If I was a superhero, this would be my pose. In front of me today is a camera
from one of the most expensive camera brands on the planet, Leica. In this box
is the SL2S, and this camera is nearly
$4,900 US, and that's one of their cheaper cameras, to be honest. So, let's
open this box and see why someone would buy something like this. I have a knife
today. Jonno, that's not allowed.
I'm breaking the rules. This camera is a loner unit and so it's
not retail packaging, so forgive the
amount of bubble wrap. Okay, so we have the camera body, which I'll take a look
at in a second. They also
sent a charger with an extra battery.
We have a Leica M to Lmount
adapter. We have a Leica branded camera
strap, but you probably won't use it because you'll upgrade to something a
little bit nicer, especially when you're spending this much money on a camera. I would never use an included
strap. And the last thing we have in this box
is the
24-90 F2.8 to F4 lens. This is an Lmount
native lens that Leica makes. Um, it is
this is a chunky boy. Holy crap. And I
mean, for context, here is Canon's 24 to
105, which is a very similar range, an inch and a bit longer, and it's way
heavier. Holy crap. But again, this
camera is full frame.
So, let's have a look at the SL2s.
From everything I've ever read and now that I'm holding it, the SL2 body feels
amazing. So, this camera feels like really solid. Like the grip feels better
than almost any camera I've ever held, especially for stills. Um, so let's
weigh it and see how this compares to my daily
driver. Okay, so it's 938 g. And then
I'll weigh my M10.
This is a little unfair because it's wearing a cage, but let's say it's around
655 g, something like that. This is significantly heavier and it shows, but
it's also a more functional camera overall. Let's take a look at the
sensor. W full-frame 24 megapixel
backside illuminated sensor. Apparently, this is a new sensor from Leica. I'm not
100% certain on that. Let's cover that up so that no dust gets in there. And
this man, this camera is just like it
feels like a a brick, but like the best most premium brick that I've ever held.
Brick. For IO, we have a headphone and
microphone jack. We have a full size HDMI, which I love to see. And we have a
type-C port, which is good for file transfer and charging. So, you can keep
this thing powered. And you'll probably want to use the charging feature because
one single battery from this camera costs
$275 US on B&H, which is a very tough
pill to swallow when a battery for your camera is worth almost as much as a very
affordable lens. The dial on the top of the camera feels really nice. It's
really large, very clicky. And then there's two um programmable buttons on
the top and two programmable buttons just on the side of the grip here, which
is also really nice. And each of these buttons you can kind of set to whatever
you want. On the back of the camera, there is the rear S LCD, which is
actually very nice. And you have this little silicone joystick. Honestly, I
have loved the navigation of these
menus. Like there's only three other buttons on the back. There's play, there's function, and there's menu. And
when you hit menu, you get this photo and video mode settings. First, photo,
video. And the settings are completely separate from each other, which is the
most seamless experience between photo and video that I've ever had and I love
it. And if you press the menu button again, you get into the deeper part of
the menu, which lets you get in like like more like a traditional camera. But
in general, you'll probably be using the quick settings. And with this joystick,
it's pretty easy to navigate. So to finish off the back, you have the thumb
dial here, which can be aperture or shutter speed. You have an EVF toggle.
So if you press this, you can get turn off the LCD, do EVF only, or you switch
it back to auto, where if you go to your eyepiece
here, it'll just switch for you. And that's pretty much it. It's pretty bare
bones on the back of the camera, but honestly, I like the simplicity. You
have dual SD card slots. So, I've got
two 256 gig cards in here, which unfortunately aren't fast enough for the
4K video. So, you'll need pretty fast cards for the 4K video on this camera
because it's up to 400 megabits per second. Internally, you can do up to 4K
30 FPS. And then externally, you can do up to 4K 60 FPS. And it has 180 and 120
FPS full HD modes as well. Let's take a look at the bottom of the camera. You
have a little port for what I assume is a battery grip. You've got a tripod
mount. And then it took me a second the first time I took this out of the box,
but after I figured it out, it was very interesting. For the battery release on
this camera, you press this little knob here and then the battery pops out, but
then it doesn't it doesn't come out. And
I was like, "Oh, is the camera broken?" It's actually really smart. So, you
press this and then you click once and then the battery comes out. There's no
battery door on this camera. It's just a hole for where the battery would go.
It's almost like loading like a mag or
something. And it's so satisfying. Like Andy, can you hear that? Yeah.
