[Leica] Thoughts for Solms on a new SL-3

["Patrick G. Sobalvarro" <pgs@sobalvarro.org>]

As long as we're all engaging in embarassing outbursts about our 
wishes for new cameras, I may as well make a confession.

I use an M2 a lot, but I don't make a secret of the fact that I also
use an R6 and R6.2.  I like these cameras just fine, and I use them
all the time.  But here's my shameful confession: a few months ago I
got a bargain on a Leicaflex SL and 50 Summicron, so I bought them. 
I took the camera out to photograph industrial landscapes, and I was
just enchanted by it.  The SL feels wonderful in a way that an M2
feels wonderful and for some reason, an R6.2 doesn't.  It's hard to
describe.  I really love the shutter speed knob, for example, and
the way the film advance lever feels when you wind on the next
frame.  I love the way it feels so wonderfully solid -- not that the 
R6.2 doesn't feel solid -- the SL just feels more so.

The SL is of course somewhat impractical, not taking some of the 
newer lenses and requiring weird old batteries for the meter and not 
having mirror prefire.  It's big and heavy.  But I do love the thing! 
It's just the way it feels.

If I had my druthers, Leica would re-introduce the SL-2, updated only 
with mirror prefire, a meter that takes modern batteries, and a 
modern lensmount.  TTL flash wouldn't hurt, but I rarely use it 
and I can live without it.  The SL-3 wouldn't do anything that an 
R6.2 can't, but it would feel wonderful in a way the R6.2 doesn't.

Would I pay the obscene prices that such a magnificently built camera 
would cost?  $4,000 or whatever?  You bet I would.  I will probably 
never buy an R camera with an electronic shutter.  If there isn't a 
mechanical successor to the R6.2, I won't ever buy something based on 
the R8 chassis.  But an SL-3 -- now that I would buy.  I'd probably 
buy two.

- -Patrick