[Leica] the SL: duck, duck, goose

[Doug Herr]

Yesterday, as part of my continuing evaluation of the Leica SL for my use, I visited Colusa National Wildlife Refuge north of Sacramento, what I consider a target-rich environment.  I didn't expect great art from this day's photography so I was not disappointed ;).  I wanted to see how the SL's raw files looked in a context I was familiar with when using the DMR and a7II.

In a nutshell, I'm delighted with the raw files.  Aside from conversion to jpg all I did was use a Photoshop curves layer to adjust black point and (infrequently) white point.  That's all.  The colors are rich and full with excellent gradation.

Details: I used the Canon FD 500mm L at f/5.6, ISO 400.  Manual focus without magnification is not difficult, and in challenging cases magnification is available at the touch of a button.  I'd like to see a firmware update to enable two-step magnification on the joystick like the bottom left button has.  The first magnification step is usually more than sufficient for critical manual focus and is easier to track a moving target.  The other firmware update that would make this camera much more useful to me is being able to make the 'exposure preview' mode sticky.

the pix:

http://www.wildlightphoto.com/SL/L1060187.jpg

http://www.wildlightphoto.com/SL/L1060234.jpg
(full detail in blacks, no highlight clipping, a first for this bird!)

http://www.wildlightphoto.com/SL/L1060317.jpg

http://www.wildlightphoto.com/SL/L1060328.jpg

http://www.wildlightphoto.com/SL/L1060337.jpg

http://www.wildlightphoto.com/SL/L1060346.jpg

http://www.wildlightphoto.com/SL/L1060350.jpg

All comments are welcome.

Doug Herr
Birdman of Sacramento
http://www.wildlightphoto.com
http://doug-herr.fineartamerica.com