Member David Farkas

I enjoyed your review as usual. The lens looks like a stellar performer.

Great review David! Seems like a lens worth having.

Hi David
I hope you're well.
Great report as usual – I had the lens for a week, but I didn't have time to really do it justice.
Hope to get my hands on one again soon.

best
Jono

Correct, there are no strap lugs on the lens itself. I had no issues carrying from just the camera strap. The lens points downwards which doesn't exert the same kind of lateral torque on the lens mount that mounting it to a tripod from the body would. In that case, use the tripod foot to remove the stress on the mount.

I don't know what the stock situation in Hong Kong is like these days. Here in the US, the 90-280 is still in short supply relative to demand.

Mark, unfortunately, the distance scale is only available in meters, even on v3.0.0.0. I made a request/suggestion during my initial testing for the scale to be in feet as well.

David,
Thanks for the walk through.
An easy update. Surprised they jumped from calling it a 2.xxx all the way to 3.0.0.0..0000
I expect 3.00.001 to convert meters into feet. And what other suggestions did you make that they may include on 3.00.002?

I like that it will update my old lenses “automatically” so I will be good to go as soon as the S 350mm is announced.

What would be a compact elegant leica-like camera if only for the fact that the only thing made for the front of it are metal munching monster lenses. They promised a 50mm normal i think…. thats the lens which should have come out. Whats needed is a pancake 40mm. Hold the blueberries… make is short stack..

Yes, the 90-280 SL has a very nicely designed rotating, detachable tripod collar. There is a knob to lock the rotation and a knob with safety release for the tripod food.

The collar is part of the lens. The foot is removable.

It would be cool to see a Leica lens on a smartphone, but first some observations:

While the lenses on the Panasonic-related D-Lux and D-Lux 6 are/were top-notch lenses, the Leica lens on the new $700 Panasonic ZS-100 is not so great. The Leica lenses on the Leica C and related Panasonic LF1 were not very good at all. The tiny LF1 was $500 and the Leica version around $800, so their lenses should have been superb, but weren't even very good.

Canon makes a pocket superzoom (SX720) whose lens is superb, from 24 mm equiv. to 960 mm – fantastic!

Apple's iPhone6 lens is incredibly good – limited only by a tiny phone sensor. Clip-on lenses from Olloclip and (soon to be) Zeiss extend the iPhone lens, with excellent quality results.

So, cellphones may benefit from a Leica lens, but only if they are made and implemented extremely well.

Thanks David,
You showed me some features I had yet to discover myself. The focus peaking in zoom with the ability to then see the finished result zoomed in and switching from one shot to the next still zoomed is a handy tool indeed.

I suggest you consider also to do a video on the use of wifi control sometime. Photographers who have had live view for smaller formats for sometime may be very familiar with the magic of wifi enabled focus but I was not. Using wifi control of focus on my iPhone is certainly more handy than merely having a swingable LCD display. This of course assumes one is on a tripod for critical adjustments. It also allows me in interior architectural work to place the camera totally against a wall for maximum field of view and still see what the camera is taking via the iPhone view.

not on a MacBook Pro running El Capitan

not on a MacBook Pro running El Capitan

Congratulations!
Excellent report, beautiful pics. The cyclist riding in the yellow morning fog and the very last pic are my favorite ones.
I guess I'm a dyed-in-the-wool M user and will thus not get excited about the SL. But it nonetheless seems to be a fascinating piece of technology.
Greetings from Sao Paulo …

David,
Excellent review.
I am a S2 and M240 MP owner.
Im on the fence with the SL.
Still love my S and M system, yet as I get older it would sure be nice to have AF or a good EVF option for my M system.

Simon,

The SL can certainly be used in a studio environment. But you are correct that that you need to turn off exposure simulation so that you don't get a black frame with typical strobe settings. To disable Exposure Preview, just go to the second page of the camera menu and set Exp. Preview to Off. Hope this helps.

Girogo,

The X-U can be submerged to 15m for 60 minutes. 2m shouldn't be an issue whatsoever.

Leica Store Miami should have the cameras in stock very shortly, so you'd certainly be able to get one for your assignment.