintaining a
constant f/2.8 throughout its range.  But it's good - really good.  The
pictures are looking great, autofocus is fast and usually accurate,
stabilization improves handholding significantly without fuss.  f/2.8 is
useful at 24mm, the increased depth of field from the non-optional stopping
down probably doesn't hurt as the lens goes longer;  and with good AF and
electrically automatically steady finder brightness and stabilization, some
of the annoyances associated with a variable-aperture zoom seem to
dissipate.  I wouldn't want a lens which was ever any slower than f/4.0,
though.

  - I tried some M and R lenses Just Because.  Using them is more work than
just cruising along with the autofocus zoom, and the keeper rate dropped,
but they're usable.  To get critical focus with f/1.4 lenses, I had to use
finder magnification rather than depend on the focus peaking display.

Photos I've taken of the Marathon (so far all with the SL) are accumulating
here:

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbm0/albums/72157665752167155

Technical problems are likely to be on me, not on the camera/lens.  Much of
this was in terrible light, and the camera was sometimes auto-ISOing into
some pretty science-fictiony territory, and doing so without calling much
attention to itself (all those details available from the Flickr metadata
display).

The vast majority of these were taken with the huge 24-90/2.8-4 lens which
is the entire delivered lens system so far.  It's monstrous, but very very
good.

A few have been taken with various M and R lenses I'm bolting on the SL
just to see how they work in that context.  We all like for subjects'
eyeballs to be in focus, don't we?  Here's the zoom:


https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbm0/25572385300/in/album-72157665752167155/

...and here's the 80mm Summilux-R (on stacked adapters, because the R-to-SL
adapter isn't available yet):


https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbm0/25778017651/in/album-72157665752167155/

So... I rented these partly because I don't expect to be able to afford to
buy them anytime soon.

If I could afford them, would I buy them?  I'd be sorely tempted.  I don't
usually like zooms, but I kept using this one and liking the results.  I
hate how big the lens is.  I find the camera's size pretty comfortable in
my largeish hands (and it would be ridiculous paired with that lens if it
were significantly smaller).  I really like the camera's finder and speed
and quiet.  I'll be taking more pictures through the weekend and dropping
them into the same Flickr album above.

Oh, and as for what this whole event I'm documenting is about - it's the
once-a-year on-air fundraiser for the world's finest radio station.  You
should all listen in (now, because the Marathon is actually a lot of fun
and there are fabulous giveaways, and later because things will be back to
normal) and definitely donate.  Because expertly human-curated music is
necessary to the hungry ear and mind.

https://wfmu.org/

-your pal Jeff