That click. I don't know. Okay, enough
about the battery door. Even though it's really cool, I could not get over the sound. Let's get to the lens. Let's put
this gigantic lens on this camera and see how it feels. Line that
up. Ah, that's a good click. Very satisfying. Wow, this is really heavy
now. Holy crap. Here's my M10 for
reference. So, why don't we give this thing a test drive and see how good it
is. Okay, we have Madison here. We're going to do a quick test on this lens,
the 24 to 90, and then I'm going to switch to the 50 mil Noctalux and see
how these photos turn out.
If I was a superhero, this would be my pose. With the joystick, the autofocus
point is so easy to almost even easier and faster than my Fuji to
adjust. Do you hear that shutter sound?
That shutter sounds so nice. Now you're
just going to have eight pictures of the wall. Yep. That's enough photos of this
lens and now I'm going to switch them. Don't bother including this part in the
video editor cuz this is boring. No, it isn't. Super exciting. Let's try this
out. And it's all manual focus. I don't even I can't even tell if I'm It's so
bright out. And this is at like f1. This lens is ridiculous on this camera.
Why are you using it on the camera then? Cuz it's amazing. I've never used
anything harder to focus. So, as someone who doesn't really like know that much
about cameras. Mhm. How much do you think this camera costs with this lens?
Like I I want to say over 10 grand. It's
like smoother. It just sort of looks more sleek. Yeah, you're right on in
money. It's about just over 10 grand for the whole setup. Oh, okay. Well, I'm
Yep. Let's see how these photos turned out. The autofocus on this lens and the
sharpness performed pretty good, but you guys can be the judge. Here's the photos, and we'll have these available
for download if you want to take a closer look at them. We're also going to
throw up a couple photos I took on the weekend here so you have a better sense of like the different kinds of colors
you get straight out of camera on this after using this camera shooting a
portrait of somebody. It was really fun and I really enjoyed it. The autofocus
was as responsive as I needed it to be and while the camera is really heavy, it
feels really good in the hand. Just like a lot of people who shoot video like
heavy cameras for balance, I would describe this in a similar fashion.
Okay, let's talk about why somebody would buy this camera and why somebody
might buy a Leica in general. Because this camera setup, the body is
$4,900 and this lens is $5,500, but
$10,000 is a ridiculous amount of money
for a camera and lens setup, even for the most expensive stuff. So, why would
you buy a Leica? I can boil it down to three main reasons I think people like
Leica cameras. The first one being is the Leica look. Whether you agree with
it or not, Leica has a specific look to the images. I've been able to see images
on Instagram and be like, "Yep, that was shot on a Leica." And I was usually
right because it there's a feeling to them that you can't really describe in
words very easily. Yes, every camera has
its own color science and you can edit photos to look like basically anything
at this point, but the colors that come out of this straight out of camera with
minimal editing, it's just it's a
different experience. And that's the second part of this, the camera itself.
Trust me guys, for years and I've used a lot of cameras. I thought while Leica
seemed cool and they were obviously very
expensive, they seemed unnecessary, overpriced, and something that no one
should really give that much attention to. But from top to bottom, the way the
camera feels, the way it operates, the
images coming off the sensor, how they are to edit, everything that Leica does
is about the experience. Leica knows
that they will never be the most cutting edge, the most top- end in terms of
their specs, but they're not trying to be. Leica focuses mostly on delivering
an experience that you want to use, want
to be part of, you want to pick up this camera and use it. I don't want to put
it down. I just want to keep shooting. And that's the best way I can explain it
because it really is the feeling of
using the camera. That is what they deliver. And that might not matter to
you. You might not care about the experience of using a camera. This is
one of the easiest cameras I've ever used. And so are all of these. You pay a
lot for that experience. The third and final reason, some people might see this
as a good thing, some people might see it as well unnecessary, is these cameras
hold their value pretty well. For example, this Leica M10 that came out
almost 4 years ago was just over $10,000
new, and even today, it's still worth
about $6,000 Canadian. That's a lot
better than most cameras last in terms of value over a four-year period. So, if
you are already on board for Leica's
experience for their cameras and you want a camera that is the best they've
made for video and photo at the same time, then this is probably the camera
for you. If you want something that's the most cutting edge, has the best
autofocus, has the most utility on gimbals and all these other video
accessories, this camera probably isn't for you. So, thank you guys for
watching. If you like this video, give me a thumbs up. If you didn't like it,
you can give a thumbs down and leave a comment on any other camera you want me
to check out. I mean, I haven't checked out Hasselblads yet, so maybe that's
coming out. We also have a video coming out on the Sony FX3 very soon, and we
also recently did a video on the Zeiss ZX1. if you're interested in
that. Thanks for watching. Please subscribe.